Panel Sessions

PS-1: Panel Session: Wireless and Wireline: Marriage or Divorce for the Grid


Day: Tuesday, 4 November
Room: C

The commodization of communication technology over the past past decade has mainly occurred in the consumer market. From a consumer perspective we see DSL lines and cable networks connecting homes and wireless cellular and local area networks providing high-speed connectivity to non-stationary users.. It is tempting to adopt these consumer technologies for smart grid communication. But communication for the grid is different. We are not dealing with mostly price-conscious consumers, but with performance-conscious industry customers. The user is not content with exploiting what a communication technology offers, but the technology has to meet hard performance requirements. The communication tasks are closer to automation and control than to personal communications. The expected time of operation of technology and equipment is longer and investments are larger for the grid. So what communications solution(s) should it be for enabling smart grids? 
In this panel, we want to approach this question considering the underlying communication medium. As in the consumer space, we have wireline and wireless communications available. Different from the consumer space, links are generally stationary. This speaks for wireline. But similarities with sensor networks and the large spatial extension of equipment favour wireless solutions, in part fitting under the umbrella of wireless machine-to-machine communication. However, the power lines of electrical grids provide an existing infrastructure that has long been used for "dumb" grid communication. Are therefore modern power line technologies the best option for smart grids? Or is a conscious technology mix the only way forward? If so, how should this mix look like? We have invited wireless and wireline communications experts to address these questions and look forward to stimulating contributions from and discussions with conference participants. 

Moderator: Lutz Lampe, University of British Columbia, Canada
   
Panelists: Hans-Peter Schwefel, FTW, Austria
  Petar Popovski, Aalborg University, Denmark
  Flavio Cucchietti, Telecom Italia, Italy
  Davide della Giustina, A2A Reti Elettriche SpA, Italy
  Andrea Tonello, University of Udine, Italy, and University of Klagenfurt, Austria
 
 

PS-2: Panel Session: Internet of Energy

 
Day: Wednesday, 5 November
Room:  C

The panel aims to discuss the potentiality and limiting factors of the Internet of Energy, i.e., the P2P exploitation of distributed energy resources, with the related technical challenges, operational characteristics, supporting services, socio-economic impact, and revolutionary innovation of the electrical market.
 
Moderators: Michele Zorzi, University of Padova, Italy
  Paolo Tenti, University of Padova, Italy
   
Panelists: Maurizio Delfanti, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
  Anna Scaglione, UC Davis, USA
  Sebastian Rohjans, OFFIS, Germany
  Chris Develder, Ghent University, Belgium