DISPOWER

The European power systems and electricity markets are undergoing major changes, facing the challenge to provide electricity economically, reliably and ecologically sound, while being more efficient and securing future supply. A combination of quite different driving forces change the economic, social and technical environment electricity producers, traders, manufacturers and customers are faced with. This refers to the liberalisation of markets, the unbundling of utilities, the increased use of renewable energy sources (RES) and distributed generation (DG), such as combined heat and power (CHP) for increased efficiency and less environmental impact and, last but not least, new technologies for the generation and distribution of electricity. In turn with these changes, the interaction between energy systems for electricity, heat/cold, gas and even process media like steam or pressurised air gets more and more intense - for efficiency and economic reasons. All in all, the structure of power systems evolves from a centralised one into a much more decentralised one.

This trend leads to numerous technical and non-technical challenges. For maintaining a reliable and cost effective energy supply, new efforts have to be undertaken for the management of energy networks, the integration of RES and DG in the distribution networks, for generation and load management and for a range of other technical and socioeconomic aspects of decentralised energy markets like the provision of test infrastructure and training programs for operators of power systems. The Dispower project was carried out in order to support the transition from current energy supply towards a more decentralised and market oriented supply structure. New concepts, strategies and tools have been developed and implemented in order to improve the production and distribution of electricity under new constraints, supporting the opening of new opportunities in a growing electricity market.

Figure 1 illustrates the trend towards decentralisation that can be seen in today’s electricity networks. In conventional grid structures, electricity is fed into the grid at high voltage levels by relatively few, large power stations, and is brought to the consumer via several intermediate grid levels. As generation becomes more widely distributed, the number of electricity sources increases and the direction of flow can be reversed. The distribution grids assume the function of transporting electricity in different directions and become service providers between generators and consumers. In this scenario, central power stations will continue to exist, but in addition there will be a large number of smaller, distributed systems. This change in structure demands the coordination of the operation of a large number of systems and the electricity networks. Thus, the importance of information and communication technology for energy systems will further increase.