Post written by: Tina Maria Ziegler. DPU alumna 2009

Recently I heard quite a lot about so called Smart Grids. Might be because I’m an engineer for renewable energies, but I guess more so because it actually appears to become more and more the new development model for future energy management. And it seems that particularly in many emerging countries it is a big topic. China claims to be pioneering in that area, India tries to chase its electricity thieves with it and all over Brazil workshops and conferences about those grids can be found. So I was wondering: What is actually a Smart Grid?

The majority of what can be found online to this topic is in fact intelligent metering, meaning that in my house I or somebody else will be able to control when energy goes to which electrical appliance in order to save energy and therefore reduce costs, increase transparency and reliability. However, Smart Grid is much more than that. It’s all about communication. Actually it’s an international umbrella term for intelligent grid technology. This means, that all parts of an energy grid, from the producing plant (powered by traditional or renewable energy sources) and grid appliances to the energy consuming end devices in my home will be enabled to communicate. Of course with the help of the latest information and communication technologies. But why do they have to communicate?

Actually there are several reasons. So far I find the following most important: Globally the future energy generating landscape will be more and more renewable and therefore fluctuating. Energy is generated when the sun shines, the wind blows or the tide is being a tide. Therefore it is far less controllable like coal or nuclear power plants are. So, it’s impossible to switch off, or reduce the wind. Of course one could switch off the wind turbine, but this is not what we want. We want this green energy for cooking, showering and air-conditioning. Wouldn’t it be much nicer when our electric car is being charged while the sun shines the strongest? And in the case of shortages of electricity. Wouldn’t it be nice if the neighbourhoods in India don’t have to completely abstain from electricity in case of a shortage, but the lights would still continue to burn? And precisely to realise this, to shift the load flexibly through the grid, all of the parts have to communicate.

So what does all this have to do with development? Well, I think that particularly in countries still developing and further expanding their electricity grids using decentralised renewable energy sources (particularly in rural areas) these smart grids are great to leapfrog towards a more energy efficient and cleaner future. But to be honest I still have many open questions particularly regarding the cost of the systems and the incentives for the energy utility companies to implement a system which actually saves energy and therefore reduces the bills of the users, and of course there is the question of protection of privacy of the end user.