Egert, Rolf ; Volk, Florian ; Daubert, Jörg ; Mühlhäuser, Max (2017)
Improved Distribution of Locally Sourced Energy in Smart Grids During Brownouts and in Times of Energy Scarcity.
In: International Journal On Advances in Systems and Measurements, 10 (3-4)
Article

Abstract

<div>Brown-out situation are cases of electricity distribution in which demand exceeds production and transportation capabilities. In contrast to black-outs, energy is available to some extent,</div> <div>but not enough to meet the demand of all consumers. Traditional, centrally organized power grids with large production capabilities on the one end of the distribution grid and only consumers on the other end are struggling to cope with brown-out situations. In order to achieve a somewhat fair distribution of the available energy, street busses are supplied in a round-robin-like distribution scheme. For that, some streets busses are supplied with energy, while others encouter local black-outs. Due to the roundrobin-</div> <div>like scheme, all consumers receive some energy eventually. Modern, ICT-enhanced ”smart grids” that also include small and local production capabilities (oftentimes renewable energy sources like photovoltaics) provide new means of addressing brown-outs. In this paper, we evolve the current round-robin-like scheme</div> <div>further to take the properties of smart grids into account. This affects the fairness of energy distribution, but—in total—increases the amount of supplied consumers. Extensive simulations that are based on real-world street busses of the German electrical grid are conducted. These simulations are conducted with our</div> <div>smart grid simulation tool HOLEG and they indicate improved supply rates during brown-outs, even in the presence of volatile local energy production. We extend our model to a hierarchical scheme, spanning from the distribution grid down to household items, for which we imagine fine-grained control capabilities in the future smart grid.</div>

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