Research

The “Smart Grid” is becoming more complex due to the increased participation of consumers, and greater reliance on renewable resources. To maintain the reliable system operation it is necessary to model the various uncertainty sources, such as renewable-based resources, and assess their effects on system operation. Moreover, electricity systems constitute only a subset of the energy portfolio. Under an energy hub concept, the determination of the optimal energy mix, e.g., heat, gas, and electricity; as well as the exploitation of dynamic energy carriers, such as electric vehicle (EV) management, are important for improved decision making in electricity systems. To achieve this a hierarchical approach is required where at the higher level power system planning, and operation and management will be performed and at the lower level power electronic devices will be controlled. However, these tools need to be scalable from a computational and communication point of view to handle the increased complexity of the envisioned power system architecture. To this end, research needs to focus on the use of distributed management schemes that alleviate the computational burden rendering the proposed solutions scalable and implementable in large-scale complex power systems.