Smart grid communications - the key for exploiting renewable energy sources

Abstract

Summary from only given. Three features characterize electricity generation from renewable sources: it is located far away from where it will be used; it is decentralized; and it is volatile. What looks like a long list of technical details actually conceals a true revolution in terms of energy supply. In Germany, we are in a special situation. Although the EU Commission wants fewer fossil fuels to be burned and more renewable energies to be used in electricity generation in all member states, the time pressure has increased dramatically for Germany because of the upcoming energy turnaround. Because of the scheduled phasing out of all nuclear power plants by 2022, we must establish a Smart Grid over the next ten years and provide a stable energy supply for a prosperous industrial nation. The three features of producing energy from renewable sources add up to three problem areas that must be resolved for the Smart Grid to succeed: · The generation of energy far from where it is used, especially on offshore wind farms at sea, requires a major upgrade in transmission of power from the north of Germany to the south. · To reorganize central power generation and supply renewable energies that are produced locally, we need more and improved data about the current state of the grid. · To compensate for volatility, we must be able to respond faster at distribution level. This requires automatic voltage regulation in the medium- and low-voltage grid. Smart Grid will serve as the nervous system of energy supply after the energy evolution. In addition to being an electricity network, it is also a communication network in which intelligent devices record energy supply and consumption data in real-time and adjust the grid voltage automatically. For this energy grid, the intelligent devices installed must have two attributes: standards compliance and IT security. Besides expanding the transmission capacities, the use of uniform and secure communication protocols is the biggest challenge in building this central infrastructure.