GridWhy artificial intelligence could be key to future-proofing the grid
The expansion of renewable energy, mainly from wind and solar power, is a good thing — but one problem with this great expansion in renewables is they are intermittent, meaning they depend on weather conditions such as the wind blowing or sun shining. Unlike conventional power, this means they can’t necessarily meet surges in demand. Hence many press headlines in recent years about the “lights going out.” One solution to the problem is known as demand-side response. One aspect involves rewarding certain electricity consumers for reducing their usage at short notice. This can range from large industrial customers to smaller consumers using power for heating rooms, cooling, lighting or even refrigeration. Emerging artificial intelligence technologies look like providing answers to the challenges of effectively managing demand-side systems. To select the best participants, for example, grid operators will be able to use sophisticated machine-learning techniques to model the behavior of individual devices and battery storage units by reviewing data from smart meters and sensors.
A recent Conversation piece pointed out that the British electricity mix in 2016 was the cleanest in 60 years, with record capacity from renewable energy, mainly from wind and solar power. But one problem with this great expansion in renewables is they are intermittent, meaning they depend on weather conditions such as the wind blowing or sun shining. Unlike conventional power, this means they can’t necessarily meet surges in demand. Hence many press headlines in recent years about the “lights going out.”
National Grid, the UK grid operator, has several ways of ensuring supply can always meet demand. For shorter gaps in generation, it asks electricity suppliers to run their conventional power stations at below maximum potential output and ramp up as needed.
For longer gaps, it ensures power stations, particularly gas-based ones, are kept on standby. Some stations may only be asked to generate power for between several dozen and a few hundred hours a year. Besides contributing to carbon emissions, operating power plants for such short interventions is expensive.
The question is what to do about this problem. We could build less renewable power and make conventional power “greener” instead by removing the CO₂and burying it underground. Opinion divides on when these carbon capture technologies can be made commercially viable on a large scale. In the UK, unfortunately two government kickstarter projects have floundered due to concerns about costs and departmental disagreements.
An alternative is to install very big (“grid scale”) batteries capable of storing renewable power to be released when required. This has generated a lot of interest lately. But given the costs of current battery technology, grid-scale storage requires expensive upfront investments.
Solutions on demand
While researchers study these problems, the UK is developing an alternative known as demand-side response. One aspect involves rewarding certain electricity consumers for reducing their usage at short notice. This can range from large industrial customers to smaller consumers using power for heating rooms, cooling, lighting or even refrigeration.
The other aspect of demand response involves asking customers who own equipment that can store power to help balance surges in demand. For example, the owners of a house equipped with solar panels and corresponding battery storage might reduce repayment costs on the equipment by making the battery units available to the grid. Other equipment in this category includes electric vehicles and hospital/university uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units.
