ISGAN advances smart grids

ISGAN (International Smart Grid Action Network) has launched new initiatives to advance smart grids globally.

A new ‘Lighthouse Project’ entitled ‘Electricity network planning and implementation under uncertainty for the clean energy transition: The roles of smart distribution grids in energy systems’ is aimed to initiate closer collaboration between the Networks’ six working groups to address smart distribution grids.

In particular the project should unite the working groups around the goal of planning smart distribution grids to support the clean energy transition.

With distribution crucial for changes such as electric vehicles and heat pumps, a holistic approach is needed to configure smart grids and leverage flexibility at the distribution level, an ISGAN statement comments.

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“The Lighthouse Project will identify specific activities and stakeholders to address these challenges. By pooling the expertise within ISGAN, we can make meaningful contributions to global smart grid development.”

Scoping for the project has begun and it is anticipated that bringing together the working groups and stakeholders will spark new ideas.

The six working groups are on Communications, Benefit and Cost Analyses, Smart Grid International Research Facility Network, Power T&D Systems, Smart Grid Transitions, and Flexibility Markets – Development and Implementation

Brazil joins ISGAN

In other news Brazil has become the latest member of ISGAN, with the country formalising its membership during the COP28 meeting in Dubai.

Brazil was represented by Luiz Carlos Ciocchi, CEO, and Christiano Vieira da Silva, Operations Director, of the country’s National Electric System Operator (ONS).

With Brazil’s membership – the first from Latin America – ISGAN’s reach is expanded across all the continents and the country has promised to broaden the Network’s perspective on integrating high shares of renewables and facilitating regional energy trade.

“We have now acquired a very valuable Brazilian partner that can assist ISGAN in comprehending and addressing grid challenges alongside innovation-specific needs, with a focus on South American countries,” said Luciano Martini, Chair of ISGAN.

New vice-chair of ISGAN

The other recent news is that Dr John K Ward, Research Director of the Energy Systems Research Programme at Australia’s CSIRO, has been elected as a vice chair of the ISGAN Executive Committee

In that role he joins the three other vice chairs, Russell Conklin from the US Department of Energy, Arun Kumar Mishra, Director of India’s National Smart Grid Mission, and Wickie Lassen Agdal, advisor and project coordinator at the Danish Energy Agency.

Ward’s work has focussed on facilitating increased uptake of renewable energy and improving the utilisation of infrastructure to allow this transition.

One example of this has been through incorporating the CSIRO Renewable Energy Integration Facility (REIF) as a member of the IEA’s Smart Grid International Research Facility Network (SIRFN), which is reported as having helped international laboratories adopt a more consistent unified framework for evaluating the relative merits of various inverter standards and helping lift global best practice.

Ward aims to help ISGAN improve international collaboration – avoiding duplication and accelerating progress through knowledge sharing, including with countries that have not traditionally been part of such collaborations.