12,233 research outputs found

    Foundations of Infrastructure CPS

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    Infrastructures have been around as long as urban centers, supporting a society’s needs for its planning, operation, and safety. As we move deeper into the 21st century, these infrastructures are becoming smart – they monitor themselves, communicate, and most importantly self-govern, which we denote as Infrastructure CPS. Cyber-physical systems are now becoming increasingly prevalent and possibly even mainstream. With the basics of CPS in place, such as stability, robustness, and reliability properties at a systems level, and hybrid, switched, and eventtriggered properties at a network level, we believe that the time is right to go to the next step, Infrastructure CPS, which forms the focus of the proposed tutorial. We discuss three different foundations, (i) Human Empowerment, (ii) Transactive Control, and (iii) Resilience. This will be followed by two examples, one on the nexus between power and communication infrastructure, and the other between natural gas and electricity, both of which have been investigated extensively of late, and are emerging to be apt illustrations of Infrastructure CPS

    Electricity Investment and Security of Supply in Liberalized Electricity Systems

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    Eliciting generation investment by decentralized profit-seeking private investors is a key goal of electricity liberalization. Debate rages regarding the ability of energy-only electricity markets to ensure that such investors provide generation investment as and when needed to ensure "the lights stay on."Many argue that despite theoretical predictions to the contrary energy-only markets will under-provide the requisite level of investment due to market imperfections that are either inherent (such as consumer resistance to real-time pricing) or imposed (such as price caps to curtail market power). Thenature of these imperfections is increasingly being debated with security of supply formerly being regarded as a public good but later analysis showing this is not the case (or even if it were why that need not necessitate intervention). Greater attention is now being paid to externalities associated with the provision of security of supply but evidence on the importance of such externalities is yet to be presented. Similarly lacking is evidence on the superiority of mechanisms often proposed or implemented to encourage investment in generation capacity where energy-only markets are thoughtto elicit inadequate investment. These mechanisms include capacity payments capacity obligations options-based capacity schemes and capacity subscriptions with load-limiting fuses. While the latter are argued to represent an elegant and non-distortionary means to encourage market-based securityof supply the other alternatives are shown to be conditionally optimal at best and in principle and practice subject to self-defeating features that can be bettered by refinements to energy-only market arrangements (greater demand-side responsiveness) and structural measures (vertical integration ofgeneration and energy retailing). By instead pursuing these alternative measures security of supply is more easily achieved electricity prices are less vulnerable to exploitation of generator market power and generation investment is more likely to arise. The need for price caps which then necessitate compensatory capacity mechanisms to elicit investment is then reduced. At the same time exposure to regulatory risk is lessened. Combining these measures with greater political and regulatory restraint is argued to provide a more stable and superior means to elicit the investment needed to provide the socially optimal security of supply addressing any market imperfections at source rather than introducing new mechanisms at least as much at risk of imperfection. The use of capacity mechanisms is argued to increase the risk that energy-only markets will fail to perform as expectedand required undermining the liberalisation process. As such they raise the prospect that governments and regulators concerned about security of supply will once again find themselves responsible for achieving it at consumers' and/or taxpayers' expense but with lesser prospect of success

    Shift, not drift : towards active demand response and beyond

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    Each semester the THINK project publishes two research reports based on topics proposed by the European Commission.Topic 11QM-01-13-151-EN-CQM-01-13-151-EN-NNowadays, the European electricity systems are evolving towards a generation mix that is more decentralised, less predictable and less dispatchable to operate. In this context, additional flexibility is expected to be provided by the demand side. Thus, how to engage consumers to participate in active demand response is becoming a pressing issue. This THINK report assesses how to realise this shift towards active consumers using a consumer-centred approach and does so from the perspective of contracts. On this basis, we recommend measures to be undertaken in the short-term, during the transition and in the long term, respectively, to achieve a full take-off of active demand response. The THINK project (2010-2013) is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Strategic Energy Technology Plan. (Call FP7-ENERGY-2009-2, Grant Agreement no: 249736). Coordinator: Prof. Jean-Michel Glachant and Prof. Leonardo Meeus, Florence School of Regulation, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute

    The gas chain: influence of its specificities on the liberalisation process. NBB Working Papers. No. 122, 16 November 2007

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    Like other network industries, the European gas supply industry has been liberalised, along the lines of what has been done in the United Kingdom and the United States, by opening up to competition the upstream and downstream segments of essential transmission infrastructure. The aim of this first working paper is to draw attention to some of the stakes in the liberalisation of the gas market whose functioning cannot disregard the network infrastructure required to bring this fuel to the consumer, a feature it shares with the electricity market. However, gas also has the specific feature of being a primary energy source that must be transported from its point of extraction. Consequently, opening the upstream supply segment of the market to competition is not so obvious in the European context, because, contrary to the examples of the North American and British gas markets, these supply channels are largely in the hands of external suppliers and thus fall outside the scope of EU legislation on the liberalisation and organisation of the internal market in gas. Competition on the downstream gas supply segment must also adapt to the constraints imposed by access to the grid infrastructure, which, in the case of gas in Europe, goes hand in hand with the constraint of dependence on external suppliers. Hence the opening to competition of upstream and downstream markets is not "synchronous", a discrepancy which can weaken the impact of liberalisation. Moreover, the separation of activities necessary for ensuring free competition in some segments of the market is coupled with major changes in the way the gas chain operates, with the appearance of new markets, new price mechanisms and new intermediaries. Starting out from a situation where gas supply was in the hands of vertically-integrated operators, the new regulatory framework that has been set up must, on the one hand, ensure that competitive forces can be given free rein, and, on the other hand, that free and fair competition helps the gas chain to operate coherently, at lower cost and in the interests of consumers, for whom the stakes are high as natural gas is an important input for many industrial manufacturing processes, even a "commodity" almost of basic necessity

    Grid Scale Battery Energy Storage Investment Potential - Analysis and Simulations of Frequency Control Markets in Germany and the UK

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    The need for energy storages in future power systems is acknowledged both in literature and in industry. Simultaneously battery energy storage technologies, especially Lithium-ion, are seen technologically relatively mature with favorable cost development. Whereas frequency control markets provide exploitable commercial and technical framework for battery investment. Nevertheless, true commercial viability is still uncertain in leading European markets in Germany and the UK. The purpose of the study was to provide complete and comparative market analysis and demonstrated prospective investment profitability outcomes for grid scale battery energy storages in Germany and the UK. In addition, the study aimed to show required conditions for desired investment performances. The study explored investment potential in primary frequency control market in Germany and enhanced frequency response market in the UK by analyzing market attractiveness from multiple aspects. The countries were ranked based on the analyzed aspects by Analytical Hierarchy Process. Finally, financial Monte Carlo investment simulations with revenue and cost uncertainties were performed. Simulations also provided required conditions for profitability. Analyzed data was based on historical market data, performed online market research and literature. Key findings of the study revealed that the chosen markets form suitable commercial framework for battery investments, but Germany shows clearly higher potential. However, the potential was questionable since both markets face significant challenges especially in financial sense. The concerns were confirmed by the simulations which suggested around 1–5 % and -3–3 % internal rate of return levels for Germany and the UK respectively. In addition, reaching 6 % return was seen very challenging whilst over 10 % return levels seemed unrealistic in the UK and extremely optimistic for Germany. The overall conclusion was that battery energy storage investment in either of the markets cannot currently be justified primarily by financial returns but needs strategic support.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format
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