Harold Vincent Poor

ist, dass die anwendungsorientierte Grundlagenforschung ein besseres Verständnis
der zugrunde liegenden Physik und Quantenmechanik ermöglicht, und zwar bis
hinunter auf die atomare Skala. Richard Feynman muss mit seiner Skepsis auf
Dauer keineswegs recht behalten.
Danksagung: Ich bedanke mich herzlich bei Dr. Philip Willke für seine Bei-
träge zu diesem Text.
Harold Vincent Poor
„Smart Grid: The Internet of Energy"
Gesamtsitzung am 16. Juli 2022
The electric power grid is one of the most important infrastructures for society,
as many other critical infrastructures rely on it. At the end of the 20th Century, the
U. S. National Academy of Engineering looked back at the greatest engineering
achievements of the Century, and electrification was ranked at the top of its list of
such achievements. Today, in the 21st Century, the grid is evolving to respond to
new challenges including the need to reduce the earbon footprint of electric energy
production, which is one of the largest uses of energy worldwide. Smart grid is a
major part of that evolution.
Traditionally, the electric grid has been a centralized System, in which large
generation plants produce electricity, which is delivered over a network of trans-
mission and distribution lines to consumers - i. e., energy flows in one direction.
This model is being disrupted by the introduction of increasing amounts of distri-
buted energy generation, driven largely by the need to move to a greater reliance on
renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind. This distribution of generation
has led to a need for greater cyber infrastructure to maintain grid stability in the
presence of many intermittent power sources. And, beyond the Integration of re-
newables, the introduction of such infrastructure can also lead to greater efficiency
and resilience ofthc grid as well as to a more consumer-centric grid. Smart grid is
a term applied to this emerging generation of electricity grids that overlay the more
traditional electromechanical grid of generators, loads, relays, and other physical
resources, with a cyber layer of communication networks, sensors, Controls and
other cyber capabilities, in order to achieve these objectives.
This evolution requires rethinking of many aspects of the electric power Sys-
tem Operation and the development of new technologies to enable the transition
to a smart grid. Some of the main areas of technology development include new

79