Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power Systems (IDAPS)

The electric power system is an enabling infrastructure that supports the operation of other critical infrastructures and thus the economic well-being of a nation. It is, therefore, very important to design for resiliency and autonomous reconfigurability in the electric power grid to guard against man-made and natural disasters. One way to assure such self-healing characteristics in an electric power system is to design for small and autonomous subsets of the larger grid. This paper presents the concept of a specialized microgrid called an intelligent distributed autonomous power system (IDAPS). The IDAPS microgrid aims at intelligently managing customer-owned distributed energy resources such that these assets can be shared in an autonomous grid both during normal and outage operations. The proposed concept is expected to make significant contributions during emergency conditions, as well as creating a new market for electricity transaction among customers.