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Center for Advanced Power Systems
Smart Power
 CAPS Director Steinar Dale [Photo: FSU Photo Lab] |
The Center for Advanced Power Systems at Florida State University does research focused on creating a “smart grid” — a future energy supply system in which power is generated from multiple sources. The center also is working with a consortium of universities to develop an all-electric Navy ship.
The center’s research is focused on balancing power loads and making sure that power gets from a generator to a user safely and reliably. Some experiments seek to ensure that electricity from solar and other sources of renewable energy can be transported long distances and be integrated into local utilities’ power systems, taking into account the idiosyncrasies of each power source. The center has used its 5-megawatt real-time digital simulator, for example, to model clouds passing over a solar energy array and to pinpoint problems within an electrical grid. Last year, a Western utility came to CAPS with a controller device that was failing to prevent damaging power spikes among 80 windmills that generate electricity. CAPS measured the controller’s performance within a computer model that simulated the entire windmill farm. CAPS identified a coding problem in the controller’s software and was able to identify other devices within the utility’s power grid that required modification.
Center Director Steinar Dale spoke with Florida Trend about the center’s work:
Florida Trend: What is the smart grid?
Steinar Dale: The smart grid is hard to define. Some people define the smart grid as essentially the smart meter, which provides the utility with information about electric loads (usage) in the house, providing two-way communication into the house. It allows the customer to see where he is using his electric power. It can be allowed to turn off appliances and so on to reduce the peak loads of utilities, so a utility won’t need to start peak-load generators such as gas generators, which are expensive to run for short periods of time.
FT: In simple terms, how does your center conduct research that affects the smart grid?
 Rendering: CAPS is working on an all-electric Navy ship. |
FT: How does your work for the Navy play a role in this?
SD: The future Navy ship power grids system is probably the ultimate smart grid, the ultimate micro-grid. It requires considerably more knowledge about the behavior of that grid than you need in a terrestrial system. You have a lot of changing loads at all times in this grid, but a fixed set of generation. And you always have to try to meet the load, and you have to be sure the generation stays stable. So I think the Navy research is very much in the forefront of what our utility grid will look like in the future.
FT: Where is this technology and research taking us in the future?
SD: The electric car has storage capacity. If everybody comes home at 5 o’clock with a half-empty or almost empty battery and plugs it in, you will see the grid crash. So we have to develop intelligence to deal with that. The car comes in and says, ‘I’m only half-empty. I don’t need to be charged now. I can be charged at 8 o’clock at night for example.’ If you can distribute that (energy use) over a period of time ... even the present grid would be able to handle that too.”
