R&D Committee Members in discussion about future projects.
Following their September call for project proposals, TVPPA’s Research & Development Committee received a record number of 15 submissions.
The Committee met on Tuesday, October 17 at TECA Headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., to prioritize projects of interest to the committee. TVA liaison to the R&D Committee, Joseph Johnson shared results from a survey given to the Committee members ahead of the meeting. Survey results were segmented by customer density, municipal or cooperative, and by district. Overall, committee members seemed to show a preference for research projects related to energy storage, dispatchible voltage regulation and the impact of electric vehicles on grid infrastructure. Other projects showed interest in utilizing existing assets for more efficient and effective operations, including using AMI to identify downed conductors, and utilizing data analytics to address a range of issues from misphasing to storm outage response.
With support from Johnson, committee members engaged in a productive discussion on specific projects as well as methodologies that may be put into place in the future to collect insights on project direction from across the Valley.
TVPPA R&D Committee liaison Jim Sheffield commented on the meeting saying, “We have a very smart group of committee members who are approaching their responsibility for assessing the projects under consideration in a very thoughtful manner. They want to ensure that their work reflects the needs of the Valley as a whole.”
The R&D Committee will meet to finalize and approve funding for FY24 research projects during their next meeting which will be held at a date to be determined in December.