From Opportunities to Obstacles: Advantages and Threats of Power System Digitalization

Inhalt:
Power systems have undergone fundamental changes in recent years. Modern power systems are widely influenced throughout this evolution by new technologies such as distributed energy resources, electric vehicles, and power elec-tronic converters. Meanwhile, advancements in communication and information technologies have made digitalization more feasible and cost-effective for addressing critical power system operation and control challenges. This paper inves-tigates the benefits of digitalization and potential threats in future power systems and introduces promising mitigation measures. In order to give a comprehensive view of this topic, key trends in power systems generation, transmission, and distribution that can be realized through grid digitalization are discussed. To demonstrate the advantages of grid digitali-zation, potential applications are briefly discussed, such as the integration of clean energy sources, increased reliability and resiliency, and higher energy efficiency. The digitalization process of power systems is threatened by various factors, and some of the most critical ones are addressed in this paper. These include cybersecurity issues and inefficient pro-cessing algorithms. In order to mitigate these threats and pave the path for achieving the fully digitalized power system of the future, promising research areas such as cyber attack detection and prevention algorithms, artificial intelligence applications, and power system digital twins are discussed in this paper. At last, some of the advanced tools developed in the Control Room of the Future (CRoF) technology center at TU Delft that assist the power system digitalization process are described.