Prof. Pedro H. J. Nardelli, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland, speaks about Moving from Current Liberalized Energy Markets towards a Fossil-fuel Free Energy Internet

Abstract: 
The development of information and energy technologies allows  for an energy system fully supplied by renewable sources. This talk discuss about the Energy Internet as a large-scale cyber-physical system that virtualizes electric energy in packets to manage supply and demand, considering storage and flexible consumption. This approach has been used for specific loads as water boilers and electric vehicles via packet requests to an energy server, which grants them or not depending on the management rules. This concept has been  consistently proved at smaller scales, but there are still challenges to be solved if this approach is to become dominant. Management algorithms shall be developed to handle the combinatorial allocation problem of the server’s decisions while satisfying both the physical grid limits and users’ service requirements. My research focuses on technological and regulatory issues related to non-industrial scenarios that would allow the Energy Internet to emerge, grow and then become the dominant way of governing energy systems, superseding the current electricity markets by 2050. In the technological realm, distributed energy management algorithms will be developed and wireless communication systems investigated so as to guarantee the diverse requirements imposed by the applications. The focus is on machine-type communications following the current research in (beyond) 5G technologies, mainly massive connectivity, low latency and ultra-reliability. We are currently studying the most efficient deployments, from data acquisition to end-application, based on traffic modelling, short message communication, random-access and statistical signal reconstruction. In relation to regulation, the research will test how governance models may affect the layout and deployment of the management algorithm, and how different algorithms can co-exist so that the power quality and security of supply are ensured. Agent-based models will be used to study the conditions that would allow for a smooth transition from the today’s electricity market to the fossil-fuel-free Energy Internet by 2050.

Bio: