Emerging impacts of end-use technologies for power system planning and operation

Increasing concerns over climate change, volatile energy costs, competitive pressure and particularly the rapid development of information technology (IT) and telecommunication technology are grooming more decentralized and innovative end-use applications in the power networks. Technologies such as smart metering, demand response, intelligent buildings, tri-generation, virtual power plants and the smart grid vision are gaining not only attention but also investment interests around the world. This paper presents an overview of the emerging technologies aiming towards a low carbon environment, its implications and challenges of deploying and integrating such new technologies to system operation and planning. In particular, we will discuss how the traditional power system can reduce its carbon footprint with the help of these emerging technologies as well as how it will need to transform in order to suit a more decentralized, end-use and IT driven ways of operation.