Linking intelligent power networks

摘要

The Energy Department of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is working on the future of energy supply by developing automation concepts for intelligent power distribution in smart grids. As these feature varied distributed architectures, IEC 61499 compliant open source control system approaches are considered to be best suited to the task. Powerlink is therefore becoming a real-time data communication standard over Ethernet in smart grid applications As fossil energy sources are dwindling and their combustion has been producing issues such as global warming, the future of the world's energy supply depends on our ability to include renewable sources. Some of these, particularly photovoltaic converters and wind farms, are subject to changeable natural forces, thus supplying electricity with less regularity than more traditional forms of generation. Consequently, more and better means of storing energy will be required. Additionally, facilities such as buildings will not only become more energy efficient, some of them will require energy supplies at certain times while supplying electricity at others.