The general call for papers can be found here.

IEEE SmartGridComm Symposium on
Virtual Power Plants, Distributed Generation, Microgrids, Renewables and Storage

Symposium Co-chairs

Prof. Lieven Vandevelde, Ghent University, Belgium (chair)
Prof. Gary W. Chang, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
Prof. Paolo Tenti, University of Padova, Italy

Scope and Motivation

The increasing use of intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, poses formidable challenges to existing power networks world-wide. The use of these relatively new energy sources has stimulated research and pilot projects into how they might be successfully incorporated into legacy networks relying almost exclusively on turbine-based electric generators using coal, gas, nuclear and hydraulic power. Their relatively small size and capacity make them attractive for use closer to the consumer. Small groups of such sources may be configured in island form as self-contained microgrids providing energy to a self-contained group of consumers or, on demand, connected, as virtual power plants, to the overall power grid itself. Their intermittent source of energy may also require storage as part of the microgrid or virtual power plant. Mobility may play a significant role in the use of these sources as well, particularly as the concept of electric cars requiring periodic charging begins to take hold.

It is clear that communication will play a significant role in the implementation and control of such virtual power plants and microgrids. Thought is being given to layered management control systems locally, within a microgrid, as well as more centralized control. What communication techniques should be adopted? Should the internet be used, with security issues clearly very significant, should power-line communication be used, or are special communication networks better? Should wire-line or wireless communications, whether Wi-Fi or 4G be used? What data will be communicated or locally measured for the control of virtual power plants and microgrids? Papers on these and other communication and control methods are solicited for this symposium.

Topics of Particular interest

Original papers are solicited on the above mentioned issues. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, all aspects of communications and control in the following areas:

• Flexible power plants able to operate in both grid-connected and islanded mode
• Operation and control of power electronics systems
• New trends on power electronic systems for MicroGrid and Virtual Power Plant applications
• Issues related to the mitigation of intermittent supply of renewable, e.g. solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave power, etc.
• Distributed decision making for smart grids control
• Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants
  • Adaptive communication-based protection
  • Communication-based robust control
  • Power management strategies
  • Protection, fault monitoring and predictive maintenance
  • Modeling and simulation
  • Planning and configuration
  • Supervision, management, security, and hierarchical control
  • Large scale integration of microgeneration into low-voltage Grids
  • Microgrids during emergency, islanding, and black start
• Distributed generation
  • Power electronic converters with special functionalities: active power filtering, power quality, load-sharing, islanding operation, or fault ride-through.
  • Microturbines, (small) wind turbines, photovoltaic, fuel cells, CCHP and hybrid systems, for autonomous or grid-connected applications
• Effects of distributed generation on the management of low-voltage networks
• Distributed storage energy systems:
  • UPS systems
  • Batteries
  • Hydrogen and fuel cells
  • Compressed air devices
  • Superconductor magnetic energy storage
  • Flywheels

Submission Guidelines

Submission deadlines and format requirements are the same for all symposia, see here
Paper submission needs to be performed through EDAS: http://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=10483

Technical Program Committee (TPC) members

Po-Tai Cheng, Center for Advanced Power Technologies, Dept. Electrical Engineering,
National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Josep M. Guerrero, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Reza Iravani, University of Toronto, Canada
Toshifumi Ise, Osaka University, Japan
Faa-Jeng Lin, Dept. Electrical Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan
Paolo Mattavelli, CPES – Virginia Tech, USA
Johanna Myrzik, TU Dortmund University, Germany
Juan C. Vasquez, Aalborg University, Denmark