Towards Decarbonization, Digitalization and Decentralization of the Power Grid: The Smartgrid as a Complex Network
Résumé
The energy landscape has undergone many mutations that remodelled global energy systems. Three main drivers have led to this fast change: increasing renewables penetration, rise of prosumers, emergence of telecommunication technologies and smart meters expansion.
The integration of renewable energies in power systems has many consequences on the whole energy system, actors and management tools. In fact, as they are intermittent and non-dispatchable, renewable energy sources pose various challenges.
As renewables increase, the structure of the local mesh in electricity networks is expected to become more complex, induced by distributed local generation. Therefore, the future grid is expected to be an interconnected network of Microgrids and main grid. To tackle these issues, the Future Grid requires computational intelligence that can handle all aspects of power grid variability and randomness. This marriage between energy and telecommunication is materialized through the notion of Smartgrid.
The aim of this paper is to investigate more deeply the challenges of Smartgrid management and understand the salient properties of Smartgrid as a complex network. We also trace the topological evolution of this innovative complex system with a complex network analysis approach.