TY - GEN
T1 - When are decentralized infrastructure networks preferable to centralized ones?
AU - Hines, Paul D.H.
AU - Blumsack, Seth
AU - Schläpfer, Markus
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, NM, USA, where Hines and Blumsack were sabbatical visitors in 2014-2015 and where much of this work was completed. The authors would also like to acknowledge Christa Brelsford, Luis Bettencourt, and participants at the Santa Fe Institute workshop, “Reinventing the Grid” for helpful suggestions and discussions. P.H. was supported by NSF awards ECCS-1254549 and DGE-1144388, and DTRA award HDTRA110-1-0088. S.B. acknowledges support from NSF award CNS-1331761. M.S. was supported by the Army Research Office Minerva Programme (grant no. W911NF-12-1-0097).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Many infrastructure networks, such as power, water, and natural gas systems, have similar properties governing flows. However, these systems have distinctly different sizes and topological structures. This paper seeks to understand how these different features can emerge from relatively simple design principles. Specifically, we work to understand the conditions under which it is optimal to build small decentralized network infrastructures, such as a microgrid, rather than centralized ones, such as a large high-voltage power system. While our method is simple it is useful in explaining why sometimes, but not always, it is economical to build large, interconnected networks and in other cases it is preferable to use smaller, distributed systems. The results indicate that there is not a single set of infrastructure cost conditions that cause a transition from centralized networks being optimal, to decentralized architectures. Instead, as capital costs increase network sizes decrease gradually, according to a power-law. And, as the value of reliability increases, network sizes increase abruptly-there is a threshold at which large, highly interconnected networks are preferable to decentralized ones.
AB - Many infrastructure networks, such as power, water, and natural gas systems, have similar properties governing flows. However, these systems have distinctly different sizes and topological structures. This paper seeks to understand how these different features can emerge from relatively simple design principles. Specifically, we work to understand the conditions under which it is optimal to build small decentralized network infrastructures, such as a microgrid, rather than centralized ones, such as a large high-voltage power system. While our method is simple it is useful in explaining why sometimes, but not always, it is economical to build large, interconnected networks and in other cases it is preferable to use smaller, distributed systems. The results indicate that there is not a single set of infrastructure cost conditions that cause a transition from centralized networks being optimal, to decentralized architectures. Instead, as capital costs increase network sizes decrease gradually, according to a power-law. And, as the value of reliability increases, network sizes increase abruptly-there is a threshold at which large, highly interconnected networks are preferable to decentralized ones.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85068622349
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
SP - 3241
EP - 3250
BT - Proceedings of the 50th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2017
A2 - Bui, Tung X.
A2 - Sprague, Ralph
PB - IEEE Computer Society
T2 - 50th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2017
Y2 - 3 January 2017 through 7 January 2017
ER -