Collaboration to Develop Smart Power Grid in Denmark

(National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

A collection of 32 partners — companies, not-for-profits, research institutes, and universities — have agreed to develop a new intelligent power grid in Denmark. Called the iPower platform, the new system aims to be ready in 2025, when Denmark is scheduled to generate half of its electricity from wind energy.

The iPower platform’s full name is Strategic Platform for Innovation and Research in Intelligent Power. The Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy at the Technical University of Denmark (Risø DTU) is the project manager. Most of the 32 participants are based in Europe, but they also include American participants IBM, University of Illinois, and the accounting firm KPMG.

iPower aims to develop an intelligent and flexible energy system that can handle fluctuating power generation from sustainable sources, such as wind energy. For this task, iPower will develop the grid’s operating processes to handle flexible power generation, while still meeting customers’ electric power needs.

The new system is expected to develop intelligent control of decentralized power consumption and tools to manage millions of consumers’ flexible electric appliances. That flexibility will enable consumption to match the amount of power available at any time.

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