IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021 - 4

Antonio Conejo and Steve Widergren
on being flexible
resource variability hits close to home
W
WHEN THE GROWTH IN ELECtricity
demand outstrips supply, creative
allocation schemes emerge to address
the imbalance. Such schemes range from
rolling blackouts or brownouts to marketdriven
incentive mechanisms that prioritize
the use of energy. During emergencies
and under normal operating modes
in some areas of the world today, scheduling
energy use becomes an exercise in
customer participation. Under such circumstances,
people must be flexible in
their energy use.
In matured power systems, electricity
is interwoven with the fabric of society.
It is seen as an essential service with societal
rights, including equity considerations
to its access. Historically, the
approach has been to build generation to
cover the forecasted variable use of energy.
But now, social policies for decarbonization
coupled with cost-effective
technological advances in renewable
generation are giving rise to a supplyside
transition. The impact of this transition
is variability on the supply side that
bucks with the variability on the demand
side. What is a power engineer to do?
Our profession is entering an age
where variability pervades production
and consumption. Our means do not
align with our needs. The geographic dimensions
of challenges range from local
to regional. The temporal dimensions of
issues change among operational periods,
daily patterns, and seasonal variations.
This is where the solution space gets
personal. Customers have always been a
part of the equation, but their involvement
in cost-effectively balancing supply and
demand as well as in managing electricity
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2021.3072823
Date of current version: 21 June 2021
4
ieee power & energy magazine
to a functioning society, wisdom suggests
changes should not occur overnight but advance
with tractable steps. By the magnitude
of investments in equipment,
controls, education, and cultural transformation,
change will be uneven and
unpredictable and take time. Change will
also adapt to accommodate regional differences.
However, patterns are emerging.
Recently, IEEE Power & Energy
delivery constraints becomes necessary
as supply-side variability increases.
How do we do that with minimal or
no disruption to the quality of service that
many societies have come to expect? The
technological transformation brought by
computers and pervasive communications
moves smart automation to be our energy
management surrogate. Within this technology,
we empower our surrogates to
represent our energy-use preferences.
They honor the extent (limits) of our flexibility
for energy to address our business
and comfort needs. They understand
when our energy use can be rescheduled.
Is this a vision or a pending reality?
As fundamental as electric energy is
Magazine has discussed integrating
distributed energy resources, considered
zero-cost marginal energy, and reviewed
energy insecurity in planning and operations.
Now we focus on innovative
ideas and experiences for harnessing
flexibility where we live and work.
In This Issue
As in farming, most renewable energy
sources respond to the will of the
weather, not to the shouts of the farmer.
Integrating an increasing number of
weather-dependent renewable facilities
(wind- or solar-power units) in a power
system requires flexible resources of
power and energy (e.g., gas turbines)
to compensate for the variability of the
renewable facilities. However, where to
In Memoriam
As this issue went to press, we learned that Mike Henderson, former editor-inchief
of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine, had died. He was an IEEE Fellow and
former chair of numerous IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) working groups,
conference committees, and the Springfield, Massachusetts, IEEE section. He retired
as director of System Planning and Coordination at ISO New England. He
was a mentor to me and helpful to all those who contributed to this magazine
during his tenure. His dedication, enthusiasm, and sense of humor will be sorely
missed. He leaves behind a wife and two children. Donations in Mike's honor can
be made to the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Initiative. More information will be provided
in the 2021 September/October issue of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine.
Steve Widergren
july/august 2021
editors' voice
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021

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