Smart Grid & Management Systems

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By Claude Ziad El-Bayeh and Khaled Alzaareer

The integration of highly fluctuated distributed generations (such as PVs, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and energy storage systems) threatens the stability of the power and distribution systems. The main cause is that the power ratio between the supply and demand may not be balanced. An excess/shortage in the generation or consumption of power may perturb the network and create severe problems such as voltage drop/rise and in severe conditions, blackouts. To increase the balance between the supply and the demand in an efficient way, and to reduce the peak load during unexpected periods, energy management systems are utilized. Energy management can be divided into two main categories. The first one is on the side of the supplier such as electric utility, in which some generators are turned ON or OFF to follow the fluctuation of the load demand. The second category is on the consumer side and it is called demand-side management. In demand-side management, the consumers manage their energy consumption in order to meet the available power from the generation side. The main goal of using energy management is to reduce the cost of operation and consumption, reduce the energy losses and increase the reliability of the network. Energy management has many barriers and limitations. However, it has a prominent future in which most of the current research is focused on developing sophisticated algorithms and models to better manage the energy on the grid.

By Hoassam A. Gabbar and Muhammad R. Abdussami

There is a number of initiatives to integrate nuclear and renewable technologies to provide high-performance energy systems with maximum utilization of nuclear power plant resources as well as to achieve balanced energy generation to meet load profiles and demands. However, there is a number of challenges to achieve practical and profitable Nuclear- Renewable Hybrid Energy System (N-R HES), such as scalability, capital cost, project lifetime, construction period, land acquisition, ecological safety, and technological barrier. There are possible ways to overcome some of the challenges of N-R HES by introducing small scale nuclear reactor, called Small Modular Reactor (SMR) or Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). The Nuclear-Renewable Micro Hybrid Energy System (N-R MHES) offers to combine the small scale of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) with Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The byproduct of the N-R MHES, the thermal energy, is also used in an efficient way to support the thermal load, district heating, hydrogen production plant, heat engine, absorption chiller, etc. The N-R MHES offers the possibility of different coupling options between input and output of the system. The nuclear- renewable integration criteria depend on the availability of the RES and the consumer load demand. The N-R MHES fits best to the remote consumer having an adequate amount of electric and thermal load. The grid-connected N-R MHES provides the opportunity to purchase the electricity in case of emergencies and to sell the surplus energy of the N-R MHES to the grid. In case of unavailability of the grid, an energy storage system can be used to store the surplus energy.

By Moein Lak, Anthony Johnson, Brenden Russell, and Manuel Avendano

Southern California Edison Company (SCE) is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States with more than 130 years of history. SCE is regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). SCE’s service territory covers 50,000 square miles across Central, Coastal and Southern California and serves 15 million residents in service territory and 5 million customer accounts.

By Bixuan Sun, Derya Eryilmaz, and Rao Konidena

Forecasting is an essential tool for planning and decision-making in the energy industry and various forecasting methods have been used for by electric utilities and resource planners (Taylor et al, 2007; Hahn et al, 2009). Electric utilities independently choose one or multiple methods to conduct their long-term forecasting to determine their revenue requirements and rate design for each customer segment. They also provide this information to the regional transmission and system planners for regional load forecasting.


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IEEE Smart Grid Bulletin Compendium

The IEEE Smart Grid Bulletin Compendium "Smart Grid: The Next Decade" is the first of its kind promotional compilation featuring 32 "best of the best" insightful articles from recent issues of the IEEE Smart Grid Bulletin and will be the go-to resource for industry professionals for years to come. Click here to read "Smart Grid: The Next Decade"