IST Lunch Bunch

  The penetration of both distributed energy resources (DER), such as photovoltaic panels and smart buildings, as well as Internet-connected sensors, computing devices and actuators is accelerating worldwide.  The confluence of these two trends points to a future where there are billions of DER, as well as sensing, computing, communication, and storage devices throughout our electricity infrastructure, from generation to transmission and distribution to end use.  Unlike most endpoints   today which are merely passive loads, these DER are active endpoints that not only consume, but can also generate, sense, compute, communicate, and actuate. They will create both a severe risk and a tremendous opportunity: a large network of DER introducing rapid, large, frequent, and random fluctuations in power supply and demand, voltage and frequency, and our increased capability to coordinate and optimize their operation in real time.   In this talk, I will describe some of these  challenges and research to overcome them.