The future is Smart Grid – and the software solutions to run it are here today…

Smart Grids, the ‘intelligent’ power networks of the future, are designed to achieve balance between power generation and consumption, to build more stable networks and more reliable supply, to minimise energy losses, to increase energy independence and to achieve more energy and cost efficient network operation in general. The integration of energy generators, innovative new energy stores and controllable consumption facilitates systematic optimisation of the entire energy system. The enormous growth of renewable energy sources can be combined with centralised generators so that, despite the volatility of these new sources, the stability of the network and supply is never at risk. This effectively counters growing depletion of conventional energy sources. Smart Grids demand innovative information and communication technology (ICT) for all parties. Bidirectional data communication and modern software solutions are the only way to realise coordinated management of all participants and a balance between generation and consumption.

"Some specialised intelligent IT solutions for efficient, flexible and reliable Smart Grids and Micro Grids are already available" reports Michael Untiet, Head of Control Systems at KISTERS AG, a German systems provider whose control system and energy market software is already able to handle future Smart Grid requirements. "The task now is to transition existing solutions, currently in use in bulk consumption markets, to small-scale consumer and prosumer markets. This means that new communication standards will have to be laid out - a process which KISTERS contributes to on a European level through an active research project - as well as specifying reference variables such as price and control signals, followed by implementation in communication end nodes on prosumer facilities."

Software support for distribution systems and autonomously operated Micro Grids

Dispersed generators, energy stores and consumers participating in the network present an increasingly complex environment in which distribution system operators are responsible, beneath the transmission system level, for securing a highly efficient infrastructure with disruption and outage intelligence and high supply reliability. Due to the increasing number of network participants, capacity and bottleneck monitoring, voltage band and power load control and distributed, coordinated load flow regulation on the medium voltage network have increased in complexity, and have recently also become necessary on the low voltage network. The integration of virtual power plants for optimal local power management and possible network support through extended reserve pooling for the minutes and secondary reserve, successive integration of e-mobility and, in multiplying cases, situational regulation of wind generation plants also come into the equation, because today's network infrastructure is already overloaded in certain situations.

As a Smart Grid Management System, control technology software must now also be capable of monitoring, optimising and redirecting increasingly complex load flows and safely and efficiently controlling the enormous variety of network components. The availability of complex modelling and optimisation technology such as load forecasting and load flow calculation provides us with an intelligent distribution system, capable of controlling and balancing itself to the greatest extent possible.

For purposes of balancing generation and consumption, distribution systems may also be subdivided into further self-sufficient cells (Micro Grids). In this scenario, control technology software operates as a Micro Grid Management System and assumes the task of coordinating the (small) generators and flexible consumers participating in the system, monitoring and activating minutes reserve resources, making the small network a stable and functional closed supply area, and ideally ensuring cost optimisation and improved supply quality.

Economically optimal operation of virtual power plants

Faced with scarcity in conventional energy resources, renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics, wind power or biogas plants are seeing increasing integration in the power network. These typically volatile small generators can be combined into a virtual power plant for more efficient, economic and environmentally friendly operation. The increasing number of plants, the need to combine power production with minutes reserve power and the inevitably resulting complexity all require software to guarantee economic operation. Resource management optimisation software is capable of modelling, coordinating, optimising and analysing the combined plants with reference to forecasts and with a view to maximising the profit contribution, while adhering to technical and operational boundary conditions. Even operators of smaller plants are allowed to profitably participate in the market.

Demand-side energy management based on Smart Metering

Smart Metering provides a foundation for all intelligent network management tasks, as well as for Smart Homes and customer-side local energy management, through high-resolution time series data. The Smart Metering process chain ranges from intelligent meters in the customer's household to bidirectional communication infrastructure (Advanced Meter Infrastructure AMI) and rapid data processing (Meter Data Management MDM) right down to password-protected data display on a web portal. Comprehensive Smart Metering software, such as BelVis from KISTERS AG, handles each of these areas as a module, providing both a turnkey solution and a product for combination with (partial) solutions available from other providers. In the future, the new ICT infrastructure will integrate prosumers more closely. Intelligent end nodes such as the "Energy Butler" allow for flexible and automated participation in the volatile energy market, increasing local energy efficiency and economy.

Prospect

The adoption of the 20/20/20 goals leaves no path forward without increasing integration of renewable energy sources and upgrading existing networks. "This presents new technical challenges to all participants - but by no means a technical problem", claims Michael Untiet. "Smart Grid capable software systems are already on the market and showing their potential in the management of large plants. The challenge now lies in optimally combining and integrating existing solutions and reaching a economic implementation all the way through to the home level."

The process of rethinking from load-driven generation to generation-independent and flexibilised load management leads us to Smart Grids, in which a stable balance is organised as autonomously as possible between consumers and all generators collectively. This is not a revolution: previously passive networks will be successively and intelligently networked through an ICT layer, so that extended network management systems and energy market systems can interact with distributed control units for all active market participants, and ensure economically sound operation as a "team". This will have costs, but Smart Grids are an intelligent method to keep expensive, and no longer environmentally sustainable network expansions to a minimum of HVDC "Super Grids" as long-distance energy buses.