Management of a smart grid with controlled-delivery of discrete levels of energy

At time of energy shortage electrical grids may be exposed to consumption uncertainties, overloads and ultimately power failures. The main reason is that, at present, the response of the power provider to increasing demand is lagging after requests for power are made. In this paper, we examine a different request-supply approach where the amount of delivered power must be requested beforehand. The power is then supplied in compliance with the physical, economical, and management limits of the distribution loop (DT), and in accordance with scenarios, such as a sudden demand surge or supply shortage. As proposed recently, in the controllable-delivery power grid, delivery of electrical power is made through discrete power levels directly to customers. The customer's addresses are embedded in the electrical signal, and smart loads associated to customers curve the consumed power and provide reactive stability to the DTs. We analyze an approach for distributing electrical power, where the capacity of the DT is capped by the average of the requested power (and therefore introduces a very stringent requirement). In cases of power shortage, the DT is scheduled by using a round-robin model. We show that a DT can satisfy about 98% of power requests in scenarios of energy scarcity and beyond 99% by adding small safety margins. Further advantages are seen when unused energy is stored in local distributed storage elements (cloud storage) during supply surges and used in time of demand peaks. This grid proposal is advantageous for green power distribution because it enables a direct exchange of energy between customers and local suppliers at the discretion of the grid manager.