Synchronized and Democratized Smart Grids To Underpin The Third Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Power systems are going through a paradigm change. Centralized large generating facilities are being replaced with millions of widely dispersed, incompatible, non-synchronous and relatively small renewable or alternative power plants, plug-in EVs, and energy storage units. Moreover, the majority of loads are expected to actively regulate system stability as well. This paradigm change, called the democratization of power systems, is comparable to the great historical event of personal computers replacing mainframes in the technology domain or republics replacing monarchies in the political domain. In this paper, some concepts and principles in politics are borrowed to study power systems. The term synchronized and democratized smart grid (in short, SYNDEM) is coined and the most fundamental features of a democratized society, i.e., the rule of law and the legal equality, are established for SYNDEM. The synchronization mechanism of synchronous machines is identified as the natural rule of law to govern SYNDEM and the legal equality is achieved via operating power electronic converters as virtual synchronous machines (VSM) to homogenize all heterogeneous players. Then, a lateral system architecture is presented to implement SYNDEM. This actually offers a technical solution to realize the lateral power to underpin The Third Industrial Revolution envisioned by Jeremy Rifkin. As a result, all active players in a grid, large or small, conventional or renewable, supplying or consuming, can equally and laterally regulate the grid in a synchronous manner to enhance the stability, scalability, operability, reliability, security and resiliency of future power systems. Live discussions and future updates on this subject are available via joining the LinkedIn group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7061909.