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This means that a nervous centre with some intelligen-
ce is created at consumer nodes – the level of intelligence
depending of the autonomy latitude allowed and the intelligent
function agents implemented. Furthermore, a manna of data
can be collected and shipped to the distribution company or
the commercializer/aggregator company, with the potential to
actually saturate communication channels. Such tsunami of
data is now requiring new strategies for communication and
storage and, most importantly, for knowledge discovery in
big data, which is in fact where the big compensation may be
found for the investment incurred in.
Sort of playing with words, a grid may only be really
smart if it has intelligence, whether distributed or concentra-
ted, otherwise there will be no return on investment for ne-
twork developers. Interestingly, this is a win-win game, be-
cause consumers also benefit from this evolution – and such
benefit, translated in efficiency in energy use, provides global
gains (for the planet, ultimately translated in reduced emis-
sions) convergent with individual gains.
A case for intelligence in the grid, not only at terminal
nodes, was also pioneered in Évora, in experiments first im-
plemented within the framework of the EU project SUSTAI-
NABLE, see Costa (2016). The Control of DER (distributed
energy resources) in LV feeders with approximately 10% of
PV generation, under a smart grid infrastructure, with storage,
PV panels and EV charging controlled by smart inverters, led
to an observed reduction of curtailed renewable energy – a
remarkable result, also in favour of the planet.
[A brief explanation: the MPPT – maximum power point
tracker, a controller devised to extract the maximum power
from a solar panel, must increase the injection voltage in the
line, because of grid conditions, particularly in cases of PV
panels at the extremes of LV lines; but such rise may trigger
the action of overvoltage protections, actually taking out the
panel. In other words, one believes that the PV panels are
injecting renewable power in the grid when actually they are

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