The objective of this research is to explore a distributed decision-making system for effectively operating a smart grid which is envisioned as encompassing three levels, "microgrid", "macrogrid" and "megagrid". The approach includes three essential components: Decision Framework, Decision Assessment, and Decision Approaches. The decision framework has distinct and unique attributes including autonomy, scalability, competition, compatibility, flexibility, collaboration and extensibility. The decision assessment uses measurable smartness indicators to assess the performance of the decision framework in terms of economic, emissions, efficiency, utilization and reliability. The decision approaches implement Modeling, Unit Decision, System Decision, and Integration to enable a cost-effective, highly-reliable and sustainable smart grid with widely-distributed energy resources.
Intellectual Merit: The proposed research addresses the energy, environmental and economic challenges caused by the large-scale deployment of distributed energy resources, and has the ability to assess their impacts on the performance of smart grid over a range of operating conditions. The proposed decision-making approaches use advanced decomposition and coordination strategies to incorporate stochastic features of smart grid operation and overcome the computational complexity of large-scale decision-making problems.
Broader Impacts: The success of the proposed research will significantly enhance the economic and energy security of the United States due to reduced energy imports from foreign sources, reduced emissions, and improved energy efficiency of all economic sectors. The proposed project will increase public awareness and advance the understanding of the complexity of smart grid operations among ratepayers, regulators, politicians, utility executives, and market participants. Research results will be disseminated via standard academic means.
