What are the benefits of smart grids? (give 4)
- Smart grids provide an opportunity to link societal, financial, technology and regulatory and policy objectives
- Emerging economies will need to use smart grids to efficiently meet rapidly growing electricity demand
- Major economies with large personal vehicle sales will need smart grids to enable the effective integration of electric vehicles to their electricity grids.
- All regions will need smart grids to enable the effective integration of significantly higher amounts of variable resources to their electricity grids.
What are the characteristics of smart grids? (give 6)
- Enables informed participation by customers
- Accommodates all generation and storage options
- Enables new products, services and markets
- Provides the power quality for the range of needs
- Optimises asset utilisation and operating efficiency
- Provides resilience to disturbances, attacks and natural disasters.
Elaborate on flexibility of the electricity network. (4 parts)
- Flexibility is the capability of a power system to maintain reliable supply by modifying production or consumption in the face of rapid and large imbalances.
- It is measured in terms of megawatts (MW) available for ramping up and down, over time. The term flexibility includes electricity generation, transport, storage, trading and end-use consumption.
- Smart grids can optimise flexibility mechanisms in three contexts: the electricity market, system operation and the use of grid hardware.
- Resources that contribute to flexibility include dispatchable power plants, demand-side management and demand response, energy storage and interconnection with adjacent markets.
What do you know about building automation and control systems (BACS) in smart buildings? What is the smart readiness indicator (SRI)?
- Smart technologies in buildings have the potential to contribute to increasing energy efficiency, enhancing flexibility in smart grids, and enhancing comfort of the occupants.
- To increase the visibility and uptake of smart technologies in the European building stock, the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) is introduced. The proposed SRI methodology:
1) Determine the smart ready services (10 domains) in a building
2) Assess the score of the service based on impact criteria (8)
3) Weight the impacts to an overall score - The SRI is advocated in the proposal for amending the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). Currently in consultation.
- This indicator could allow to assess the level of smartness of a given building.
What are relevant applications of Electrical Energy Storage (EES) in the smart grids? (give three)
- EES installed in customer-side substations can control power flow and mitigate congestion, or maintain voltage in the appropriate range.
- EES can support the electrification of existing equipment so as to integrate it into the smart grid. Electric vehicles are a good example due to their potential to provide a load-shifting function in a smart grid.
- EES as the energy storage medium for Energy Management Systems (EMS) in homes and buildings. Residential customers can become actively involved in modifying their energy demand by monitoring their actual consumption in real time.
What can you say about Internet of things (IoT) and smart grids? (give 4)
- The Internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, and connectivity which enables these objects to connect and exchange data.
- Examples of IoT objects include smart home appliances, vehicles, distributed renewable energy resources, substations and network devices, sensors, actuators.
- The IoT shall be able to incorporate a large number of different and heterogeneous devices, while providing access to subsets of data for the development of services.
- From home energy management to grid operation, the IoT provides systems to collect information and support automated control with the goal to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the electricity system.
What can you say about the benefits of smart grid standardization?
Benefits of interoperability: Interoperability refers to the ability of two or more networks, systems, devices, applications or components to communicate and operate together effectively, securely, and without significant user intervention.
What is ENTSO-E? And what is their role?
The electricity market role model, developed by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E, 2014), provides definitions of the roles and domains employed in the electricity market, and can be used as the basis for the construction of business processes.
What could be remaks on the evolution of power systems? (give 3)
- The evolution of power systems must be seen as a continuous process of modernising existing infrastructure and of designing future systems.
- An evolution that is meant to address a number of key environmental, social and economic challenges that the electricity sector is currently facing such as the reduction of emissions, energy security, rising global demand, and promoting consumers empowerment through market transparency.
- At the dawn of the 21st century, the synthesis of scientific knowledge and engineering techniques, with focus on electrical power systems, is mainly materialised under the smart grid notion.
What could be remarks on smart grids? (give 2)
- The first years of experimentation with smart grid concepts resulted in numerous envisioned services, potential business cases and demonstration projects, which made apparent the inherent complexity of the topic.
- Subsequently, this complexity underlines the need for a common understanding of architectural elements and classification methods, alternatively, the interoperability of systems and applications in future environments is placed at risk.
What could be three motivations for smart-grids?
- The grid is 99.97% reliable, but power outage cost billions of euros per year.
- Environmental concerns
- To improve end-user engagement
What are the benefits of an Energy Management System (EMS)? (give 7)
1) Matching demand and supply
2) Enabling transition to EVs and energy storage options
3) Improving grid reliability
4) Enhancing the capacity of the distribution network
5) Reducing GHG emissions
6) Empowering end-user engagement
7) Enabling new products, services and markets
What are the basic operation of an EMS? (give 3)
- Meter readings and measure local energy generation
- Stores data in database
- Control flexible loads (e.g. smart appliances and EV)
What are the factors that influence the sustainable energy behaviour of people?
- Individual factors o Knowledge and awareness o Intrinsic (values and personal identity) o Extrinsic (financial costs and benefits of actions) - Contextual factors o Spatial and infrastructural o Economic and cultural factors o Institutional arrangements o Access to technology
Give 5 options for gamification for end users?
- Information provision
- Rewarding system
- Social connection
- User interface
- Performance status
What are the five communication interfaces of advanced metering infrastructures (AMI)?
P0: maintenance port
P1: measures electricity
P2: communicates with other smart meters (gas and water)
P3: connects the data server
P4: connects to DSO and Central Data Hub (CDH)
What are the two models for data management of the smart meters? (give positive and negative side of both)
1) DSO model:
- Positive: efficient (long experience in data collection)
- Negative: less transparency and limited access to third parties
2) Central Data Hub (CDH) model:
- Positive: non-discriminatory and neutral data handling
- Negative: increased regulatory and administrative costs
Tell something about the Participatory platform for sustainable energy management project (PARENT)
- Aim: reduce electricity consumption in households through community participation and ICT solutions
- Operate locations: Amsterdam, Bergen and Brussels
- Stakeholder: Local authorities, electricity providers, municipalities, system operators, consumers associations and citizens
Why would we digitalize our electricity grid?
- The grid is an aging infrastructure
- ICT is key to enhance current electrical power network
- Energy management systems in buildings
- End-users engagement and behaviour change
- Advanced metering infrastructure and metering data access models
