Consumers Energy’s residential battery storage pilot program is using the Sunverge real-time DER Control and Aggregation Platform to test and measure how aggregated battery storage can offer benefits to Michigan’s electric grid and utility customers.

This week Michigan’s Consumers Energy and Sunverge announced their collaboration to leverage Sunverge’s real-time control, aggregation and orchestration platform and the company’s energy storage technology for a Consumers Energy residential battery storage pilot.

Sunverge worked with Consumers Energy to evaluate the energy provider’s distribution circuits and identify grid locations suitable to test the potential benefits and value from behind the meter battery storage. Consumers Energy used this analysis to select a circuit in Michigan’s Grand Rapids area to conduct the pilot.

Ryan Kiley, executive director of product development for Consumers Energy said the pilot project will test and measure how aggregated battery storage could potentially offer benefits to Michigan’s electric grid as well as to customers. He said the test will help Consumers Energy understand the “different values that batteries could provide to the overall grid, such as potential investment deferral, resiliency and reliability, while also providing backup of critical loads for pilot participants.”

Consumers Energy is working to modernize Michigan’s electric grid and develop clean energy across the state. In January, the company dedicated its first combined rooftop solar array and battery storage system in the Circuit West energy district of Grand Rapids. Last September, the company began operation of the Parkview Battery Project, a 1 MW battery located at Western Michigan University.

“We are excited to be working with the Consumers Energy team to help them better understand how they may be able to leverage aggregated and orchestrated behind-the-meter storage to provide an overall grid benefit and support their goal of generating 40% of their energy from renewable sources by 2040,” said Martin Milani, CEO of Sunverge.