2012-05 Smart Cities: Planning and operation of future urban energy systems
November 5-7, 2012

Objectives

Course outline
Cities are rapidly getting on top of the agendas of various initiatives worldwide aimed at decreasing the cost and carbon footprint of energy products, services and activities. In fact, as it is expected that by 2050 about 70% of the world population will live in cities, it is crucial to identify strategic plans to make cities more energy efficient and environmentally friendly in a cost effective manner. At the same time, the advent of the Smart Grid associated to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in conjunction to networks and services is changing the perspectives of the way we operate power and energy systems. In this context, the concept of a Smart City is emerging whereby the urban Smart Grid can be optimally designed and controlled so as to facilitate a cost-effective development of a sustainable urban energy system, also taking into account heat (usually as a predominant component of environmental impact), cooling, transportation, waste, water, people's security, and so on, besides electricity. However, in many cases these areas are treated as separate by energy planners, designers, operators, and policy makers, while there are closer and closer interactions that need to be addressed, with clear potential for techno-economic and environmental resource optimization from both operational and planning perspectives. This three-day course will present and discuss an overview of key issues within the Smart Cities context with manifold topics covering from urban energy planning to ICT requirements. Technical, environmental, economic, security, and policy aspects will be discussed in detail.
Scope and objectives
The course is designed to give both industrial practitioners (technicians, engineers and managers) and young academics and researchers a fundamental understanding of the major issues that are behind the emerging concept of Smart Cities that will see the simultaneous presence and interactions of highly distributed generation, demand response, storage, multi-energy networks, smart devices, and new business models.
The following topics will be addressed:

• Fundamentals of urban energy system planning;
• Impact analysis and optimal integration of distributed generation, demand response and storage in low and medium voltage networks;
• Techno-economic and environmental assessment of district energy systems and multi-generation;
• Impact of the electrification of heating and transport in urban areas and smart control for system support;
• ICT requirements and integrated power and ICT analysis;
• Power quality and protection issues and solutions in future urban networks;
• Innovative concepts for reliability assessment of future distribution networks;
• Technical and commercial aggregation concepts (such as microgrids and virtual power plants) for distributed energy resources in an urban environment;
• New business models and commercial, regulatory and policy issues in Smart Cities.