Cloud-Based Energy Storage Systems: A shared pool of benefits in distributed electric power systems

Social, environmental, and economic motivations, along with disruptive technological advancements, have been leading to substantial changes in the landscape of the energy supply chain. The progress in sensor fusion, readiness of remote and interactive controllers and actuators, abundance of low-cost and highly available communication media, proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs), and maturity of monitoring devices and control algorithms have fostered the concept of distributed electric power systems. Plug-and-play capability, along with ever-declining capital costs and the economic breakeven of small-scale photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines, has enabled retail customers located at the low-voltage end of feeders to have access to abundant and variable energy resources in their territories.