The paper describes a vision and needed steps for reaching a national objective of having a smart grid infrastructure. Demonstrations of a smart grid are needed to identify possible improvements and to show effectiveness from the generation system, to the bulk transmission and distribution networks, and finally to the customer premises. The vision described in this white paper can make a significant contribution to the U.S. DOE’ s efforts to lead the nation in developing and deploying a smart grid solution that will efficiently support a low¿carbon energy infrastructure portfolio.

A PSERC white paper. Uploaded March 31, 2009.

The energy planning problem facing the U.S. today is of a distinctly different nature than energy planning problems of the past due to the number of different infrastructures involved, the geographical scope, among other issues. As a consequence, existing tools, models, and procedures are inadequate, requiring development of new planning capabilities. In this white paper, we describe 16 issues that motivate the need for those new capabilities. The strategy to develop those capabilities should follow a rigorous research plan coupled closely with efforts to provide immediate planning results using existing planning tools because near term policy development decisions must be made within the next one or two years.

A PSERC white paper. Uploaded March 31, 2009.

A widely supported effort to modernize the United States power system has led to an engineering initiative va-riously known as ‘ smart grid’ , ‘ intelligrid’ , “ gridwise” , “ mod-ern grid” , “ perfect grid” , “ future grid” , and similarly denomi-nated programs. These efforts generally include features of: self-healing from power disturbance events, enabling active participation by consumers, assuring resilient operation against physical and cyber attack, delivering power quality for digital economy, accommodating all generation and storage options, enabling new products, and optimizing the use of assets. This paper addresses the question as to where engineers needed to address the smart grid will be educated, how they should be trained, and to what levels of comprehension in integrative fields they must be educated.

Presentation at the North American Power Symposium (NAPS 2009), Starkville, MS, October 4-6, 2009.

America seems to have decided that a "smart grid" is what we need to solve the problems of our electric power system. But, what exactly is a "smart grid"? The answer is that it is many different things. Some of the things that get talked about are relatively inexpensive and can go a long way toward solving key problems. Others will likely be very expensive, and at this stage may better be left to the realm of research.

A Briefing Note from the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, July 2009.

At the residential level, devices which are in place now and expected in the future have the ability to provide reactive power support. Inverters which connect distributed generation such as solar panels and pluggable hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) to the grid are an example. Such devices are not currently utilized by the power system. We investigate the integration of these end-user reactive-power-capable devices to provide voltage support to the grid via a secure communications infrastructure. We show how to determine effective locations in the transmission system and how to control reactive power resources at those locations. We also discuss how to determine reactive support groups which parallel the regions of the secure communications architecture that is presented. Ultimately, our goal is to present how the Smart Grid can allow the utilization of available end-user devices as a resource to mitigate power system problems such as voltage collapse.

Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT 2010), Gaithersburg, MD, January 19-21, 2010.