Electric Grid Integration of Renewable Generation and Distributed Control

March 5, 2018

Pramod Khargonekar

University of California, Irvine

The main goal of this presentation is to showcase the major challenges in integrating large amounts of solar and wind electric energy in power systems. I will begin with an overview of the key drivers for increased use of solar and wind electricity production: carbon emissions reduction for climate change mitigation, falling prices of wind and solar generation, and socio-economic policies and preferences. This will be followed by a description of the major obstacles and challenges in power systems operations and controls in using large amounts of wind and solar electricity while achieving reliability at low cost. I will next highlight some of the possible avenues to overcoming these obstacles where control systems technologies hold significant potential: harnessing demand side flexibility, energy storage and electric vehicles, and economic market operations. I will present some of our recent results along these directions. The talk will conclude with some thoughts on the evolutionary nature of electric energy system development and technological change, resilience of infrastructures and prospects for the future.

Published on March 5th, 2018Last updated on March 8th, 2018