WORLD-GENERATION MAY/JUNE 2016
21
PERSPECTIVE
Energy (DOE) funded initiative using
existing behind-the-meter distributed
resources to reduce the peak load by at
least 20% and provide resilience to a com-
munity center with significant rooftop
solar. The resources that were recruited
to participate in the project included pho-
tovoltaic arrays; diesel, natural gas and
biogas engine-gensets; and flexible loads
including ones that could be controlled
directly (fountain pump motors, HVAC
variable speed drives, lighting circuits,
electric vehicle charging stations) or
managed indirectly through building
management systems (lighting, tempera-
ture setpoints). The community center
was islanded using natural gas and diesel
generation, solar PV, and flexible demand
(but no electrical energy storage).
Spirae’s control system provided seamless
transition to island operation, stable
island operation, and seamless re-syn-
chronization to the utility grid.
DERMS
Today, Spirae’s Wave platform is used
by utilities as a Distributed Energy
Resources Management System
(DERMS) and by project developers, sys-
tems integrators, and energy service pro-
viders as a delivery platform for DER-
based services to end customers with the
ability to aggregate DER and participate
in distribution and transmission level
ancillary services markets. Functional
Applications to run on Spirae’s Wave plat-
form are developed in collaboration with
customers to address specific business
needs – an electric service provider seek-
ing to increase their portfolio of DER or
an industrial facility seeking to decrease
their risk of a power outage through
onsite generation and storage.
What makes Spirae’s Wave software
particularly attractive are the platform
approach, allowing fast configuration and
simple system expansion over time; the
multi-layered software architecture,
allowing control to be distributed and
resources to be used for multiple objec-
tives; and the use of Applications to apply
business logic to make optimal use of par-
ticipating distributed energy resources.
ABOUTTHE AUTHOR
Alison Mason, Business Development
Engineer, Spirae, LLC shares her renew-
able energy systems engineering experi-
ence as a key member of Spirae’s com-
mercial team. In her role as Business
Development Engineer, Ms. Mason helps
identify solutions and articulate the value
of Spirae’s Wave control platform to cus-
tomers for a variety of utility and develop-
er applications.
Prior to joining Spirae, Alison served
as Marketing Director and Business
Development Manager for Europe at
SkyFuel, Inc. – a manufacturer of parabol-
ic trough concentrating solar power col-
lectors. From 2002 to 2008, Alison found-
ed and operated SunJuice, LLC and
designed and installed many small scale
solar energy systems.
In 2004, Ms. Mason conceived of and
led a US DOE funded effort (SolarBound)
to promote the use of solar energy in
Northern Colorado through the Million
Solar Roofs Initiative. In 2005, working
with an environmental non-profit (Trees,
Water, and People), Ms. Mason created a
solar air heating program on Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation – an effort that now
includes manufacturing of collectors by
the Lakota people. The American Solar
Energy Society recognized Ms. Mason in
2004 with the first ever “Women in Solar
Energy” (WISE) award and her work was
featured by the Worldwatch Institute
Journal and CNN International.
Ms. Mason earned her B.S. in
Materials Science and Environmental
Engineering from Rice University and her
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering/Solar
Thermal Systems.
THE FLEXIBILITY OF DER
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12
inks are used all over the world in a range
of industrial inkjet printing applications,
including for touch screens, , sensors,
smart cards, smart packaging and organic
photovoltaics.
Both the solar and printed electronics
manufacturing markets are poised to grow
exponentially in the coming years. PV
Nano Cell’s Sicrys™ family of inks will play
an integral role in this growth.
ABOUTTHE AUTHOR
Dr. Fernando de la Vega is the founder
and CEO of PV Nano Cell Ltd.
He has a strong technical and manage-
ment background with more than 20 years
experience in the industry, performing dif-
ferent successful tasks (research and
development management, quality assur-
ance, operations and general manager at
Chemada, Tosaf and Cima NanoTech).
Dr. de la Vega holds a Ph.D. in applied
chemistry (Casali Institute, The Hebrew
University).
He is a co-inventor in more than 11 pat-
ent families (nano materials and technolo-
gies, digital functional printing, alternative
energy), author and co-author of many
papers and publications, including a book
chapter on conductive inks for inkjet print-
ing, and made numerous presentations at
worldwide conferences.
He has performed consultant work in
the fields of design of experiments, statisti-
cal process control and technology man-
agement.
He is the co-founder of Nano Polymer,
served as chairman of the Nano Functional
Materials consortium (generic research in
the nano field in the framework of the
Magnet Program in the Office of the Chief
Scientist, a five-year, $25 million project),
and co-founded four research and develop-
ment consortiums in the European
Commission framework.
UNLOCKING GROWTH IN SOLAR
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20
