Smart Grid (SG) technologies may bring substantial advantages to society, but the required investments are also sizable. This paper establishes a framework for examining the issues related to the SG, and highlights some of the difficulties in establishing a mechanism for paying SG costs. In particular, we show that generators will lose profits as a direct effect of demand response initiatives, and most of the benefits of SG cannot be easily converted into payments.
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Abstract
Smart Grid (SG) technologies may bring substantial advantages to society, but the required investments are also sizable. This paper establishes a framework for examining the issues related to the SG, and highlights some of the difficulties in establishing a mechanism for paying SG costs. In particular, we show that generators will lose profits as a direct effect of demand response initiatives, and most of the benefits of SG cannot be easily converted into payments.
Citation:
de Castro, L. and Dutra, J. (2011): “The Economics of the Smart Grid”, Proceedings of IEEE 49th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 1294-1301.