On a warm afternoon in August 2003, a high-voltage power line in a rural area of Ohio brushed against some untrimmed trees, tripping a relay that turned off the power it was carrying. As system operators tried to understand what was happening, three other lines sagged into trees and were also shut down, forcing other power lines to shoulder the extra burden until they also tripped off, starting a cascade of failures throughout southeastern Canada and eight northeastern U.S. states.
All told, 50 million customers lost power for up to two days in the biggest blackout in North American history. For many, this blackout served as a wake-up call signaling the fragility of our electric energy grid.
Almost 10 years later, our electric power system continues to be challenged, by increasing demands of a digital society, the need to accommodate renewable energy generation, growing threats to infrastructure security and concerns over global climate change. The technology for a smart grid – with a two-way flow of electricity and information between utilities and consumers – could help address these challenges, but technical, regulatory and financial obstacles have slowed its deployment.
Researchers at Georgia Tech are helping advance the smart grid. They are developing technologies, creating methodologies and analyzing policies that will allow for integration of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles into the grid, with dynamic electricity pricing, and improved assessment and monitoring of the grid and its components. The researchers are supported by research resources that include the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI).
SEI provides the infrastructure and environment for research initiatives that improve the sustainability, affordability and reliability of the entire energy cycle – from generation to distribution to use.
“Sustainable and reliable electric energy provided at reasonable cost is essential to the economic future of our state, region and nation,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive director of SEI. “In collaboration with our industry partners, Georgia Tech is helping advance smart grid and related technologies that will help address the challenges of meeting this demand.”
Examining the Effect of Electric Vehicles on the Grid
Bert Bras, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, is collaborating with Ford Motor Company to examine how to optimize the driving and charging habits of people using Ford’s C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrids. To complete his assessment, Bras will use data from Ford’s MyFord Mobile app that provides real-time battery charge status and automatically schedules recharging at lower-cost, off-peak times.
Earlier research by Bras found that charging electric vehicles when renewables are online would be beneficial to the water supply because generating power from wind and solar sources requires significantly less water than traditional coal or nuclear power plants. This study was published in the December 2012 issue of the journal Energy Policy and was supported by the National Science Foundation and Georgia Tech’s University Transportation Center.
Bras is also collaborating with Ford on its MyEnergi Lifestyle initiative. The project, which launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2013, showcases how combining renewable energy generation with time-flexible loads optimizes energy consumption in homes with plug-in vehicles and smarter, more-efficient home appliances. Bras, School of Mechanical Engineering professor Chris Paredis and School of Architecture professor Godfried Augenbroe created a computer model that calculates the electricity use of a typical family in their home for one year.
The researchers’ model predicted a 60 percent reduction in energy costs and a 55 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from a single home by exchanging a gasoline car for an electric vehicle, adding a small photovoltaic array, and shifting activities – such as charging a plug-in vehicle or running a dishwasher – to off-peak nighttime or early-morning hours.
Read what other Georgia Tech researchers are doing to buid the future power grid.
Georgia Tech Research News
Contacts
John Toon 404-894-6986
Brett Israel 404-385-1933
Photography: Gary Meek