

Their deployment serves four main strategic objectives for natural gas distribution system operators: Smart Gas Grids are intelligent gas networks that benefit from all the new digital technologies (sensors, data generators, etc.), with the objective of improving the efficiency of natural gas distribution. cultural centre, shopping centre), or a factory. Therefore, in addition to making it possible to integrate renewable energies locally, Smart Grids are a concrete way of influencing energy consumption to meet current ecological challenges.īy way of illustration, smart power grids are typically deployable on the scale of a neighbourhood, a public place (e. Better knowledge of energy consumption results in changes in virtuous behaviour to optimize the way people consume. Therefore, the same point in the grid, say a company with a fleet of photovoltaic panels, can be both a place of production and energy consumption depending on weather conditions.Ī Smart Grid must therefore be able to instantly measure local energy production to ensure the power supply of equipment, interacting with the national grid to remove excess energy produced or to call up energy if local production is not sufficient.Īn essential element of Smart Grids, the smart meter allows you to know precisely how much your network consumes. The stakes are high, especially since decentralized energy production is mainly based on photovoltaics and wind power, which are intermittent sources of energy by nature. Today, smart grids allow decentralized energy producers to be integrated by monitoring two-way flows. The network was therefore composed of a limited number of clearly identified producers to ensure that supply met demand at all times. hydraulic, nuclear, thermal) to consumers (residential, tertiary, industrial).

Historically, the electricity grid has been established in such a way as to transmit energy flows unidirectionally, from generation plants (e. Smart Grids are the basis of the Smart Grids concept because of the historical penetration of automation and control systems for electricity production (until now highly centralised), transmission and distribution networks and consumption points (whether industrial, tertiary or residential). Why are we talking about electric Smart Grids ? According to the official definition of the French Environment and Energy Management Agency ( ADEME), Smart Grids are energy systems capable of effectively and intelligently integrating, predicting and encouraging the actions and behaviour of the various users (consumers and producers) connected to them, in order to maintain an efficient, sustainable, economic and secure energy supply.
