Sustainable Energy Systems Planning, Integration, and Management

Energy systems worldwide are undergoing a major transformation as a consequence of the transition towards the widespread use of clean and sustainable energy sources. The electric power system in a sustainable future will augment the centralized and large-grid-dependent systems of today with distributed, smaller-scale energy generation systems that increasingly adopt renewable energy sources (e.g., solar and wind) and rely on cyber technologies to ensure resiliency and efficient resource sharing. Basically, this involves massive changes in technical and organizational levels together with tremendous technological upgrades in different sectors ranging from the energy generation and transmission systems down to the distribution systems. These actions constitute a huge science and engineering challenges and demands for expert knowledge in the field to create solutions for a sustainable energy system (both at the energy supply and demand sides) that is economically, environmentally, and socially viable while meeting high security requirements. On energy consumers’ side, useful and efficient energy services such as light, heating and cooling, cooking, communication, power, and motion are needed. These services are offered by specific equipment/devices, which use energy blocks either efficiently or inefficiently. Producing energy with high environmental, societal, or health risks is not a cheap way to meet such energy demand, but packages of efficient equipment and energy at least societal costs, which includes external costs, should be the ultimate objective to satisfy the needs of customers. At the supply side, there exists a bunch of opportunities for renewable energy technologies complemented with energy efficiency measures not only to provide local benefits, but also to contribute to sustainable development, which is framed in a three-pillar model: Economy, Ecology, and Society. Thus, the relationship between the use of renewables in energy mix and the sustainable developments goals (SDGs) can be viewed as a set of objectives and constraints that involve both global and local/regional considerations.