Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

The modern electric power grid delivers one of the cleanest forms of energy - electrical energy - to our homes, communities, factories and industrial sites, towns and cities. Electrical energy will continue to play a key role in solving the modern energy crisis by offering new technologies for a cleaner and sustainable future. To achieve this goal, the electric grid has to: accommodate all generation and storage options including alternative/renewable; enable active participation of customers; optimize use of assets and operating efficiency; enable new products, services, and markets; provide power quality. The new system also has to be more reliable and secure. Achieving these objectives requires integration of new communication systems, sensor networks, advanced information technologies and the energy-producing/energy-carrying systems and infrastructures that together will define the future Smart Grid. The long-term goals of this research are to develop tools and communication/information technology that are needed to support and operate the future Smart Grid with its plurality of energy sources and loads, bidirectional communication among the grid participants at many levels, and increased requirements for energy efficiency, reliability and self-resiliency of the entire system. Our short-term goals are focused on developing wireless and power-line communication technologies that are reliable, secure and scalable for transmission/distribution as well as home/customer level applications. Based on established communication networks, we will develop advanced game-theoretic incentive-based energy consumption scheduling algorithms to bring together the needs of utilities, customers, and the independent power producers. Collected information from smart meters and the grid participants will be used to develop better load forecasting and control methodologies that will be interfaced with the distribution and transmission control centres. A combined system of electrical and communication networks will be investigated considering mutual interdependencies with the objective of enhancing the resiliency of the overall Smart Grid system.