LoCal: Network Architecture for Localized Electrical Energy Reduction, Generation & Sharing

The LoCal Energy Network is a cyber overlay on the energy distribution system in its various physical manifestations such as machine rooms, buildings, neighborhoods, isolated generation islands, and regional grids. Pervasive information exchange will enable a more efficient scalable energy system with improved resilience and quality of delivered power.  Key project thrusts will yield a system for agile, distributed, and integrated management of energy that can buffer energy on the path to reduce peak-to-average energy consumption, moderate infrastructure provisioning, and encourage power-limited design and operation. A main building block is the intelligent power switch, logically connecting sources to loads by bundling information (bits) with energy (electrons) flows.