News Release
November 13, 2017 
RICHLAND, Wash. - National Grid, a leading US transmission company, and the D.O.E.'s Pacific Northwest National Lab have entered into an arrangement to work together on research in the areas of transmission grid modernization and energy storage technologies.
The electricity industry is undergoing sweeping changes, including evolving customer expectations, proliferation of renewable and distributed energy resources, and state energy policies that are affecting what the transmission grid is being asked to do. Both parties are focused on creating a robust, flexible, secure grid that will deliver the nation's clean, reliable, and affordable energy future. They will collaborate on topics such as:
- Grid-scale energy storage;
- Advanced transmission network controls and monitoring;
- Integration of distributed and variable energy resources; and
- Enhanced grid cyber protection.
"I'd like to congratulate National Grid and PNNL on today's announcement," said Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. "Innovation partnerships with the private sector are critical to the groundbreaking work our National Labs undertake. D.O.E. is committed to the modernization, reliability and resiliency of our grid and expanding energy storage research and this partnership is a great example of that commitment."
"This collaboration is a natural outcome of our organizations' mutual goal to optimize the benefits and value the transmission network can deliver to our customers, communities and country," said Rudy Wynter, president and COO of National Grid's FERC-regulated Businesses. "We are delighted to work with the experts at PNNL to make this vision a reality."
"A reliable and resilient electric grid is critical to our national and economic security," said PNNL Director Steven Ashby. "This arrangement with National Grid will explore how to best integrate new technologies, like energy storage, onto the grid to enhance grid reliability and resiliency in the face of severe weather events, cyber threats, a changing mix and types of electric generation, and the aging of the electricity infrastructure."
The arrangement envisions several options for cooperative efforts such as research opportunities; joint workshops, lectures, and symposia; and other forums to promote enhancements in technology, education and industrial development related to grid modernization and energy storage.
National Grid and PNNL's partnership stems from participation in a D.O.E. government/industry roundtable during the 2017 Earth Day Texas (EDTx) Expo and Conference. Secretary Perry and Sanjiv Malhotra, director of DOE's Energy Investor Center, sought to bring senior energy, utility and investment executives together with lab leadership to explore potential areas of collaboration.
PNNL plays key leadership and research roles in DOE's Grid Modernization Lab Consortium, which is delivering new concepts and technologies to better measure, analyze, predict and control the future power grid. In the energy storage arena, PNNL's research in vanadium redox flow batteries has led to technology licensed by 8 companies. And PNNL's grid cyber research includes work to establish information-sharing capabilities for grid business information technologies, providing situational awareness of cyber risks for the nation's utilities.
Tags: Energy, Computational Science, National Security, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Batteries, Green Energy, Smart Grid, Cybersecurity
National Grid is an electricity, natural gas, and clean energy delivery company that supplies the energy for in excess of 20 million people through its networks in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. It is the biggest distributor of natural gas in the Northeast. National Grid also operates the systems that deliver gas and electricity across Great Britain. National Grid is transforming its electricity and natural gas networks to support the 21st century digital economy with smarter, cleaner, and more resilient energy solutions. Read more about the innovative plans happening across our footprint in The Democratization of Energy, an eBook written by National Grid's US president, Dean Seavers.
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed and operated by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
