Seminar Details
2013-05-14 (14.00) : The Grid with Intelligent Periphery
At Euler building
Organized by Mathematical Engineering
Speaker :
Kameshwar Poolla
Abstract :
Pressing environmental problems, energy supply security issues, and nuclear power safety concerns drive the worldwide interest
in renewable energy. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar exhibit variability: they are not dispatchable, exhibit large
fluctuations, and are uncertain. Variability is the most important obstacle to deep integration of renewable generation. The current approach
is to absorbthis variability in operating reserves. This works at todays modest penetration levels. But it will not scale. At deep penetration
levels (>30%) the levels of necessary reserves are economically untenable, and defeat the net carbon benefit.
So how can we economically enable deep penetration of renewable generation? The emerging consensus is that much this new generation must be
placed at hundreds of thousands of locations in the distribution system, and that the attendant variability can be absorbed by the coordinated
aggregation and control of distributed resources such as storage, programmable loads, and smart appliances. Tomorrows grid will have an intelligent
periphery.
We will explore the architectural and algorithmic components for managing this intelligent periphery. Clusters of distributed energy resources
are coordinated to efficiently and reliably offer services (ex: bulk power, regulation) in theface of uncertainty (ex: renewables, consumers).
We begin by formulating a general class of stochastic dynamic programming problems that arise in the context of coordinated aggregation. We then
consider specific real-time scheduling problems for allocating power to resources. We show that no causal optimal policy exists that respects
rate constraints (ex: maximum EV charging rates). Next, we explore the benefits of coordinated aggregation in the metric of operating reserves savings.
We close by suggesting several challenging problems in monetizing and incentivizing resource participation.