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Vendor pitches substation 'DERCOM' as a lower‑cost dynamic alternative; utilities say more evaluation needed
Summary
GridEdge Networks (presenter Nahum Sedan) proposed a substation‑level DER control platform (DERCOM) that the vendor said can enable dynamic flexible interconnection faster and at lower marginal cost than scheduled gateways or a full enterprise DERMS; Eversource and UI called for further technical review and warned decentralized solutions may not substitute centralized DERMS for system planning.
Nahum Sedan, founder and CEO of GridEdge Networks, presented a distributed substation DERM solution he called DERCOM and asked PURA and the EDCs to consider it as a third option alongside Eversource's scheduled interconnection proposal and UI's real‑time pilot.
Sedan summarized field deployments and IES grant work and framed the problem: "capacity constraints are not a physical problem. There's plenty of unused capacity in today's grid. It is a policy problem," he said, arguing that local closed‑loop control at the substation can detect constraints and curtail DERs with sub‑second response times while preserving more generation and reducing unnecessary curtailment.
GridEdge's claims and pilot data GridEdge said the marginal per‑developer cost for a scheduled gateway is often substantially higher than a distributed approach once multiple projects share a primed substation; the vendor estimated scheduled gateways plus required plant controllers and fiber can cost developers roughly $100,000–$110,000 per project, while the DERCOM model primes a substation for about $50,000 and subsequent projects would pay only the edge‑device cost (~$50,000). GridEdge reported deployments in Connecticut and New York and said single‑day installation and short commissioning were achievable in pilot settings.
Utilities' responses and operational concerns Eversource and UI said they would evaluate the distributed approach but raised several caveats: they emphasized enterprise DERMS or ADMS serve system‑level monitoring, planning and forecasting functions that a local substation DERM does not replace. Eversource noted potential implications for long‑term planning, coordination across substations and the need for operational supervision, cybersecurity and systems integration. UI said some functionality can be achieved via local gateways in certain use cases but warned against operating critical protection and control systems "in the blind."
Why it matters The vendor's proposal, if technically sound and operationally compatible, could reduce the upfront cost barrier for developers at congested substations and speed deployments, but utilities and PURA must weigh whether localized solutions would preserve operational visibility, planning quality and security at system scale.
Next steps PURA staff and EDCs will continue work group discussions; utilities asked for more technical detail and testing data to evaluate any possible pilot or scaled deployment of distributed substation control. GridEdge urged pilot continuation and more field tests before committing to any statewide approach.
