Smart Grids and renewable energies

Project manager: Nadia MAÏZI

In partnership with SCHNEIDER-ELECTRIC, research is extending the achievements made concerning the integration of spatiality to assess the issues linked to the deployment of the smart grid in a long-term prospective vision based on TIMES family models.

Initial work linked to this grid integration consisted in making the evaluation of the reliability of electric systems compatible with the temporal dynamic associated with long-term prospective exercises. The supply reliability assesses the ability of an electric system to guard against operating incidents and is characterized by the voltage plan and frequency, whose characteristic times vary between a few milliseconds and a few hours. Conversely, long-term prospective exercises are interested in the evolution of energy systems over several decades and do not allow reliability to be assessed. Electric systems proposed on the prospective horizon can therefore no longer guarantee reliability, which is all the more crucial as the massive integration of renewable energies could occur to the detriment of reliability, due to the complexity involved in managing intermittency.

Two reliability indicators allowing the level of reliability of an electric system to be quantified in an original way depending on the production mix associated with it have been developed. The interest of these indicators has been proven for the Reunion Island, which fixed a power generation mix from 100% of renewable energies as an objective in 2030, then by 2050 for France.

This research was promoted in fifteen or so international conferences and at the end of 2011 was the subject of the filing of a patent, extended to the end of 2012, and a reliability analysis extended to the French system for the annual United Nationals conference on climate in Durban as well as in the context of the 2050 Energy Commission, previously mentioned.

A second issue linked to grids questions the deployment of smart grid solutions, widely extolled as one of the solutions for the low-carbon energy transition. In the context of her thesis research, Stéphanie BOUCKAERT evaluates the real impact of Smart grids in the long term. The deployment of these smart solutions should improve an electric system whose operating conditions are consequently evolving due to:

• Climate and environmental requirements that lead to intermittent sources (solar, wind power …) being added to regular centralized “classic” energy sources;

• The evolution of consumption that potentially diversifies and inverses its flow (obliteration, energy plus buildings, decentralized generation), which reinforces its barely predictable character.

 

This deployment is conditioned by the solving of complex problems regarding smart grid management, balanced demand and finally the stability of the whole generation/transport system. Supposing that they are lifted, the consequences of deploying these solutions in terms of better efficiency on the grid, a reduction in the environmental impact of electricity generation and management remain open and at the heart of this thesis research.

 

More information about Stéphanie BOUCKAERT’s thesis

 

Finally, to fully deal with the issue of a large-scale integration of renewable intermittent sources, it is also necessary to know the type of deployment adopted for grid infrastructures: the trade-off consists in differentiating a classic networked vision of the centralized electric system from its decentralized vision. The aim of Vincent KRAKOWSKI’s thesis, initiated at the end of 2012, is to integrate the elements linked to spatiality in the TIMES models to be able to complete previous approaches. So his thesis research consists in studying the technical conditions for realizing a strongly renewable power generation mix in the case of mainland France and the constraints that such a generation mix would have on the whole electric system. It notably involves devising realistic penetration scenarios of these energies, studying how their integration would impact the reliability of the electric system and finally what the levers to improve this reliability and bring it to “suitable” levels could be. These levers could be demand management, energy efficiency, storage or pooling technologies with the help of reinforcements of smart grids. The potential of these different levers will be assessed to compare different integration strategies of the renewable for power generation on a large-scale.

Centre de Mathmatiques Appliqus

Agence Web Spinat