The electric power system is an enabling infrastructure that supports the operation of other critical infrastructures and thus the economic well©\being of a nation. It is, therefore, very important to design for resiliency and autonomous reconfigurability in the electric power grid to guard against man©\made and natural disasters. One way to assure such self©\healing characteristics in an electric power system is to design for small and autonomous subsets of the larger grid. This lecture presents the concept of a microgrid called an Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power System (IDAPS). The IDAPS microgrid aims at intelligently managing customer©\owned distributed energy resources and end©\use demand such that these assets can be shared in the most optimum way both during normal and outage operations. The operation of the electric power grid in the IDAPS configuration is expected to provide protocols for load and distributed generation controls, thus providing an opportunity for electricity transaction among electric utility customers.

Saifur Rahman (Fellow of IEEE) is the director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech where he is the Joseph Loring Professor of electrical and computer engineering. He also directs the Center for Energy and the Global Environment at the university. Professor Rahman has served as a program director in engineering at the US National Science Foundation between 1996 and 1999. In 2006 he served as the vice president of the IEEE Publications Board, and a member of the IEEE Board of Governors. In 2008-09 he is serving as the vice president for New Intiatives and Outreach for the IEEE Power & Energy Society. He is a distinguished lecturer of IEEE and in that capacity he has spoken on alternate energy, environment, power system and infrastructure related issues in over 20 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia and North America. He has published over 300 papers on renewable energy, load forecasting, demand side management, intelligent power grid and critical infrastructure protection.