Quantum Computing for Facilitating the Design and Operation of More Sustainable Power Systems: Achieving Superior Performance Beyond Classical Computing Through Quantum Properties

As the penetration of renewable energy sources soars, the design and operation of power systems will be significantly more complicated than the conventional ones. A renewable-dominated power system will inevitably encounter computational challenges due to the explosion in the number of decision variables. Quantum computing, in principle, can effectively circumvent the “curse of dimensionality” by virtue of its characteristics of parallel computation and state superposition. In that regard, this article considers quantum computing as a promising solution to handling certain complicated optimization problems in various aspects of a renewable-dominated power system. More specifically, this article explores how to utilize quantum computing to facilitate optimized decision making in design and operation toward a more sustainable energy future. Given the current hardware limitations of quantum computers, this article further proposes a quantum–classical hybrid computing framework along with a set of strategies to tap the maximum potential of quantum computing while boosting overall computational efficiency and accuracy.