CfP: IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Engineering (SGE’12)

27-29 August, 2012

University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT)

2000 Simcoe St. N.

Oshawa, ON, L1H 7K4

The Smart Grids are electricity networks that promise to enhance the operational efficiency of nationwide power supply via distributed generation with bi-directional electricity flow. This objective is achieved by allowing intelligent monitoring and control of different components within the distribution and transmission lines as well as other systems from utilities on one side to the end user on the other side, while maintain the power quality, security, reliability and safety with minimum environmental impacts. Governments around the world are investing heavily in this technology to ensure optimum energy use and supply, enable better planning for outage responses and recovery, and facilitate the integration of heterogeneous technologies around the grid, such as renewable energy systems, electrical vehicle networks, and smart homes. Smart Grids present enormous engineering challenges in the design and integration of electrical grid with communication and network technologies, along with substantial questions around required security and privacy of different components within the grid. The SGE’12 conference aims to provide an opportunity to discuss various engineering challenges of smart grid design and operation, by focusing on advanced methods and practices for designing different components and their integration within the grid, and to provide a forum for researchers from academia and professionals from industry, as well as government regulators, to tackle these challenges and to discuss and exchange knowledge and best practices about design and implementation of Smart Grid.

Topics of interest include (but not limited to) the following:

• Grid infrastructures design, planning, operation and management
  
• Power systems design and applications
  
• Sensors, communications and network
  
• Grid modeling, simulation, and data management
  
• Engineering design of grid applications
  
• Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) systems
  
• Grid protection, reliability, power quality and maintenance
  
• Smart metering, measurement, instrumentation, and control
  
• Customer information security and privacy
  
• Transmission & distribution lines
  
• Renewable energy and distributed generation within microgrids
  
• Computation and optimization
  
• Smart homes
  
• Standardization and interoperability
  
• Pricing, policies, and energy planning
  

Important Dates

Abstract Submission: 1-Nov-2011
First Notification: 15-Dec-2011
Full Paper Submission: 1-Feb-2012
Acceptance Notice: 1-Apr-2012
Camera-Ready Due: 1-May-2012
Conference dates: 27-29 August, 2012

Siemens smart grid innovation contest winning ideas

In April 2011, Siemens called for an idea contest on Smart Grid Innovation. Now, the four best ideas out of 464 submitted contributions have been announced in an award ceremony in Berlin on September 15th. The winning ideas in short:
Christian Huder from EIT ICT Labs, (Germany) won one of the four prices with his idea
"Smart Grids - comparison or regulatory approaches and their implications on business models" discussing the roles of state, market, and providers.
Slobodan Matic from University of California, Berkeley, (USA) elaborated successfully on the concept of an "Integrated Modular Architecture for Distribution Automation".
If you want acceptance, you need games. Vasilis Nikolopoulos from Intelen, (Greece) explored this topic under the idea of "Advanced Demand Response Behavioral Gamification". Consumers having used to social media and gaming will be happy to play a game of consumption optimization in the future grid.
Multi-agent systems are a promising model for smart grids. Logenthiran Thillainathan from the National University of Singapore introduces the concept as an architectural paradigm for autonomously operating smart grids.

Congratulations to the winners and looking forward to see the ideas soon in action!


Source: Siemens Smart Grid Innovation Contest - Meet the Winners

The smart grid challenge

The transformation of our energy system from fossil fuel resources to sustainable resources is one of the great challenges of our time, but opens also a great chance for establishing a more efficient and robust distribution of energy to the benefit of all its users. A way to do this is the intelligent integration of the behavior of all users (generators and consumers) of an electricity grid to optimize the operation of the system, e.g., by balancing energy consumption based on availability and demand.

In order to achieve this goal, we need to define innovative products and services together with intelligent monitoring, control, communication, and self-healing technologies: Electrical devices, generators, and energy storages will be integrated with local intelligence and a network interface. These smart meters will form a network that dynamically adapts pricing and distribution based on demand, supply, and network load. The emerging network will be a self-organizing smart grid which efficiently maintains existing services, allows for prediction of future energy and network requirements.

However, the challenge is not a mere technical one. A main characteristic of the smart grid is that it will allow consumers and suppliers to play an active role in optimizing the system. While this is a very positive aspect, it leads to new challenges such as social aspects like fairness and acceptance, economic aspects such as market stability and resilience against speculation attacks, and legal issues such as warranty, data security and privacy. Last but not least, the smart grid forms a complex system of interacting agents, which will require new models similar to those from physics, biology or economics.

The goals of the smart grid are ambitious. But considering the importance of energy to our society, there is no other chance than to work on it in a global cooperative effort. There is no time to wait.