The Smart Grid: Its Complicated

Alfonso Valdes,
Managing Director, Smart Grid Technologies Information Trust Institute University of Illinois

This content is the responsibility of the presenter and does not represent the views of the University of Illinois or sponsoring agencies

Outline
What is the smart grid? Smart Grid Elements

Technology challenges
Renewable energy integration Distributed generation and microgrids Net-zero ECE building

Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG)

What is the Smart Grid

Ubiquitous digital communication and control
SCADA has been around for decades Wide area measurement frameworks coming online At the other end, smart meters provide fine-grained measurement of usage, permit remote reading and disconnect, comms to customer premise, some bi-directional

Enable integration of renewables Enable customer choice, new markets Enable grid to operate closer to design limits We prefer to use Smarter grid; the grid has been smart for some time

Smart Grid Elements

Legacy generation, transmission, distribution
Digital controls Wide area measurements

Renewables
Grid-scale Distributed

Storage Demand response

Smart meters Time-of-use pricing Smart loads

And an extensive, distributed, intelligent cyber infrastructure for monitoring, control, and security

US Electricity Mix

Renewable Portfolio Standards

CA SB X 1-2 (2011): 33% from renewables by 2020, with interim goals
painfully complicated due to its competing priorities (favor in-state production, minimize rate impact), employs tortuous formulae (its complicated) renewableenergyworld.com

Illinois: 25% by compliance year 2025-2026

Source: Database of state incentives for renewable energy and efficiency (dsireusa.org)

Wind Share as % Of Energy for Europe

Source: Wind in Power: 2011 European Statistics, EWEA

Storage
Challenge: generally, electricity has to be used as it is generated
Balancing supply and demand is a complicated control problem Peaker generation must be ready to ramp up or down quickly Tend to be less efficient, higher carbon footprint Intermittent sources exacerbate this

Solution: Storage to store excess in low demand periods, supply power when demand exceeds generation Some storage technologies
(Banks of) batteries (even vehicles) Fuel cells Compressed air Pumped hydro

Cost-effective, safe, efficient, grid-scale storage remains a challenge

Distributed Generation (DG)

Generation at or near where it is used
Diesel generator Solar, wind Intermittent Gas turbine Batteries and fuel cells (actually distributed storage)

At varying scales
Home (rooftop solar) Commercial/industrial Subdivision

Potential to provide excess power to the grid

Challenges of bidirectional metering

Voltage stability

Microgrids
Collection of loads, DG, and storage Connected to grid

Able to operate in island mode disconnected from the grid, then reconnect seamlessly
Microgrid controls optimize energy mix, and potential energy back to the grid Many unsolved technology and policy issues

New Illinois ECE Building

The new ECE building is targeting LEED platinum certification, the highest rating for efficiency. It has an additional goal of being a net-zero energy building, meaning that it will have systems in place that over the course of a year will produce as much energy as the building uses (see Project Details for more on this).

http://www.ece.illinois.edu/buildingcampaign/webcam.html

TCIPG Vision & Research Focus

Vision: Drive the design of a resilient and trustworthy cyber infrastructure for todays and tomorrows power grid, so that it operates through attacks
Research focus: Resilient and Secure Smart Grid Systems Protecting the cyber infrastructure

Making use of cyber and physical state information to detect, respond, and recover from attacks Supporting greatly increased throughput and timeliness requirements for next generation energy applications and architectures Quantifying security and resilience

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TCIPGs Multifaceted Mission

Identify and address critical security and resiliency needs at the cyber-physical junction in the evolving power grid Meet the challenge of rapid evolution and mixed legacy environment Address the proliferation of devices, demand response, DG integration, HAN Emphasis on trust and resiliency Engage Industry (utility, control system vendors, technology providers) Ensure relevance of research Foster technology transfer
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Research Excellence Balance long-range basic research with the need to develop practical solutions in the near term Publications and conference presentations TCIPG is the go to academic center Education Develop university students who will be experts in the field Outreach to K-12 students and the public

TCIPG as Catalyst for Accelerating Industry Innovation

Products Incorporating Solutions

Utilities

Sector Needs Pilot Deployment Data

Access to equipment R&D Collaboration

Vendors/Tech Providers

TCIPG
Validation and Assessment Solutions

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