PSERC

Future Grid Initiative Workshop: 
Seeking Your Ideas and Comments 

University of California, Berkeley, December 7th, 2011 
 

Resource Map 2050
What grid is needed to enable this future scenario? What effect would alternative scenarios have on the needed grid?
(Diagram Source: Bryan Hannegan, EPRI 2010)

A systematic transformation of today's electric grid is underway to enable high penetrations of sustainable energy systems.

The grid is evolving from a network architecture with relatively few large, hierarchically-connected, tightly synchronized energy resources supplying large, medium, and millions of small passive consumers. It is evolving toward a network driven by many distributed and concentrated, highly variable energy resources mixed with large central generation sources, energy storage and responsive users.  

The effective transformation of the grid requires decisions based on identification and solution of major operating, planning, workforce, economic and public policy challenges. The U.S. DOE has funded the project "The Future Grid to Enable Sustainable Energy Systems." 

The project's objective is to investigate the requirements of an electric grid with high penetrations of sustainable energy systems and heavy reliance on cyber systems for sensing and communication while stimulating discussion among the academic, industry and government communities on what it will take to shape the future grid for the mid-twenty-first century.
 

This workshop's activities and anticipated outcomes will help in meeting that objective.

Workshop Agenda 

Wednesday, December 7  

7:30 - 8:00 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast  

Future Grid Drivers 

8:00 - 8:30 a.m. Central Decisions that will Shape the Future Grid and How it is Used
Vijay Vittal (Arizona State Univ.), Director, Power Systems Engineering Research Center 

8:30 - 9:30 a.m. Facilitated Discussion 

First Discussion Session:  Thrust Areas 1-3
9:30 - 10:00 a.m. Shaping the Future Grid: Context of the Building Blocks Research in Areas 1-3
-- Design options, balancing, and wide area controls
-- Control and protection paradigms
-- Renewable energy integration
Jerry Heydt (Arizona State Univ.), Anjan Bose (Washington State Univ.) and Shmuel Oren (UC Berkeley)  

 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. Gallery Walk for Thrust Areas 1 - 3 

11:00 - 11:30 a.m. Discussion on Work in the Thrust Areas 1 - 3  

Second Discussion Session:  Information Hierarchy 
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Information Hierarchy of the Future Grid and Gallery Walk for the Associated White Papers
Peter Sauer (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) 

 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Working Lunch with Discussion Tables for each Thrust Area and Broad Analysis Topic

Third Discussion Session:  Enablers 
1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Grid Enablers of Sustainable Energy Systems and Gallery Walk for the Associated White Papers
Jim McCalley, Iowa State University  

Fourth Session:  Areas 4-6 
2:30 - 3:00 p.m. Shaping the Future Grid: Context of the Building Blocks Research in Areas 4-6
-- Computational challenges
-- Resiliency of cyber-physical systems
-- Workforce education
Santiago Grijalva (Georgia Institute of Technology), Tom Overbye (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Chanan Singh (Texas A&M Univ.)  

3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Gallery Walk for Thrust Areas 4-6 

4:00 - 4:30 p.m. Discussion on Work in the Thrust Areas 4 - 6  

Closing Session
4:30 - 5:45 p.m. General Discussion on the Path to and Shape of the Future Grid with Closing Summary

Reception 

5:45 - 6:30 p.m. Reception (For workshop attendees only) 
Workshop Format

The workshop will begin with identification of the driving decisions that will shape the future grid. Then, there will be "gallery walks" for attendees to talk with researchers at their posters. During the workshop, perspectives will be sought from the attendees via oral and written comments. Email and blogging options will also be available before, during and after the workshop. The workshop will close with a general discussion about how the nation's infrastructure will evolve to the future grid. Information about the Initiative is available on the PSERC website. Please come to the workshop prepared to actively participate! Your feedback is essential to the success of this workshop.

Future Grid Research Effort

The research focuses on the building blocks of a future grid. It is divided into six thrust areas:

  1. Electric energy challenges of the future
  2. Control and protection paradigms of the future
  3. Renewable energy integration and the impact of carbon regulation on the electric grid
  4. Workforce development
  5. Computational challenges and analysis under increasingly dynamic and uncertain electric power system conditions
  6. Engineering resilient cyber-physical systems

Information about the work in each area is available on the PSERC website.

PSERC White Paper Series

As a part of this Initiative, PSERC is working to stimulate thought about solutions to what can be called "broad analysis" needs. A broad analysis need covers questions that are typically well beyond the scope of typical academic research projects in terms of size and definition. The questions are not strictly engineering, often involving issues of policy as well as stakeholder perspectives and impacts. The broad analysis topics that will be addressed through white papers and eventually a public forum are:

Information about these white papers can be found on the PSERC website.

 

Registration Information

Registration Link

Registration is open to people working on future grid issues and projects. The registration fee is $100.

Hotel Information:
Claremont Hotel
41 Tunnel Road
Berkeley, CA 94705
(800) 551-7266

Site Directions:
Krutch Theater on Clark Kerr Campus 
2601 Waring Street
Berkeley, 94702
(within walking distance of the Claremont Hotel)

Who Should Attend
Attendees will come from industry, government and academia to provide their perspectives on the issues and the needed research in developing the future grid. It will be an open attendance event and everyone is asked to register.

Why Should I Attend?

This is your opportunity to influence a significant research effort that will inform the design of the future grid. You can learn about new work that is being done on the building blocks for a future grid and meet leading university researchers from PSERC's thirteen universities who are doing it.