Simple Thread Team Wins American-Made Digitizing Utilities Prize

Inc 5000 Company Collaborates with Dominion Energy and Right Analytics To Address Significant Energy Sector Challenges

RICHMOND, Va., Aug. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Simple Thread, designer and builder of digital solutions for energy and electric utility challenges, has won a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) American-Made Digitizing Utilities Prize, recognizing innovative tools and data analytics to address the vast amounts of data on the grid, while accelerating electrification and renewable energy integration. 

Simple Thread, which was recently recognized for the fourth straight year as an Inc 5000 company, partnered with leading consulting firm Right Analytics to develop an advanced Hosting Capacity Analysis (HCA) tool for Dominion Energy. The solution has the potential to enhance the speed of renewable energy grid integration by a factor of 10x while improving grid reliability and security. 

"Renewable energy projects in particular today suffer from a plodding analysis process that often relies on repetitive and manual assessment," explains Justin Etheredge, CEO, Simple Thread. "We are building a platform to automate that process, making it more accessible and reliable, and significantly reducing the time it takes to analyze hosting capacity using a variety of different assumptions." 

Simple Thread's HCA solution provides energy utilities with valuable insights into their respective grid's ability to identify and accommodate renewable generation as well as capacity for load. By identifying areas with surplus hosting capacity, utilities can strategically plan, allocate resource integration, and optimize investments in grid infrastructure. 

The team's "Graph the Grid" project also addresses Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 2023, requiring utilities to improve transmission planning/hosting capacity analysis to integrate renewables faster and more reliably into the grid. Simple Thread's solution for Dominion can be customized for other utilities nationwide.

The DOE prize, which has two phases, connects utilities with interdisciplinary teams of software developers and data experts to transform energy sector digital systems through data analytics, processing, quality assurance, storage and deletion. Winning teams such as Simple Thread demonstrated a thorough understanding of solutions and the ability to access relevant resources for the prize. Now in Phase 2, the program's 11 teams will work with utility partners for four months to develop and refine their solutions to win additional funding.

Watch an overview of the Simple Thread Team's Graph the Grid solution, learn more about the prize and follow winners' progress at Digitizing Utilities Prize | HeroX.

About Simple Thread

Simple Thread is a team of dedicated software and design professionals with a deep understanding of energy and electric utility organizations. The Inc 5000 company brings decades of experience in designing and building digital solutions to meet the unique challenges of the energy and utility industry, including revolutionizing grid analysis. Visit www.simplethread.com for more information. 

CONTACT: Nancy Edwards, Clean Power Marketing Group, [email protected]

SOURCE Simple Thread