A Smart Grid is a form of electricity network utilizing digital technology. Smart Grid delivers
electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital communications to control
appliances at consumer level. This saves energy, reduces costs and increases reliability and
transparency.
In existing (centralized) power grid, the basic principle of transferring energy from power plant
to a large number of users cannot often meet the increase in demand. To resolve this problem,
the trend is to seamlessly integrate the sources of renewable energy, and allow distributed power
generation. This necessitates a scalable grid structure connecting distributed sources of energy
supply and consumers, and offers better disruption resilience.
However, there are a number of open research problems in designing practical Smart Grid. The
main difference between a traditional grid and a smart grid is that the latter relies more on
communication between consumers, suppliers, smart devices and applications. The power
networks and information networks shall be integrated into Smart Grid network for bidirectional
data flow, control flow and energy flows. Other open research problems include: price driven
real-time demand response; disruption resilience with self-healing; management of intermittent
power supplies; dynamic pricing; reduction in energy loss; and scheduling of power consumption
to constrain peak load.
To investigate various other research problems and enable the development, analysis, evaluation
of efficacious algorithm and protocol as a solutions to these problems, it is essential to build the
Smart Grid Lab test-bed. State-of-the-art Smart Grid design needs innovation in a number of
dimensions: distributed and dynamic network with two-way information and energy
transmission, seamless integration of renewable energy sources, management of intermittent
power supplies, real-time demand response, and energy pricing strategy. To realize these, the
research work is aimed for designing a wireless Smart Grid test-bed to help the Smart Grid
research community analyze and evaluate their designs. Through this it is possible to contrive
novel protocols in the lab environment and hence it is possible to get equipped with real time
problems and their remedies in lab environment. The set up can be extended to render training
young technologists, researchers from various institutions across India through Faculty
Development Schemes. Such thought process could stimulate research community in-house and
other reputed institutions to be encouraged and involve the development of smart grid in our
nation.
Amount: Rs. 20 Lakhs
