In the world of electricity the Smart Grid is the buzzing technology for some years now. Introduction of large shares of (renewable) decentralized energy sources and a trend towards electrification of demand will have a serious impact on the current top-down oriented energy infrastructure.
The intermittent behavior of renewable energy sources requires flexible energy sources and energy storage to balance out fluctuations. Also, the introduction of electric transportation and heat pumps requires coordination in order to prevent peak loads and therefore unnecessary investments in the grid. The complete energy supply chain will thus become completely bi-directional.
Not only the grid is influenced by these trends: market roles will also change. Consumers will become producers, selling their home-generated power to the grid. New market parties can enter the supply chain, like commercial aggregator. Key to the full exploitation of these concepts is the coordination of both supply and demand using advanced ICT technology.
In this changing energy landscape gas can play an important role of supporting the electricity grid by offering the required storage flexibility that the electricity grid
lacks. Simultaneously, trends that have called for smart electricity grids can also be identified for the gas industry. Examples include the need for two-way flow mandated by distributed generation and its gas equivalent local feed-in of biogas and the varying power quality caused by distributed generators versus varying gas quality of new gasses such as SNG. Will these trends call for smart gas grids also and what will they look like?
In the track 'Smart Energy Systems' we have gathered experts who will set out their vision and experience on this subject. The track is split into four sessions, each dealing with one aspect of the smart energy system:
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Network: focusing on intelligent solutions for the electricity grid, enabling two- way flow of electricity and smart control of appliances to lower the peak load.
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Energy: focusing on new markets and energy applications.
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End user: focusing on the changing role of the end-user from a consumer to a producing consumer: 'the prosumer'.
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Smart Gas Grids: focusing on the role of gas in the energy system of the future.
In all sessions we have found experts that will discuss the subject from different points of views, ranging from a more fundamental and conceptual level, via experiences from (demonstration) projects to new innovative products and services.
We believe that the track 'Smart Energy Systems' gives a good overview of the current state of the art in this rapidly changing and exciting area. We therefore encourage participants in this session to actively join in the discussion on the energy system of the future.
