IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2022 - 34

Smart Grid
Figure 1. Simplified diagram of the electric grid integration with RES concept.
resulted in 1.7 million power outages along the
U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts.2 During June-September
2007, heat waves and forest fires occurred
in Greece causing extensive damages to the
medium-voltage distribution network and knocking
out power in many areas of the country.3
Recovery from such disasters also costs tens of
billions of dollars including time, manpower, and
lost economic productivity, and deepen social
inequalities. These failures have taught utilities,
regulators, and stakeholders that faults cascade
across national and continental electric grids,
and exacerbating a local phenomenon into a
socioeconomic catastrophe. Traditional power
systems are prone to such cascading power
outages that last long periods of time and are
complex and time-consuming to recover-in
other words, not secure and resilient. Continuing
to operate the electric energy system critical
infrastructure using the traditional model
is a well-recognized security and resiliency
threat and the main barrier for the development
of future smart cities.
The integration of photovoltaic (PV) solar systems
and wind farms together with other renewable
energy sources (RES) into the electric grid,
as shown in Figure 1, helps toward improving
security and reliability of the power system during
normal operations and enhancing resiliency
during and after extreme events. In the first quarter
of 2018, solar accounted for 55% of all new
34
generating capacity brought online in the U.S.4
and Florida alone is expected to add over 8.6 GW
of solar generation by 2025. The inclusion of such
distributed resources in the form of solar PV, battery-based
storage, and demand resources can
increase the resiliency to catastrophic events
once research efforts would be able to address
open system design questions. Examples include
how to strategically locate and operate these
resources to sustain smart cities infrastructure
by guaranteeing continuity or rapid restoration of
power to vital loads following large-scale disturbances
by formation of ad-hoc self-contained
microgrids in outage situations. In addition, as
more and more RES are integrated into power systems,
it is projected that offshore oil and gas platforms
will be reused at the end-of-life stage for the
production of renewable energy (e.g., offshore
wind, wave and tidal energy, ocean current
energy, ocean-based solar energy, deep-water
source cooling, etc.). To thwart the existing problems,
a transformational development approach
needs to be established, able to develop and build
a secure and resilient electric grid for future
smart cities. Such development will lead to an
electric energy system immune to extreme
phenomena while supporting the integration
of RES and reducing the dependence on oil
drilling into power systems, such as those at
the North Sea as well as the Gulf of Mexico
and its coastal zone.
IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine
IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2022
