Kick-off meeting in Coimbra, on March 30th

FG Smart Grids and Smart Buildings: ICT contributions for energy efficiency

Focus Group on Smart Grids and Smart Buildings

FG Co‐chairs:

Luís Neves (INESC Coimbra, Portugal); Tuan Trinh (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary)

Scope

The electric grid of the future – the Smart Grid – will need to go beyond the home meters, and zoom in on individual appliances’ consumption readings. On one hand, customers (who may also be “prosumers” – that is, simultaneously producers and consumers), generally have a lack of information regarding their appliances and regarding the behaviors they need to adopt in order to lower energy consumption. They also lack the knowledge of the real economic impact of the energy consumed, generated or stored at each moment. One the other hand, the distribution or transmission system operators are often facing disturbances in their grids because they cannot predict precisely the output of many renewable energy sources – which are mostly intermittent resources – and, in parallel, predict or influence the consumption of their customers by implementing demand load control algorithms. Inefficiency thus arises in the use of resources.

ICT may provide the means to optimally adapt energy consumption to the “environment” in terms of weather conditions, power distribution grid issues, and so forth, both using communication facilities that provide stimuli to the consumer and by acting on his behalf, directly controlling appliances according to pre-defined preferences. One example of the application of ICT to smart grids is for a better flow of updated information between the stakeholders (the prosumers included). With better flow of information, better decisions can be made on the distribution of energy resources as well as the balance between demand and production.

In this context, the aim of this focus group is to explore the connection between the management of electricity smart-grids and the management of energy efficient computer networks, connecting both energy efficient ICT and ICT for energy efficiency. Furthermore, other common issues such as security and privacy will also be addressed.

Work plan

We plan to reflect to the different expertise in the FG by exploring the different ways ICT can help to improve energy efficiency in buildings and the connection between Smart Grids and Smart Buildings. Therefore, we will set up and write a discussion paper, exploring different contributions from the participants to the focus group objective. We will use face2face meetings as well as remote collaboration facilities to proceed with this joint discussion paper (editorial work done by the co‐chairs of the FG).

The objectives of the FG are:

1. Joint discussion paper as starting point and preparatory work for a survey paper as outcome of the FG work

2. Foster collaborations and joint publications between COST IC 0804 partners.

3. Survey paper as a result of the FG work (at the end of the FG)

4. Give a joint tutorial on smart grids at a conference under the name of COST IC 0804

5. Possible joint project proposal in the future with core members from the members of COST action
   
   

Duration

May 2012 – April 2013 (Kickoff meeting planed in “Madrid???”, next MC meeting)

Deliverables expected

1. Survey paper as a result of the FG work (at the end of the FG)

2. Tutorial on smart grids at a conference under the name of COST IC 0804

3. Report on the outcome of the FG including report on joint papers, short term visits, and the discussion paper
   
   
   

Partners expressed involvement

Luís Neves (Polytechnic Institute of Leiria and INESC Coimbra, Portugal) - luis.neves--at--ipleiria.pt

Tuan Trinh (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) - trinh--at--tmit.bme.hu,

Giuseppe Anastasi (University of Pisa) - g.anastasi--at--iet.unipi.it

George Koutitas (International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki) - g.koutitas--at--ihu.edu.gr

The description of the focus group can be found here.