Euroscience Open Forum 2012

Energy production and consumption must always be in precise balance to maintain a stable electrical grid. Today this is mainly done by letting the energy production follow the energy demand. This is becoming an increasingly inefficient solution as renewable energy becomes more widely used. Energy production from renewables cannot be influenced, and future energy consumption will have to adapt to energy production. This is very challenging because demand is often very distributed and unlinked.

Currently smart meters are being installed in private homes within Europe. This will help people to have a better overview about their energy consumption but it won’t help to let energy demand follow energy production. This might be achieved by smart homes, which are thinking houses integrating control functions overseeing devices and appliances.
The workshop will discuss the potential of smart homes for load following. Furthermore it will present the conditions (technical, economical and administrative) for smart homes to become integrated into a smart and intelligent electric grid, which can efficiently incorporate a high amount of renewable energy at acceptable cost.