Smart Grid Tutorial: What? Why? How? and Who?

This tutorial presentation will attempt to answer the titled questions: What are the smart grid opportunities for the chemical process industry? Why do these opportunities exist? How should a plant be operated to exploit these opportunities? Who will benefit from smart grid coordination?

Specifically, the notion of real-time electricity prices will be introduced and shown to be the result of power industry deregulation coupled with the expected increase in renewable power generation. Then, a number of examples will be presented to illustrate how real-time prices can be exploited. These will expose the software and hardware requirements as well as revenue increase expectations. Finally, the question of investment costs versus revenue gains will be discussed, and methods for assessing the net present value of a proposed smart grid project will be presented.