LAB REPORT
G R I D Director: Jason Dedrick
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esearchers here look at the impact of merging information technologies with the electric grid, the challenges involved in integrating smart meter technologies and the impact of those actions on consumer perception and behavior. Research projects undertaken and underway include:
SMART GRID ADOPTION Adoption of Smart Grid Technologies by Electrical Utilities: Factors Influencing Organizational Innovation in a Regulated Environment (National Science Foundation, $341,190) Smart grid technologies can reduce environmental impacts of electricity generation and distribution while improving the quality, reliability and efficiency of electricity supply. Because utilities operate in highly regulated environments, this innovation presents major organizational and technical challenges. This project has explored issues regarding innovative technologies and development and testing of a new model of organizational adoption. Principal investigator: Professor Jason Dedrick; co-principal investigators Professor Jeffrey Stanton and Associate Professor Murali Venakatesh. Data Privacy for Smart Meter Data: A Scenario-Based Study (National Science Foundation EAGER award, $266,101, 2014 – 2017) Smart electric meters are a key technology in modernizing the nation’s energy infrastructure, and they also can drive energy use and demand forecasting and control models. While smart meters capture energy use, the spectre of how that data may be used can create powerful customer privacy concerns. This project has looked at various data use and protection scenarios and dimensions of privacy concerns to assess what situations provide the highest level of acceptability to consumers.
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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
BIG DATA ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICITY USE iSchool researchers have been analyzing big data sets from the Pecan Street Research Consortium, a global collaboration working on utility system operations, climate change, integration of distributed energy and storage and customer needs and preferences. The analysis ultimately has the potential to launch industry-wide changes in the way consumers use and pay for energy, how utilities plan peak usage and how the grid system can be optimized. Researchers are using huge, open-source data sets of timestamped electricity records from the project’s original field research. Participation is facilitated by the iSchool’s on-site IBM System Z mainframe computer capacity. Principal investigator is Professor Jason Dedrick; co-principal investigators Professor Jeffrey Stanton and Associate Professor Murali Venkatesh.
SECURE AND TRUSTWORTHY CYBERSPACE Cybersecurity Risks of Dynamic, Two-Way Distributed Electricity Markets (National Science Foundation, $344,184, 2016 – 2019) As the U.S. electric grid transforms from a one-way delivery channel to a distributed grid with two-way flows of information and electricity, consumers can become buyers and sellers in the market. That can help utilities reduce costly peak loads and outage risks, and firms can benefit from innovation, but such benefits can come with significant cybersecurity and privacy risks. This research identifies potential security and privacy risks associated with distributed electricity markets and defines acceptable levels of risk and trade-offs between risk reduction and performance of distributed markets. The project will provide guidance to utilities, regulators and others regarding balancing robust market structures with security and privacy protection. Principal investigator: Professor Jason Dedrick of the iSchool; co-principal investigators: Professor Peter Wilcoxen (SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs) and Associate Professor Steve Chapin (SU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science) and Keli Perrin (SU’s College of Law Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism).
