Explains the economics of electricity at each step of the supply chain: production, transportation and distribution, and retail.

This book focuses on market/regulatory issues concerning smart grid applications, business cases and use cases. It covers the most relevant aspects of the smart grid—design considerations, economics, legal aspects and system management—and includes exercises at the end of each chapter. Since renewable energy generation is weather-dependent, it is more volatile, which affects market prices and the need for flexibility options including demand side management. In order to balance supply and demand in a sustainable manner also with high shares of renewables, energy systems need to be enhanced by smart grid technologies. This co-evolutionary transformation of the energy system, economic, societal, political and regulatory domains is challenging and calls for an integrated and interdisciplinary approach. This book provides an essential basis to prepare lecturers and students for engaging in the new energy world.

This book aims to report on a cutting-edge research project of the smart grid in Japan, resting on the three pillars of field experiments, behavioral economics, and big data. The field experiments on the smart grid were conducted in four regions in Japan—Yokohama city, Toyota city, Keihanna Science City, and Kitakyushu city—over a three-year period from 2012 to 2014 after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, and the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants. Our focus here is on demand response in the smart grid environment, which we also discuss in the context of power system reforms. The book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, policy makers, and business leaders.

Social Impacts of Smart Grids: The Future of Smart Grids and Energy Market Design explores the significant, unexplored societal consequences of our meteoric evolution towards intelligent, responsive and sustainable power generation and distribution systems—the so-called ‘smart grid’. These consequences include new patterns of consumption behavior, systems planning under increasing uncertainty, and the ever- growing complexities involved. The work covers the historical impact of the transformation, examines the changing role of production and consumption behavior, articulates the principles and options for socially responsible smart grid power market design, and explores social acceptance of the smart grid. Where relevant, it examines adjacent literatures from P2P electricity markets, electric vehicles, smart homes and smart cities, and related ‘internet of energy’ developments. Finally, it provides insights into mitigating the likely social consequences of our integrated low-carbon energy future. Evaluates the connections between the concept of sustainability and the social impacts of the smart grids Analyzes emerging trends in smart grids connected with trends towards the sharing economy Investigates environmental degradation awareness and environmental stewardship goals associated with smart grids Explores how to mitigate social challenges with effective smart grid power market design Integrates energy stewardship and social acceptance literatures into the discussion of the smart grid

The smart grid initiative, integrating advanced sensing technologies, intelligent control methods, and bi-directional communications into the contemporary electricity grid, offers excellent opportunities for energy efficiency improvements and better integration of distributed generation, coexisting with centralized generation units within an active network. A large share of the installed capacity for recent renewable energy sources already comprises insular electricity grids, since the latter are preferable due to their high potential for renewables. However, the increasing share of renewables in the power generation mix of insular power systems presents a significant challenge to efficient management of the insular distribution networks, mainly due to the variability and uncertainty of renewable generation. More than other electricity grids, insular electricity grids require the incorporation of sustainable resources and the maximization of the integration of local resources, as well as specific solutions to cope with the inherent characteristics of renewable generation. Insular power systems need a new generation of methodologies and tools to face the new paradigm of large-scale renewable integration. Smart and Sustainable Power Systems: Operations, Planning, and Economics of Insular Electricity Grids discusses the modeling, simulation, and optimization of insular power systems to address the effects of large-scale integration of renewables and demand-side management. This practical book: Describes insular power systems, renewable energies, uncertainty, variability, reserves, and demand response Examines state-of-the-art forecasting techniques, power flow calculations, and scheduling models Covers probabilistic and stochastic approaches, scenario generation, and short-term operation Includes comprehensive testing and validation of the mathematical models using real-world data Explores electric price signals, competitive operation of distribution networks, and network expansion planning Smart and Sustainable Power Systems: Operations, Planning, and Economics of Insular Electricity Grids provides a valuable resource for the design of efficient methodologies, tools, and solutions for the development of a truly sustainable and smart grid.

This book aims to report on a cutting-edge research project of the smart grid in Japan, resting on the three pillars of field experiments, behavioral economics, and big data. The field experiments on the smart grid were conducted in four regions in Japan—Yokohama city, Toyota city, Keihanna Science City, and Kitakyushu city—over a three-year period from 2012 to 2014 after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, and the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants. Our focus here is on demand response in the smart grid environment, which we also discuss in the context of power system reforms. The book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, policy makers, and business leaders.

Tobias Brandt outlines how information technology (IT) can be used to integrate sustainable energy technologies into existing infrastructures. The topic is approached from micro, meso, as well as macro perspectives. He first describes how IT artifacts can be used to manage renewable energy sources and energy storage devices in individual households and microgrids for an improved economic and ecological performance. The author proceeds by assessing the economic feasibility of aggregating electric vehicles for large-scale energy storage. The final chapter explores the issue of stability in automated mechanisms. A game-theoretical model is first introduced for financial markets and later transferred to the automated management of energy demand.