Renewable Energy Delivery (RED)

The current energy delivery system is configured for 20th-century technologies. Venture capital and government funding are transforming the energy supply landscape at a rapid pace with clean and renewable technologies. However, very little research has focused on designing the delivery systems to match the 21st-century supply base with evolving demand.

What is Renewable Energy Delivery? -- Clean and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are by nature intermittent and located far from consumer demand. Supply chain approaches may prove very useful in addressing these temporal and spatial disconnects. For example, battery storage would provide an "inventory" buffer for the grid when integrating the less predictable supply of wind and solar power. Renewable sources will not be commercially viable without a robust supply chain to deliver the energy.

The Renewable Energy Delivery (RED) project collaborates with key organizations across the renewable energy space (e.g. generators, technology providers, and electric grid operators) to design new supply chain systems for cost-effective renewable energy delivery to end consumers. The project researchers aim to develop insights and tools for problems ranging from daily operations management to strategic planning for the phased deployment of renewable energy generation and transmission.

In addition, the RED project can help companies outside the energy sector align their environmental initiatives, such as the carbon footprint, with economic opportunities from renewable energy procurement and, in some cases, generation.

In May 2011, we concluded a study on the revenue potential for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services in electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle fleets. Visit the Projects page to learn more.
What are the key benefits from the research?

(*) Government – insights in shaping regulatory framework; guidance for research funding and infrastructure design and deployment
(*) Venture Capital and Energy Companies – assess the economic viability and environmental impact and optimize strategic supply chain design configuration
(*) Electric Grid System Operators – evaluate new technologies and design approaches to integrate them within reliable power systems
(*) Non-Energy Companies – identify economic opportunities from environmental initiatives and renewable energy procurement strategies

The Renewable Energy Delivery (RED) project has conducted projects spanning several technologies to address critical challenges in scaling up renewable sources. RED researchers apply traditional supply chain approaches – such as network design, forecasting, demand shaping, supply planning, storage, and distribution management – to energy supply networks as they increasingly incorporate renewable sources like wind that are more intermittent. The combination of spatial and temporal demand for multiple energy forms, intermittent supply, and multiple paths for transmission makes energy a rich supply chain for investigation. We aim to develop spatial-temporal models to design energy storage and transmission strategies for renewable energy delivery.