At the 20th meeting of the ISGAN Executive Committee, Annex 6 ‘Power Transmission & Distribution Systems’ hosted a side event that showcased its recent work.
Firstly, the key messages of Annex 6 were presented, giving an overview of its four main focus areas and summarising the collaboration of its network of international experts.
Each of the focus areas is assigned to a focus area leader in charge of facilitating and consolidating the Annex’ work in accordance with its the objectives. Key messages of the Annex’ work were elaborated, based on three main perspectives:
- Drivers for change according to generation, grid, and demand
- Resulting consequences caused by increased challenges of maintaining secure operation and reliable long-term planning of the Power Transmission and Distribution System
- Needs to ensure sustainability and security of supply, highlighting future requirements and adaptations with respect to technology, market innovations and policy
Secondly, the outcome of the Annex’ work on the topic ‘MEGA vs micro grids’ and related trends influencing the development of the power system was also presented.
In this regard, an overview of the respective grids and their topology was discussed. From the perspective of investment, it was shown that flexibility needs to consider energy in both time and space, due to the integration of a significant amount of RES. In both cases, MEGA and micro grids are able to integrate RES based on the maximization of local RES and optimization of system-wide energy resources respectively.
Furthermore, the activity contributed toward the policy brief distributed to the virtual CEM meeting. For further information please see:
- ISGAN website: http://www.iea-isgan.org/micro-vs-mega-grids/
- Policy brief distributed to the virtual CEM meeting: http://www.cleanenergyministerial.org/initiative-clean-energy-ministerial/international-smart-grid-action-network
Lastly, the outcome of the activity ‘Lessons learned from international projects on TSO-DSO interaction’ was presented. A video clip provided a high-level overview of the topic, in line with four key questions, consolidating the challenges, successes, lessons learned, and recommendations based on the experience of various projects on TSO-DSO interaction.
