Distributed Energy Management Systems toward Smart Cities: International Research Collaboration

Abstract

In the interim report on the fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan of Japan, the realization of Super Smart Society in our future is highlighted. The initiative for Smart Cities has been also promoted worldwide as societal-scale CPS (Cyber-Physical Systems) infrastructures. Along with efficient traffic/water/security management, distributed EMS (Energy Management Systems) should play a key role as we head toward low carbon environmental friendly society that is essential for sustainable development. To this goal, JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) has launched a CREST research area for the distributed EMS building. The aim of this project is to create fundamental theory and advanced technology for optimal control of energy balancing between dynamic demand and supply. The topics covered include forecast and integration of renewable energy, management of electric vehicle/storage, demand response and human behavior, development of demand model, and platform building. A particular emphasis is on the promotion of international research collaboration with the US and European Funding Agencies, such as NSF (USA), DFG (Germany), RCN (Norway), CNR (Italy) and others. This would enable all the project researchers involved to catalyze networking and knowledge sharing with a broad array of disciplines. In this talk, the on-going exciting progress of the CREST EMS project will be presented.