Track: Future Electric Power Systems: Smart Grids, Engineering,
            Economics and Security
Minitrack: Sustainable Electric Energy Systems


Sessions in this mini-track with focus on a number of issues related to the integration of non-conventional supply and demand resources into utility transmission and distribution systems. We define “non-conventional” to include not only renewable and non-dispatchable resources such as solar and wind power, but also responsive demand and grid-integrated electric vehicles.

Session 1: Electrification of the Transport Sector
Session Organizer and Chair – Sakis Meliopoulos, sakis.meliopoulos@ece.gatech.edu

The transportation sector is a large source of primary energy consumption. In the United States approximately one third of the total energy consumed is by the transportation sector. Currently, the transportation sector is mainly petroleum based. Pluggable hybrid cars and trucks and electric trains provide the technology to transform the transportation sector from petroleum based to electric based. This transformation will increase the electric load on the power grid and it will require the gradual expansion of the power grid. This transformation will create many technical challenges with the expected benefits being: (a) reduced energy costs for transportation, (b) reduced dependence on petroleum and (c) reduced environmental impacts. This session will feature papers discussing case studies or modeling efforts that address the technical, economic, and environmental issues that will be generated by the electrification of the transportation sector. Papers on vehicle-to-grid interactions would also be welcome in this session.

Session 2: Renewables and Demand Response
Session Organizer and Chair: Judy Cardell, jcardell@smith.edu

Expectations for widespread use of clean electricity generation and increased energy efficiency are putting tremendous pressure on the electric power system to adopt these new technologies and modernize system and market operations accordingly. This session will discuss the technical challenges and utility experiences surrounding the system integration of non-dispatchable renewable energy and demand response technologies. Papers could discuss case studies of integrating non-dispatchable technologies into the power system (including solar, wind, demand response, and others), both for full scale utility integration as well as pilot projects. Papers could address the numerous issues surrounding the availability and quality of solar, wind, load response data, and of modeling these data, (e.g. for forecasting studies), as well as modeling the technologies themselves for use system studies. Finally, a major component of this session will focus on the impacts of these technologies on system operations including, for example, power flows, transmission congestion, generator dispatch, frequency and voltage stability, as well as market operations, to the extent that markets and system operations are integrated such as for ancillary services and balancing markets.
 

Minitrack Chairs:

Seth Blumsack (Primary Contact)
Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering
124 Hosler Building
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park PA, 16802
Phone: 814-863-7597
Email: blumsack@psu.edu

Thomas J. Overbye
Fox Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1406 W. Green St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-333-4463
Fax: 217-333-1162
Email: overbye@illinois.edu