Secure Grid Transformation: Connecting the “Grid of Things” to the “Grid of People” Using a Secure Transactive Energy Framework

The vision of the proposed project is to increase energy generation and improve Qatar energy resilience by integrating and thus radically transforming the building and electric power industries. This will achieve by autonomous yet connected energy management solutions for buildings and communities. With this vision, we address the “engineering disconnects” between the building industry and electric grid sectors which severely limits the energy resilience of our society. This fragmentation is responsible for the lack of integrated energy management systems at both building and community levels that enable seamless integration and coordination across buildings, communities, and the electrical grid. To successfully transform the building industry and electric power sectors into intelligent cyber-physical-socioeconomic systems, a high degree of integration is required among scientific research, technology development, policy formulation, and business case development. To overcome this challenge, this proposal will apply cyber-physical-socioeconomic transactive energy framework to design, operate and manage self-contained, smart, secure, connected communities weaving together people, services, community assets, and information into a single pervasive solution that promotes energy resilience, forming the basis of an ultra-low-cost and resilient local power network system. The community will comprise smart buildings equipped with distributed energy resources such as distributed storage, distributed generation, demand flexibility and energy efficiency (Physical) effectively forming a local power network, and with Internet of Things (IoTs) to supply data needed by the agent-based, networked power-management system (Cyber) to facilitate real-time energy sharing (economic) among the constituent members within and between the energy hubs (Social). This system could (1) turn buildings from passive energy consumers into intelligent, active energy storage and service providers for the future grid; (2) improve overall grid reliability, security, and resilience as buildings can now rely on other buildings, rather than solely the grid, for energy services; (3) transform the traditional boundaries between producers, distributors and customers; and (4) provide greater choice, real-time interaction and sharing, always-on connection, higher transparency, and ultimately maximum value for both consumers and utilities. Our focus on transforming building energy systems is timely, both nationally and globally, as the developing world is expected to urbanize ~2.5–3.0 billion people in the next 20–30 years, creating a surge of mixed-use, high-density communities that blend residential, commercial, cultural, industrial, and other uses. The Qatar electrical grid is a vast just-in-time machine that requires constant load balancing; it is not designed to sustain significant disruptions. Given that the majority of the power grid exists above ground, severe weather events frequently cause such local failures. This is an indication of the growing vulnerability of the nation’s power system. To prevent any types of failure, emphasis on cybersecurity at the community level to enhance the resilience of building and electric power infrastructures is required, as the traditional centralized energy networks have proven vulnerable to disproportionately large-scale, regional blackouts caused by targeted attacks. The overall grid is exposed to risks that can be either accidental or intentional caused by economic reasons, industrial espionage, and terrorism. What is more, energy resilience is further challenged by system-level inefficiencies which put an increased constraint on supply during times of increased energy demand as well as create a financial burden on the consumer. This trend, driven by population and economic growth, is set to continue despite rising efficiency of both energy production and consumption. To improve the energy resilience of a community, the power grid is facing the significant penetration of distributed energy resources at the building level. Yet, one of the key challenges is coordinating the high levels of distributed energy resources which can change the behavior of the grid, with potential undesirable effects on the grid stability and power quality. This necessitates transformative approaches to coordinate the large number of distributed energy resources since the role of the grid is evolving beyond supplying electricity and becoming a platform that also maximizes the value of distributed energy resources. These approaches also need to handle the inherent high uncertainty in the renewable generation and to involve customers and producers to actively participate. Myriad opportunities exist to dramatically increase community energy performance (e.g., improve energy reliability, reduced environmental impacts, and increased resilience against disruptive events) by enhancing responsiveness to changing conditions (autonomy) and introducing flexible energy-sharing capabilities among systems within and among energy hubs and between communities (connectivity). We envision an innovative smart and connected communities in which buildings are conceived as distributed nodes of integrated energy generation, storage, and utilization—capable of transactive energy exchange with their neighbors and utilities. These communities will have a distributed, hierarchical framework for resilience, starting with a self-governing building that is embedded within a mixed-use community of interacting buildings, forming local and regional power networks with load diversity and flexibility. The resulting hierarchical layers of energy management create a secure and resilient system that is responsive to local dynamic conditions and abrupt changes in nodal connectivity. This vision, properly executed, can have a transformative impact across Qatar and in much of the urbanizing world.

Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)