A Greenfield Approach for Future Power Systems

Recent developments in electric power system technology, power electronics, and information technology motivate researchers to reconsider today’s power delivery systems. Emerging technologies for transmission, conversion and storage of energy constitute an opportunity for power system improvement. Traditional systems are not deemed to meet future requirements in terms of economic and environmental sustainability. Therefore the authors’ institution initiated a research project entitled Vision of Future Energy Networks that aims at a greenfield approach for future power systems; this means that boundary conditions given by today’s systems are basically neglected in order to achieve better overall system performance. In this project emphasis is put on the use of multiple energy carriers (not only electricity) and distributed energy resources for energy conversion and storage. The visionary concept is based on two key elements. Converters and storage devices are integrated in so-called energy hubs. These hubs are supplied by various energy infrastructures and deliver power to loads consuming different forms of energy. The second novel approach concerns the combined transmission of different energy carriers in one device, which is called energy interconnector. Electricity and gaseous (e.g. hydrogen) energy carriers can be transported together in this underground transmission element. The whole energy system is then designed using energy hubs, interconnectors, and conventional elements. Since only a few established tools are available for the analysis of such systems, the project focused in a first phase on developing a modeling framework. Besides detailed component models for interconnector and storage devices, power flow and reliability models have been developed for system analysis. These models as well as approaches for economical evaluation were used in a number of case studies. The results generally show increased system performance in terms of cost, environmental impact, reliability of supply, but also in other aspects.