Author Archives: grlangworth

“…the nation’s first comprehensive, consumer-centric, data-driven system for evaluating power system performance.

As the U.S. moves toward a more intelligent, cleaner electricity system, a growing number of consumers are demanding improvements in power delivery as well as greater choice in the type of power they use and how they use it. The PPSoA program provides much-needed metrics and design criteria that help industry stakeholders:

• Eliminate interruptions and improve safety and power quality;
• Be cost-competitive with greater transparency;
• Increase system efficiency and significantly reduce environmental impacts; and
• Enable and encourage consumer and community participation. “

First in a series of excellent sessions on distribution automation I recently discovered:

The Business Case

The Second focuses on DA Implementation:

Implementing the System

The third is about the why’s and wherefore’s of comm requirements for DA:

Communications for DA

The fourth looks at the architecture of distribution automation:

DA-System Architecture

The fifth surveys distribution management systems:

Distribution Management Systems

The sixth examines smart substations:

The Smart Sub-Station

The seventh reviews what is Volt-VAR Control and Optimization:

Volt-VAR Control & Optimization

And the last session deals with Automatic Feeder Switching:

Automatic Feeder Switching

The electronic contraption, only in its first generation, was named this year by experts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as one of the 10 most important technology innovations of 2010. MIT ranked the “smart transformer,” created by the FREEDM Systems Center in Raleigh, alongside recent advances in cancer genomics and synthetic cells…NCSU’s Smart Transformer

Most automation by electric utilities has been applied in the substation and at the enterprise level. Relatively few utilities have deployed distribution automation-the automation of devices outside the substation fence (i.e., out on the feeders themselves). This is due primarily to the potentially large expense of implementing DA, the lack of economic justification for such expenditures, and the unique and difficult technical challenges of implementing DA on a widespread basis.

Drivers include:

• increased customer expectations in terms of power quality and reliability;
• growing number of regulatory incentives, both positive and negative;
• increased performance and affordability of DA communications choices; and,
• increased variety and capability of automation devices and software.

An efficient, reliable and secure communication infrastructure is vital for a successful DA implementation. Unfortunately, there is no single “cookbook” communication solution or model for success that can be applied to all utilities. Each utility’s unique characteristics-geography, distribution feeder electrical capabilities and constraints, customer density, human and financial resources, customer demographics and preferences, and a host of other characteristics-will determine the requirements for the communication system.

First DA Case Study

2nd DA Case Study

“…With the global economy still fragile after last year’s financial crisis, assuring the integrity and availability of key national industries may fall out of focus as a government priority, but will remain a key determinant of strategic vulnerability.

Six hundred IT and security executives from critical infrastructure enterprises across seven sectors in 14 countries all over the world anonymously answered an extensive series of detailed questions about their practices, attitudes and policies on security—the impact of regulation, their relationship with govern- ment, specific security measures employed on their networks, and the kinds of attacks they face.

Critical infrastructure owners and operators report that their IT networks are under repeated cyberattack, often by high-level adversaries. The impact of such attacks is often severe, and their cost is high and borne widely….”

In the Crossfire_Critical IT

Utilities face a coming wave of data beyond anything they have ever experienced. This one-hour Webinar will bring in some of the worlds most experienced professionals to explain how to prepare for, and benefit from, the coming data surge.

Part I;   Part 2;   Part 3;  Part 4;  Part 5;  Part 6;  Part 7.

Sponsor: Accenture

Jesse Berst, Smart Grid News (moderator)

Part 1 & 2 Dr. Jeffrey Taft, Accenture

Part 3 & 4 Peter Belknap, Oracle Corp. 

Part 5, 6, 7 Randy Huston, Xcel Energy

Download it as the author intended it to be freely available.  Sustainable Energy, etc.

“…The 280ft turbine situated in a business park near the M4 in Reading operated at just 15 per cent of its capacity year, meaning it generated £100,000 of energy, despite attracting subsidies of £130,000 from the Government.  Since 2005, when it began producing energy, the turbine has been subsidised with £600,000 of public money but has run at an average of 17 per cent of its capacity.  Figures were published as ministers promised to crack down on the spending of substantial sums on turbines built in areas without enough wind to make a significant saving.  The turbine in Reading is capable of generating two megawatts (two million watts) of electricity at any time, but last year worked at 15.4 per cent of this rate, producing 2,692 megawatt-hours (MWh) – the total amount of energy measured in hours – over the year…” Nick Post in Today’s Telegraph 11Feb11

Yep, wind turbine costs more…

Holland Suddenly Demurs on Wind

We’ve posted a new PGN service concept on the PGN App Services Page — Smart Grid Appliances and Time-of-Use Tariffs — How They Can Help Each Other