Inter-operability and integration constraints in sustainable power grid

A sustainable power grid should be able to provide both environmental and economical advantages in electricity energy generation, consumption, and transaction facilitations. The smart grid inter-operability structure should be able to sustain with future energy market designs, flexible energy transactions, and new energy technologies, such as electric cars, dispersed generation, and highly penetrated renewable energy resources. Smart grid will provide more visibility and operability for relatively small scale generation/load assets into the energy markets. From today´s bulk power system point of view, immediate challenges faced today include operation model identification, control signal and control schema, as well as metering solutions, which are usually with tariff regulated options. Natural resource constraints could become more sensitive factors on power grid expansions and electricity demand changes. For example, the accumulated wind power resources far away from load centers could lose their economic advantages with high transmission upgrade cost. Further, in recent practices, we have seen that the constructability of transmission projects is facing more and more environmental constraints on right-of-way options. Power engineers are not only responsible for reliable integrations, but also under the pressure of maintaining sustainable grid expansions to meet future demand growth. Practical projects and field experiences will be reviewed along with framework discussions.