Enabling Greener Energy in a Smarter Grid for a Cooler Earth.
Smart Grids … Renewables … Electricity Markets … Global Warming …
These terms probably sound familiar to you (at least some of them do)! Here is why.
The average temperature of our planet Earth is on the rise due to our use of energy resources that are
mostly unfriendly to the environment, hence Global Warming. In order to mitigate this negative impact
on the environment, more friendly energy sources should be used (i.e. Renewables). However, most
renewables produce variable, highly unpredictable energy. Therefore, although environmentalists like
renewables, power engineers are concerned about how they should be integrated into their energy
systems.
The solution is the Smart Grid. The smart grid offers, among other things, the tools necessary for
accommodating high penetrations of renewables into the energy grid, mainly through improving system
“flexibility”. In this talk, an overview of the smart grid will be presented. The main differences between
the smart grid and the traditional grid will be highlighted. The interdisciplinary nature of this new
concept will be emphasized. Current research directions related to the smart grid will be discussed. This
will include renewable energy trading in electricity markets, smart charging strategies for electric
vehicles to offset wind uncertainty, and stochastic dispatch of generation resources. Study cases that
reveal the great benefits of this new concept will be demonstrated.