The third pillar of our strategy is ASSESSING emerging power systems and smart grids.
(go to second pillar - SIMULATING AND TESTING)
Growing concerns over energy sustainability, security of power supply, and market competitiveness — and the resulting need to integrate increasing shares of renewable energy and dispersed energy resources — are impacting the energy system operation and architecture.
Smart energy grids represent one of the key means for the decarbonisation of the electricity system. Their implementation can change the way we live our lives and interact socially and culturally. In this scenario, the business and social actors in the energy landscape will need to dramatically adapt their behaviours, strategies and means of producing, delivering, storing, and consuming energy.
In order to understand the complexity of future smart grids, there is the need to move focus and attention from a component oriented to an interaction oriented view of the electric power system.
To this end, we are embarking on assessing behaviours, dynamics and interactions of the different layers composing a complex smart grid ecosystem: the physical layer, the cyber layer, the market layer, the social layer and the political layer.
For the sake of simplicity, we group our integrated assessment activities in two main streams (which, needless to say, are unavoidably intertwined) :
1. scientific and technical support to ongoing policy initiatives on smart/power grids, e.g. by means of independent performance assessment and cost-benefit analyses of smart grid projects throughout Europe to analyse trends and developments in smart grids implementation.
2. development of a framework for a systemic understanding of smart grids. Proper tools and techniques for optimal decision-making are being identified to enable society to achieve its energy, environmental, economic and social goals. The framework we aim at developing shall enable the identification of emerging problems and will provide new solutions and approaches.
