Transformation to a Renewable & Smart Rural Power System Community

By co-creating solutions with the communities and the utility company Troms Kraft, the research team will have the possibility to generate a large-scale sociotechnical experiment at Northern Senja. The overall solution will be a landmark in the history of regional community electricity supply. Troms Kraft is indispensable as a cooperation partner, having access to power data and large scale power system infrastructures.

With the user in focus, RENEW will develop, test and implement Renewable and Smart Rural Power System Communities. The future grid will be a complex system-of-systems, incorporating various intelligent devices communicating with each other. Interactions between various technological, organisational, and human factors add complexity that needs to be addressed in a holistic and coordinated way to support system innovation.

The interdisciplinary research team has chosen two suitable case studies, Husøy and Senjahopen. Both have vulnerable power grid radials located at Northern Senja (large island just southwest of Tromsø) and are dominated by rapid growth in seafood production, distribution and power demand, but with highly varying daily and yearly power consumption. The communities include industry, private and public power consumers. Both communities are characterized by being small, 100-200 (households and industries) in total and strong social infrastructures. This provides an opportunity to engage in knowledge dialogues on specific solutions to the fast approaching energy and power gap. The two case studies also allows for comparisons and for testing out different approaches.

Three PhD position have been recruited within the following themes:

Electricity Grid, User & Technology Communication, is at Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology
Rural Renewable Energy, Electric Vehicles (EVs) & Energy Efficiency Department of Physics and Technology , is at Faculty of Science and Technology
Users and Rural Community & Industry development is at Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education