BINGHAMTON — New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) recently completed the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Future Grid Challenge, assessing the distribution network of its electrical grid to enhance load forecasting and planning for the energy demands to come. The assessment was awarded in Round 1 of the program, which fosters innovative technologies to enhance resiliency, enable and advance energy infrastructure for the performance needed to achieve the Climate Act goals and ensure reliability of the transmission and distribution system, while reducing cost, and allowing for faster integration of renewables. 

“We created electric vehicle (EV), heat pump, and solar adoption forecasts, which allowed us to assess impacts on our electrical load,” said Rita King, senior director for Smart Grids Innovation at Avangrid, NYSEG’s parent company. “These exercises helped us understand the need for upgrades to handle these demands over the next decade.”

NYSEG’s Binghamton and Ithaca divisions were the focus for the project, and the Company worked with outside firms ProsumerGrid and Siemens PTI to complete the challenge over an 18-month period.

The results of the analysis showed NYSEG can expect peak demand to shift from summer to winter, due to heating electrification. These findings reaffirm the benefits of existing planned upgrades for the Ithaca area and provide foundational data to help inform, design, and plan additional upgrades.

Doreen M. Harris, President and CEO, NYSERDA said, “With the completion of this Challenge, Avangrid and its partners ProsumerGrid and Siemens PTI now have critical data on the potential impacts of increasing electrification in the Southern Tier area that will inform grid future planning and decision-making. Together, these innovative technologies will increase our understanding of integrating distributed energy resources into the electric grid as we modernize the transmission and distribution systems bringing clean energy to New Yorkers.”

Through the challenge, NYSEG now has a better understanding of potential opportunities to better predict capacity needs, how to work with customers on managing their charging needs, and identify the investments needed to replace aging infrastructure. Forecasting is essential to enable the adoption of EVs and heating electrification of buildings, which are cornerstones of meeting the electrification goals of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act).