Improving scalability and replicability of smart grid projects

Abstract

Today most smart grid projects are still in the R&D or the demonstration phases on small scale. The condition that these projects are implemented in the future on a large scale is that they have a suitable degree of scalability and replicability to avoid that project demonstrators remain local experimental exercises. The current paper tackles the question of what makes a particular smart grid project scalable and replicable. Factors that affect the scalability and replicability of smart grid projects were derived in a first step through the analysis of complex systems and smart grid projects. These factors can be categorized into technical, economic and regulatory & stakeholder-related factors. In a second step, a short case study is performed on on-going European and national smart grid projects in order to validate the factors, which allows then quantifying the status quo of the analyzed projects with respect to the scalability and replicability. This paper provides a feedback on to what extent they take into account these factors and on whether their results and solutions are actually able to be scaled-up and replicated.