Massively Digitized Power Grid: Opportunities, Dangers, and Challenges

Driven by major trends such as decarbonization and electrification of vehicles, the electric power sector across the globe is moving to a future where massive digitization and information flow is used to compensate for the resulting reduced operating reserves. Such digitization presents both major opportunities and major dangers. Exploiting the former while combatting the latter will require an appropriate combination of market mechanisms and regulatory frameworks to realize technological solutions that are becoming available. Xie will illustrate the opportunities presented by digitization through a risk-quantifiable, market-clearing mechanism that incorporates massive renewables and aggregates demand response from individual end users. He will also examine the dangers of digitization with a look at cyberattacks on automatic generation control (AGC) in power systems through malicious interception and manipulation of information flow over feedback loops. For both, Xie will present technological solutions. The challenge that arises is the development of an appropriate framework of market mechanisms and regulations so that the needed investments are made by the appropriate stakeholders to implement the technological solutions, and thus realize the potential of the massively digitized power grid.