Importance of Distributed Generation in Smart Grid: A Step Towards Energy

Sustainability

Abstract

Smart Grid technology is recognized as a key component of the solution to challenges such as increasing electric demand,
an aging utility infrastructure and workforce, and the environmental impact of greenhouse gases produced during electric
generation. Integrated Smart Grid solutions combine advanced sensing technology, two-way high-speed communications
using the utilities assets, 24/7 monitoring and enterprise analysis software and related services to provide location-specific,
real-time actionable data as well as home energy management solutions to provide enhanced services for the end-users. As
a result, these solutions increase the efficiency and reliability of the electric grid while reducing the environmental impact
of electric usage benefiting utilities, their customers, and the environment. This paper discusses various smart grid
solutions, its functions and broadly integration of distributed generation issues related with smart grid.

Keywords: Distributed Generation, Smart Grid, Energy Efficient Distribution, Renewable Energy
1. INTRODUCTION
Today industry is poised to make the
transformation from a centralized, producer-
controlled network to one that is less
centralized and more consumer-interactive.
The move to a smarter grid promises to change
the industry’s entire business model and its
relationship with all stakeholders, involving
and affecting utilities, regulators, energy
service providers, technology and automation
vendors and all consumers of electric power [1-
3]. The term “smart grid” represents a vision
for a digital upgrade of distribution and long
distance transmission grids by using robust
two-way communications, advanced sensors,
and distributed computers to improve the
efficiency, reliability and safety of power
delivery and use. Some of the benefits of such
a modernized electricity network include the
possibility to reduce power consumption at
consumer side during peak hours; facilitating
grid connection of distributed generation
power; grid energy storage for distributed
generation load balancing; and improved
reliability against many different component
failure scenarios. The increased efficiency and
reliability of the Smart grid is expected to save
consumers money and help reduce greenhouse
gas emissions [4-5].
The basic concept of Smart Grid is to
add monitoring, analysis, control, and
communication capabilities to the national
electrical delivery system to maximize the
throughput of the system while reducing the
energy consumption. The Smart Grid will
allow utilities to move electricity around the
system as efficiently and economically as
possible. It will also allow the homeowners and
business people to use electricity as
economically as possible. They will have the
choice and flexibility to manage their electrical
use while minimizing costs. Smart Grid builds
on many of the technologies already used by
electric utilities but adds communication and
control capabilities that will optimize the
operation of the entire electrical grid. Smart
Grid is also positioned to take advantage of
new technologies, such as plug-in hybrid
electric vehicles, various forms of distributed
generation, solar energy, smart metering,
lighting management systems, distribution
automation, and many more [6].
2. FUNCTIONS OF SMART GRID

Apart from particular technologies, this can be

understood in terms of what it is being required
to do. The governments and utilities funding
development of grid modernization have
defined the functions required for smart grids.
According to the United States Department of
Energy's (DOE) Modern Grid Initiative report,
a modern smart grid must:
● Be able to heal itself: Using real-time
information from embedded sensors and
automated controls to anticipate, detect, and
respond to system problems, a smart grid can
automatically avoid or mitigate power outages,
power quality problems, and service
disruptions.
● Motivate consumers to actively participate
in operations of the grid: A smart grid
incorporates consumer equipment and behavior
in grid design, operation, and communication.
This enables consumers to better control “smart
appliances” and “intelligent equipment” in
homes and businesses, interconnecting energy
management systems in “smart buildings” and
enabling consumers to better manage energy
use and reduce energy costs. Advanced
communications capabilities equip customers
to exploit real-time electricity pricing,
incentive-based load reduction signals, or
emergency load reduction signals. The real-
time, two-way communications available in a
smart grid will enable consumers to be
compensated for their efforts to save energy
and to sell energy back to the grid through net-
metering.
● Resist attack: Technologies better identify
and respond to manmade or natural disruptions.
Real-time information enables grid operators to
isolate affected areas and redirect power flows
around damaged facilities.
● Provide higher quality power that will save
money wasted: New power quality standards
will balance load sensitivity with delivered
power quality at a reasonable price. The smart
grid will supply varying grades of power
quality at different pricing levels.
● Accommodate all generation and storage
options: As smart grids continue to support
traditional power loads they also seamlessly
interconnect fuel cells, renewables, micro
turbines, and other distributed generation
technologies at local and regional levels.
Integration of small-scale, localized, or on-site
power generation allows residential,
commercial, and industrial customers to self-
generate and sell excess power to the grid with
minimal technical or regulatory barriers. This
also improves reliability and power quality,
reduces electricity costs, and offers more
customer choice.
● Enable electricity markets to flourish: The
smart grid will enable more market
participation through increased transmission
paths, aggregated demand response initiatives
and the placement of energy resources
including storage within a more reliable
distribution system that is closer to the
consumer. By reducing congestion, the smart
grid expands markets; it brings together more
buyers and sellers. Consumer response to price
increases felt through real time pricing will
mitigate demand, driving lower-cost solutions
and spurring new technology development.
● Run more efficiently: A smart grid can
optimize capital assets while minimizing
operations and maintenance costs. Optimized
power flows reduce waste and maximize use of
lowest-cost generation resources. Harmonizing
local distribution with interregional energy
flows and transmission traffic improves use of
existing grid assets and reduces grid congestion
and bottlenecks, which can ultimately produce
consumer savings.
These seven characteristics describe a
vision for the smart grid that is generally more
resilient and distributed, more intelligent, more
controllable and better protected than today’s
grid. Figure 1 show the energy-efficiency
which is brought by smart grid [7-10, 15, 16].
 Figure 1. Energy Efficient Smart Grid
3. DISTRIBUTED GENERATION
INTEGRATION WITH A SMART
GRID
Distributed energy includes distributed
generation and distributed energy storage,
and smart grid lies in building the intelligent
network system with intelligent judgments,
adaptive ability and distributed
management, which can monitor and collect
power information of the network and the
user in real-time, and use the most economic
and secure transmission and distribution
methods to convey electricity to end-users,
in order to achieve energy optimal allocation
and utilization ,improve grid operations
reliability and energy efficiency. Distributed
Energy Resources (DER) have many
different types, including hydroelectric
power, wind power, solar power, micro
turbines, fuel cells and energy storage
devices (such as the flywheel, super
capacitors, superconducting magnetic
energy storage and sodium sulfur batteries
etc.).Weather-driven, non-scheduled,
renewable energy sources require new
operational procedures. Conventional fossil
fuel power plants can be operated in
accordance with the needs of the power
system; the present power system operating
procedures were designed with this in mind.
Renewable energy sources such as wind or
solar are variable and thus the
operating schedules of such plants are largely
dictated by the changing “fuel” supply. This is
especially pertinent in the case of wind,
photovoltaic solar and run-of-the-river hydro,
none of which have inherent storage in their
power plant design.
These systems cannot be controlled in the same
manner as a conventional generation facility. With
low levels of wind or solar energy penetration the
overall effect on grid operations is limited, yet as
the penetration levels increase so too do the
effects. It has been recognized that as the
penetration levels increase, more advanced
control of the power system will be required to
maintain system reliability. These controls
include more efficient use of transmission, use of
demand response and intelligent energy storage,
all of which can be enabled through the
application of a smart grid. In fact, the ability to
better integrate renewable energy is one of the
driving factors in some smart grid installations [8,
9, 11].
4. ASSESSING RENEWABLE ENERGY IN A
SMART GRID
A smart grid must be able to make decisions and
those decisions must be based upon information.
However, not all of that information is necessarily
“live” data. In fact, when designing a smart grid
the likely limitations on the system must be
understood – some of these limitations will be
physical, some will be contractual and some may
even be political. Without enabling the smart grid
to properly handle
 These limitations, the smart grid
would not perform correctly. For example, a
smart grid may allow for load curtailment,
but no consumer is going to be happy to
accept such an agreement without some
guarantee of a maximum number of
interruptions. Similarly, storage may be
purchased to allow for better operation of
localized portions of the power system
(taking strain off transmission during
constrained periods) or even utilizing
storage that is designed to support the power
system as a whole. Alternatively, the storage
may be sourced from an electric-vehicle-to-
grid arrangement, but again an agreement
must be made on how often the system can
cycle the batteries and how much it is
allowed to draw them down. Such system
design decisions, whether in terms of
contractual agreements or the installment of
physical equipment, must be based on
accurate information about the degree of
flexibility that is required. If high levels of
non-scheduled renewable energy are
employed in the system, these will tend to
dominate the flexibility requirements and so
careful assessment of the renewable energy
resources is vital when setting-up a smart
grid, re-negotiating contracts or considering
installation of physical equipment. In
essence, an assessment of the variability of
renewable energy and the effects on the
power system must be performed.
Integration studies are continuing to
improve and as the level of sophistication
increases, so too does importance of
accurately modeling the “fuel” that drives
the renewable energy [8]. In order to assess
the likely behaviour of long-term patterns
the best information we have about the
future is what has happened in the past.
Unfortunately, long-term records of
renewable energy production are not
available for a vast majority of the
generation plants. Most plants have only
been operational for a few years at most and
the growth rate of new renewable energy is
still a significant portion of total installation.
In fact, it is usually not even possible to
obtain long-term, on-site meteorological
data. Thus, an alternative must be used to be
able to obtain the historical information used
to determine the requirements for the smart grid.
In fact, one of the strongest advantages of
using numerical weather prediction modeling to
downscale reanalysis datasets is that long-term
records can be obtained. It is possible to perform
a 40-year climate variability analysis, detailing the
hour-by hour wind and power capacity at a site.
This level of detail may not be warranted for small
energy installations, but for large installations (or
even high concentrations of small installations)
this information can be used to develop some key
decision making tools that allow the optimization
of the system design [11-16].
5. CONCLUSION
With the social and economic development, and
increasingly highlighted problems of energy
shortages and environmental, it is continually
increasing demands for network reliability, and
needs of service quality were more diverse, as
well as the requirements of power efficiency has
improved markedly. Smart Grid has become an
important direction of development of a global
power industry.
In conclusion, the smart grid brings both
benefits and design challenges to the utility, its
customers, and the associated technologists. The
electric power system is arguably the world’s
largest machine, if one defines a machine as a
series of interconnected parts that form a common
system. Transient stability, I2R losses,
communications, security, system architecture
and modeling are all parts of the complex picture.
To accommodate a more flexible, dynamic,
secure, and diverse system, the smart grid is an
essential component on the path to the energy
future.
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