IEEE DEAS Workshop
Collocated with IEEE Empower a Billion Lives Americas Regional Competition
We think of Energy Access as only applicable to people who live in Africa or South Asia in extreme energy poverty. While the 1.1 Billion people who live off-grid with absolutely no electricity access are top-of-mind, there are a host of other communities that struggle with the exact same underlying technological challenges – for example, people living in islands or coastal communities that experience an extreme weather event, forward army bases, or even new residential subdivisions. Recognizing this common technology thread, and the imperative need for robust cost-effective solutions in the area of Energy Access, the IEEE Power Electronics Society has launched a major initiative in the area of energy access: a recurring workshop focused on developing Decentralized Energy Access Solutions (DEAS).
Decentralized energy access solutions are becoming an increasingly important component of the electricity infrastructure. The need for decentralized energy solutions is well recognized and is reflected in continued deployments and in the ongoing technical activities on microgrids, solar home systems, and forward army bases. However, most of the solutions that have been reported in the literature tend to be centralized in architecture and control. With the proliferation of intelligent grid-edge devices, which can work autonomously and provide local/global control, the question of the architecture and control principles of systems incorporating such devices becomes one of paramount importance. The impact of such decentralized systems on the resilience of the grid, the ability to restore power from the bottom-up as well as from the top-down, may have a huge impact on critical factors such as power-restoration times following catastrophic high-impact low-frequency (HILF) weather events. Finally, a decentralized and fractal grid architecture may dramatically reduce capital and operating costs for green-field energy infrastructure in emerging markets, allowing them to leap-frog older systems with lower-cost and improved performance.
Many possible constituencies can be identified who would benefit from the development and deployment of cost-effective scalable decentralized energy access solutions. Some are shown below:
| Category | Application | Value | Key Technology Issues |
| Resilient Energy Communities | -Island and Coastal Communities w/ HILF Weather Events | -Maintain Critical Service Under HILF Events
-Faster Restoration |
-Design for Resiliency
-DER Integration, Local Back-up -Restore Grid from Bottom-up |
| Advanced Energy Communities | -Industry Campus
-Commercial Campus -Residential Subdivision -Coops/Munis |
-Energy Arbitrage
-Demand Management -Resiliency -System Optimization |
-DER Integration
-Decentralized Control -Real-Time Pricing -Bump-less Grid Connect |
| Off-Grid Energy Access | -Single Homes – Tier 2
-Village Level -Integrate w/ Poor Grid -Light Business/Industry |
-Grow System w/ Need
-Reduce Investment -Flexible & Expandable -Pay-Go, Low-Cost |
-DER Integration
-Decentralized Control -Real-Time Pricing/Market -Low-Skill Workforce |
| Rapidly Deployable Ad-hoc Power System | -Forward Army Base
-Temporary Grid -Refugee Camps |
-Flexible & Expandable
-Rapid Deployment -Mobile/Transportable |
-Generator/Battery/PV
-Control, Transients -Low-Skill Workforce |
EVENT DATES:
Feb 5-Feb 7, 2019
Important Dates:
Submission deadline (Extended):
December 10, 2018
Notification of acceptance:
December 16, 2018
Final papers submission deadline:
January 15, 2019