Call for Papers (CFP)

18th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS)

August 9-12, 2011, Seattle,WA, USA

 

Track: Green IS

Mini-track: Smart Grid Technologies

Mini-track chairs: Jason Dedrick and Murali Venkatesh, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University

 

DESCRIPTION:

Many countries face difficult challenges in upgrading their aging electrical generation, transmission, and distribution systems, while others are still building out their electricity infrastructure. Current grid technologies lack the ability to sense and respond to system failures and outages, manage peak demand, enable consumers to monitor and manage energy use, or accommodate distributed alternative energy sources.  The “smart grid” has been identified as a solution to address these deficiencies, and to reduce the environmental impacts of electrical generation, which currently is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The concept of smart grid is best viewed not as a specific technology but as a set of technologies that help fulfill the requirements of the next generation grid. According to the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, the smart grid should:

• Enable active participation by consumers
• Accommodate all generation and storage options
• Enable new products, services, and markets
• Provide power quality for the digital economy
• Optimize asset utilization and operate efficiently
• Anticipate & respond to system disturbances (self-healing)
• Operate resiliently against attack and natural disaster

There are a number of key stakeholders with varying goals and interests in the smart grid including utilities, consumers, regulatory agencies, IT companies, and equipment manufacturers.  Lack of agreement among these stakeholders raises barriers to smart grid adoption, such as a lack of established interoperability standards, privacy and security issues, and inconsistent regulatory environments. Developing systems that enable two-way communication between producers and consumers of electricity, management of demand, accommodation of distributed energy sources and more flexible pricing regimes requires advances in technology as well as addressing the motivations of the various stakeholders whose support and participation is needed.

The issue of smart grid adoption and implementation is closely linked to a number of common themes in information systems, including design and system integration challenges, consumer technology acceptance, economic analysis of IS investments under uncertainty,  organizational dynamics, policy and regulatory environments, and the inherently sociotechnical nature of such complex systems. So far there is little research in the IS field on smart grid technologies, yet this is potentially a very large area of future IS development activity, given the size of the electricity sector, its current low levels of IT use, and the potential to achieve major environmental improvements through energy efficiency and greater use of cleaner energy sources. To address these issues we invite papers that explore the range of technical, organizational, economic, and social perspectives on smart grid adoption.

We invite high quality articles including but not limited to such topics as:

Ÿ   Design and development of smart grid technologies

Ÿ   New applications for the smart grid

Ÿ   Awareness, adoption, and diffusion of the smart grid by utilities

Ÿ   New business models for utilities

Ÿ   Organizational incentives in a regulated industry environment

Ÿ   Consumer acceptance and education

Ÿ   Privacy and security for the smart grid

Ÿ   Government policy, including regulatory changes and incentives for adoption

Ÿ   Economic impacts of smart grid adoption

Ÿ   Potential environmental impacts of smart grid adoption

Chair Contacts:

Jason Dedrick, Associate Professor

School of Information Studies

Syracuse University

jdedrick@syr.edu

 

Murali Venkatesh, Associate Professor

School of Information Studies

Syracuse University

mvenkate@syr.edu

 

Important dates

First week of January, 2012: Manuscript Central will start accepting paper submissions (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2012)

March 1, 2012: (11:59 PM Pacific time zone): Deadline for paper submissions

April 2, 20012: Authors will be notified of acceptances

April 20, 2012: (11:59 PM Pacific time zone): For accepted papers, camera ready copy due

 

 

Jason Dedrick, Associate Professor

School of Information Studies

Syracuse University

324 Hinds Hall

Syracuse, NY 13244

315-443-5602

jdedrick@syr.edu