IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2017 - 4

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

of nanogrids, power systems will
commitment to and an understanding
inevitably undergo structural and
of the proper implementation at the
behavioral changes. Through stragrassroots level is a must for the
tegically interconnecting individual
microgrids to become successful.
nanogrids, power system operations
In the article "A Game Changer:
will gain a significant improvement
Electrifying Remote Communities by
in efficiency, sustainability, reliability,
Using Isolated Microgrids," authors
and resilience.
Xianon Lu and Jianhui Wang point
Another contribution, "Microgrids
out that, with the increasing mandate
in India: Possibilities and Challenges,"
for electrifying remote communities
is by Vijay A. Subramony, Suryanaraywith acceptable reliability and resilana Doolla, and Mukul Chandorkar.
ience expectation, remote microgrids
The authors emphahave been deployed in
size that the governdeveloping countries
The Singapore
ment of India has
and corresponding
government has
started the process
technologies have
identified the clean
of rural electrificabeen extensively studtion by the promoied. The authors disenergy industry as a
tion of renewables
cuss pertinent planning
strategic growth area
and locally available
and operational issues
for Singapore's
resources. While the
related to remote mieconomy.
Indian people in
crogrids. They present
semiurban and rural
conventional approachareas suffer from a
es and technological
lack of power, the people in urban
advances in terms of power system
areas lack a reliable supply of power.
architecture, distributed-energy-reDue to this vast geographical diversisource sizing and siting, deployment
ty and diverse customer priorities
of energy storage, and operation isand requirements, the concept of
sues in the weak grid context. Furmicrogrids in India has a broader
thermore, they discuss pilot projects
and deeper role to play, to bridge the
for remote microgrids and introduce
gap and achieve the multiple targets
the related field practice.
of equitable, sustainable, and rapid
Another contribution to this speeconomic growth. A very important
cial issue is "Remote Off-Grid Solupoint in the context of India and the
tions for Greenland and Denmark:
developing nations is that of ecoUsing Smart-Grid Technologies to
nomics. The cost of electricity from a
Ensure Secure, Reliable Energy for
microgrid must become comparable
Island Power Systems," by Qiuwei Wu,
if not cheaper than that from the
Esben Larsen, Kai Heussen, Henrik
main grid. Removing incentives,
Bindner, and Philip Douglass. The
such as the subsidies offered to the
authors point out that Denmark is
agriculture sectors and kerosene for
the front-runner for renewable energy
lighting, migrating to the use of
utilization. In 2015, wind-power gensmart meters that cut theft, and
eration supplied 42.2% of the Danish
expanding the scale of microgrids
electricity consumption. Also, in
may help to make the microgrid
Greenland, the latest plan is to be
business more sustainable. A firm
100% self-sufficient with green energy

I E E E E l e c t r i f i cati o n M agaz ine / J UN E 2017

by 2024, with the majority of the
renewables expansion in hydro
power. The article discusses three offgrid projects in Greenland and Denmark and presents the experiences
and major findings of the off-grid
solutions for the related communities. The authors use the test platforms of PowerLabDK and the off-grid
solutions offered by the Technical
University of Denmark to optimize
the proposed off-grid solutions.
This special issue concludes with
"A Microgrid Test Bed in Singapore:
An Electrification Project for Affordable Access to Electricity with Optimal Asset Management," by T. Jiang,
L.M. Costa, P. Tordjman, S.S. Venkata,
N. Siebert, J. Kumar, H.B. Püttgen, A.
Venkataraman, S. Dutta, Y. Li, and D.
Tang. The authors point out that the
Singapore government has identified
the clean energy industry as a strategic growth area for Singapore's economy. The clean energy industry is
estimated to contribute 1.7 billion in
the local currency to the Singapore's
gross domestic product and to offer
7,000 new jobs in the related industries. Singapore has set up a microgrid
development plan by investigating
the domestic requirements and the
international commercial market.
The Singapore government plans to
build Eco-Campus and RenewableEnergy-Integration-Demonstration
initiatives to research renewable energy integration and microgrid development. In addition, General Electric
is actively leading the flagship project, Power Mix Management in Singapore, which focuses on developing
a microgrid energy management
system to enable optimized functioning of the microgrid.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification Magazine - June 2017