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penetration of renewable generation (e.g. wind and photovoltaic solar energy resources), distributed generation and energy storage (e.g. micro-generation). Case studies from Belgium demonstrate that as low as a 7% penetration of distributed wind turbines on the low voltage network can begin to cause major problems on the distribution network.9 To mitigate the intermittent nature of renewable generation, the smarter grid can leverage embedded storage to smooth output levels. Without a smart grid, diurnal variations in generation output will typically require renewables to be backed with fast ramp-up fossil fuel based plants. Smart grids will also provide the necessary infrastructure for mass adoption of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, ultimately enabling both scheduled dispatch of recharge cycles and vehicle-to- grid capability. Such networks will allow society to optimize the use of low-carbon energy sources, support the efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of the transport sector and minimize the collective environmental footprint. Enable demand response: By extending the smart grid within the home (via a home area network), consumer appliances and devices can be controlled remotely, allowing for demand response. In the event of a peak in demand, a central system operator would potentially be able to control both the amount of power generation feeding into the system and the amount of demand drawing from the system. Rather than building an expensive and inefficient peaking plant to feed the spikes in demand, the system operator would be able to issue and demand response orders that would trigger a temporary interruption or cycling of non- critical consumption (air conditioners, pool pumps, refrigerators, etc.). Asset optimization and operational efficiency: A smart grid will enable better asset utilization from generation all the way to the consumer end points. It will enable condition- and performance-based maintenance. A smart grid will operate closer to its operational limits, freeing up additional capacity from the existing infrastructure; this remains an attractive proposition when a US study demonstrated that transmission congestion costs Eastern US consumers US$ 16.5 billion per year in higher electricity prices alone.10 Smart grids will also drive efficiencies through reductions in technical and non-technical line losses estimates are that 30% of distribution losses could be mitigated.11 Customer inclusion: A smart grid will involve consumers, engaging them as active participants in the electricity market. It will help empower utilities to match evolving consumer expectation and deliver greater visibility and choice in energy purchasing. It will generate demand for cost-saving and energy-saving products. In a world where consumer expectations and requirements are growing, smart grids will help educate the average consumer, foster innovation in new energy management services and reduce the costs and environmental impact of the delivery of electricity. Power quality: A smart grid will have heightened power quality and reductions in the occurrence of distortions of power supply. As the load demands increase on an exponential path, power quality degradation will manifest as more of an issue, in turn requiring distributed monitoring and proactive mediation. This will confluence with a decrease in tolerance for power quality variances from modern industry, particularly the hi-tech sector and the higher costs of such quality issues as economies grow.
Market empowerment: A smart grid will provide greater transparency and availability of energy market information. It will enable more efficient, automated management of market parameters, such as changes of capacity, and enable a plethora of new products and services. New sources of supply and enhanced control of demand will expand markets and bring together buyers and sellers and remove inefficiencies. It will shift the utility from a commodity provider to a service provider.
What are the Technical Capabilities that Deliver a Smart Grid? Layers of technical capability will be applied to a power grid to deliver these smart grid characteristics: Secure and ubiquitous communications: resilient, two-way digital communication infrastructure exhibiting appropriate bandwidth and latency and enabling communications from generation source to consumer end point Embedded sensing, automation and control: monitoring and sensors (voltage, current, etc.), automated switches and controls and micro- processing capability to enable the electricity network to respond to real time conditions Automated real time optimization: advanced monitoring, sensing and controls, decision support algorithms, low latency communications to support active load balancing and self-correct for interruptions and power quality issues in real time Enhanced design and predictive monitoring: asset data collection, analytics and advanced visualization techniques integrated in to the utility enterprise systems to provide the tools to optimize network planning and predict and respond to anticipated equipment failure Distributed generation and demand response: simplified interconnection standards, two-way power flow capabilities and more effective load balancing techniques to allow distributed generation and energy storage to be incorporated seamlessly into the transmission and distribution network; energy management systems will track the balance of supply and demand on the network and control consumer devices to optimize 24-hour energy consumption
While many nations struggle to supply enough power to meet their peoples basic needs, electricity has also emerged as a premium energy source, enabling the proliferation of electronic end-use devices, particularly for computing and communications. This spurred demand for more (and more reliable) electricity. Global warming. There is broad consensus that global warming has already begun to cause serious and lasting damage to the worlds ecology. Because electricity production is a major source of carbon emissions, early adapters around the world both governments and corporations have begun exploring ways to create sustainable, low-carbon, high-growth economies. The smart grid offers the potential to conserve energy, both through reducing demand at peak times and by its ability to deploy renewable energy sources, thus lessening the industrys contribution to climate change. An upturn in the trend in unit costs of electricity. It is becoming more apparent that the long-term trend of rising unit costs of electricity began as long ago as the late 1960s, after nearly a half century of declining unit costs. Many factors will continue to put upward pressure on costs, including increased commodity prices, especially for oil and gas, plus dispatchability and thus lower plant load factors for renewable energy sources, among others. At the same time, a construction cycle of historic proportions is unfolding for utilities to replace and renew the aging transmission and distribution infrastructure, and just as India, China and other high-growth developing economies are aggressively expanding their own power generation. As a result of the construction boom, the competition for resources from raw materials to capital and know-how will continue to intensify, especially as economies emerge from the current downturn. If economies are to flourish, they must maximize output with a minimum of resources. The pressure to use assets wisely will only increase as the cost of capital rises, which is expected to occur when the current recession ends. In the United States this is taking place against an ominous backdrop. The industrys aggregate credit rating is hovering one notch above junk bond status and the current worldwide recession has brought resistance by regulators, consumer advocates and the general public to rate increases.
fails unexpectedly. Efficiency. The smart grid can improve load factors and reduce system losses. According to the US Department of Energys (DOE) estimates, if the US electricity system were just 5% more efficient, the energy savings would be equivalent to eliminating the fuel and greenhouse gas emissions produced by 53 million cars. Environment. Emerging and more stringent greenhouse gases limitations, renewable portfolio standards, and energy conservation requirements have become one of the key issues for utilities and are increasingly more ingrained in the environmental corporate responsibility commitments of vendors and industries. Renewable energy use has been growing rapidly, driven in part by renewable portfolio standards. Much of the recent thrust has been on larger-scale renewable systems, and owing to their variability and intermittency, require increased grid flexibility. Consumer-scale renewables such as rooftop photovoltaics are also expected to take off. On a distributed scale, these energy sources require smarter grids to meet safety, reliability, and control requirements. Cost savings. Meter reading is a non-trivial component of a distribution utilitys fixed monthly costs; typically, the costs of reading a meter are between US $0.50 and $3.00. Many US utilities do not read meters monthly. A common practice is to read bi-monthly and estimate usage in the interim month. If there is what is known as a CGI (cant get in) problem because the meter is located inside the premises and nobody is home (a frequent occurrence in recent decades), the estimating could continue (legally) for up to a year. In addition to making meter reading nearly instantaneous, smart metering can synergize with gas and water meter readings, creating additional cost savings and, more important, greater convenience for customers. With electricity prices set to continue rising sharply, the smart grid will also offer consumers choices that could reduce their bills. It can offer time-of-use and possibly even real-time pricing, as opposed to the flat rate retail tariffs most consumers now pay. When consumers respond to such tariffs through a smart grid, peak load would be reduced, which will improve asset utilization and lower per-unit generating costs. Grid improvement. Electricity demand in the United States is growing much faster than the transmission system. Deregulation has also increased the long-distance transmission of power, which is increasingly sourced from greater distances, driven by economics, rather than security and performance needs as in the past. In the words of one retired utility CEO: The U.S. transmission system is under tremendous strain and only marginally stable. It was designed as a regional system and has been forced to function as a national system, a function for which it was not designed and does not handle very well.11 The smart grid will improve the grids resilience and robustness. Technological advances. The advances in computing and telecommunications during the last half century have affected almost every facet of life. One reason the smart grid is taken seriously is because advanced computing and telecommunications have made it possible. As a network, the electricity industry has always required measurement, making it an ideal candidate for such advanced technology. In a fundamental sense, the industry needs a breakthrough to enable it to rebalance the value equation it presents to customers. Costs are headed up while reliability is slipping. The recent advances in computing, telecommunications and metering have
not arrived too soon. The smart grid also presents an opportunity to bundle in-home intelligence offerings, such as healthcare and home monitoring. Improved customer satisfaction. If its costs cannot be driven down, the utility industry will need to improve the quality of service. As former Harvard Business School Professor Ted Levitt noted, it is possible to augment the commodity value of a utility service. If done successfully, this will result in an increase in the perceived value of the product or service. The electric industry needs an increase in perceived value to improve its value offering. Because the smart grid promises to give customers more control over their use of electricity, it offers a way to increase perceived value. It could enable customers to minimize the total amount of their bills. So even though unit prices may not go down, the total size of a customers bill could be minimized if not absolutely reduced. And the total amount of a bill, surveys show, has a much bigger impact on customer satisfaction than unit price. Electric vehicles. According to the DOE, the smart grids single biggest potential for delivering carbon savings is in providing cost-effective and increasingly clean energy for plug- in electric vehicles (PEVs) and their hybrids. PEVs can be plugged into a standard household electrical outlet to recharge their batteries. Capable of traveling up to 40 miles in electric- only mode, the majority of PEVs operating on battery power would meet the daily needs of most drivers. Compared with a current hybrid, a PEV with an electric-only range of 20 miles could reduce fuel use by about one-third according to a report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the same PEVs could reduce fuel consumption by about 60% compared with nonhybrid vehicles. Although electric vehicles are not yet available on a large scale, a number of gridconnectible vehicles are anticipated to join the US fleet in the next five years. The technology is still expensive, mainly due to the cost of batteries, but the US Government is supporting the development of storage technology. An increase in production volumes would also help lower unit costs. An intriguing addition to the potential of PEVs is that, while most of the discussion up to now has centered on plugging the (electric) car into the house, there is a nascent but growing discussion about plugging the house into the car. In other words, the collective storage capacity of PEVs could serve as reserve storage capacity for a micro-grid to help balance an unanticipated outage or shortfall in supply. As ZigBee Alliance15 chairman Bob Heile said, American consumers are going to have to live with the interactive nature of the smart grid and the overwhelming fact that power generation will never keep up with future demand...Even if utilities pursued new power generation by every means, American attitudes towards nuclear power, not-in-my-backyard sentiments and demands of the Clean Air Act will constrain new generation to lag behind demand ... We can't build new power plants fast enough, even without the transportation sector going electric. With EVs in the mix, demand will be huge.
Barriers to Implementation
Seven barriers are holding back the implementation of smart grids; none of which are insurmountable, as described in the next section. The paramount issue is a regulatory framework that is out of sync with todays industry needs and societys broader environmental objectives. In the following section, the current challenges that are holding back investments in smart grids will be examined, before looking, in Section 3, at potential actions that could be taken to address them and accelerate the adoption of smart grid technologies. There are a number of factors that, in combination, are acting as a brake on smart grid investment, most of which are institutional and relate to the regulatory and policy
frameworks that have evolved to support the existing power delivery system. Seven areas have been identified that will need to be addressed before smart grids become more widely adopted: 1. Policy and regulation In many cases, utilities do not get as far as a business case for the smart grid as there are regulatory and policy barriers in place that either create reverse incentives or fail to create sufficient positive incentives for private sector investment. 2. Business case Where policy-makers and utility executives are aware of the role that smart grids can play, they are often unable to make the business case for smart grid investments. Within the business case, two factors operate: first, the capital and operating costs are too high, as suppliers have not been able to achieve scale economies in production and delivery risk is priced in; and second, only those benefits that are economically tangible are factored in, while other ancillary and nonfinancial benefits are not included (e.g. the carbon benefits) or are aligned to the appropriate value-chain players. 3. Technology maturity and delivery risk A smart grid brings together a number of technologies (communications, power electronics, software, etc.) at different stages of the technology maturity lifecycle. In some cases, these technologies have significant technology risks associated with them because de facto or agreed standards have not emerged. In addition, there are only a handful of examples of large- scale implementation of more than 50,000 premises and therefore there continues to be significant delivery risk priced in to the estimates. 4. Lack of awareness Consumers and policy-makers are becoming increasingly aware of the challenges posed by climate change and the role of greenhouse gas emissions in creating the problem. In some cases, they are aware of the role of renewable generation and energy efficiency in combating climate change. It is much less common that they are also aware of the way that power is delivered to the home and the role of smart grids in enabling a low-carbon future. 5. Access to affordable capital Utility companies are generally adept at tapping the capital markets; however, where delivery risks are high and economic frameworks are variable, the relative cost of capital may be higher than normal, which acts as a deterrent to investment. Stable frameworks and optimum allocation of risk between the customer, the utility and government will be the key to accessing the cheapest capital possible. In the case of municipalities and cooperatives, this challenge may become amplified as the ability to manage delivery risk is reduced. 6. Skills and knowledge In the longer term, a shortfall is expected in critical skills that will be required to architect and build smart grids. As experienced power system engineers approach retirement, companies will need to transition the pool of engineering skills to include power electronics, communications and data management and mining. System operators will need to manage networks at different levels of transition and learn to operate using advanced visualization and decision support. 7. Cybersecurity and data privacy Digital communication networks and more granular and frequent information on consumption patterns raise concerns in some quarters of cyber-insecurity and potential for misuse of private data. These issues are not unique to smart grids but are cause for concern on what is a critical network infrastructure. Of the seven barriers outlined above, the first three pose the most significant hurdles, but, if addressed, will go a long way towards creating an environment that will encourage investment in smart grids. None of these barriers is insurmountable;
however, it is important to understand the root cause of the issues before developing strategies to break them down. In the following sections, each area will be looked at in more detail with examples that highlight the challenge.
will affect the supply quality. The fast development of economy leads to higher requirements to supply quality. The supply quality involves two aspects: reliability and power quality. Reliability refers to the continuity of power supply to the consumers. It is measured by the system average interruption duration index (SAIDI) and the system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI). According to the u.s. department of energy's report , the reliability rate in US is 99.97%, and the power outages and interruptions, costs US at least 150 billion dollars a year, which means an average loss of 500 dollars per capital. Power quality refers to the quality of the power to the consumer, and it is measured by the voltage deviation, frequency, voltage fluctuation and flicker, harmonics and phase unbalance. In fact, there are a lot of momentary interruptions in the distribution network, such as the interruption caused by reclosing for transient fault, or by automatic power source switch over in substation. Moreover, there exist quite a number of voltage sags caused by fault, inrush current etc.. Voltage sag will last from half power cycle to 1 minute. Momentary interruption and voltage sag may cause mal-function of high-tech digital equipments and result in huge economic losses. At present, the momentary interruptions are not included in the reliability statistics, and the voltage sags are not included in national power quality standards. Further investigations to these two phenomena are needed. They are two fundamental problems to be solved in the research of the self-healing of smart distribution grid. Nowadays, there are serious threats to the security of power grid, such as terrorist attacks, local wars, typhoons, thunderstorms, ice disaster, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters. According to government statistics, the average losses caused by natural disasters are around 5% of GDP output since the 1990s . Fault self-healing of smart distribution grid Fault self-healing of smart distribution grid refers to automatic control measures to eliminate or isolate the fault and restore service using modern communication, computer, automatic control and power electronics technologies. Fault self-healing involves the primary and secondary system. The primary system should have a flexible structure with wide application of new equipments such as fast circuit breaker, fault current limiters etc.. In the secondary system, the new technologies such as wide area protection,distributed control should be employed. Self Healing Grid The concept of SHG requires enhancements in the level of automation of the Power System, which means an increase of remote control device featuring capabilities of communication with the rest of the system and able to have an action by itself The traditional local automation shall be controlled by distributed intelligent agents (IA), which are themselves connected to a superior and centralized unit.
THE SMART GRID will add a layer of control and communication to the grid in places where it does not now exist. The capability to perform control from remote locations or autonomously will allow distribution systems to be increasingly automated and transmission systems to be monitored at the regional scale. A concept often causing confusion The 'smart grid' is commonly presented as an indispensable part of the future power system. It is claimed that a true liberalised electricity market with a high penetration of distributed generation will only be able to supply a high degree of power reliability if grids are made smart. But what exactly is a 'smart grid'? Reading through some literature on the subject, one quickly discovers that it can mean many different things to many different people, often leading discussions to end in confusion. A smart grid is neither a clearly defined single concept nor a single technology. Rather it is like a basket containing various combinations of balls. The context and the interpretation depend upon the user. Carnegie Mellon University recently published an article describing all of the various balls typically found in this metaphorical basket. Some of them represent innovations that are still in the development phase, while others stand for technologies which have already been applied for years. Some of the balls found in the smart grid basket include: At customer level Meters that can be read automatically: this avoids sending out meter readers and can facilitate a fast and exact billing of consumption. It is already widely adopted by many power companies. Time-of-day and time-of-use meters: the former are meters that change the electricity price depending on the time of the day, the latter are meters that integrate the actual electricity price at any given moment in time. Meters that can communicate with the customers: a display shows the customers their current rate of electricity use, allowing them to adjust their consumption level in real time. Control of customers load: control systems that react to time-of-day or time-ofuse meters to automatically switch certain circuits on or off. At distribution grid level Distribution system automation: A first step is the operating of the distribution grid from a central control room, avoiding the need to send people into the field for switching actions. Such systems have already been installed in several places around the world. A second step is to change the tree layout of the grid into a meshed layout. By also adding sensors and remote control
switches, incidents can be isolated and cut off, minimising problems for electricity consumers. Selective load control: selectively switching off customers to avoid a complete black out. A step further is the ability to turn individual loads on or off within customers premises. 'Islanding' of micro-grids supplied by distributed generation units. This concept can, in its turn, have several different meanings. The basic idea is that local DGs locally increase the reliability of supply. At transmission grid level Phase measurements: the efficiency and stability of power system operation could be improved with the addition of phase measurement at various key locations on the transmission grid and combined with advanced communication and control systems. FACTS: Flexible AC Transmission Control Devices or FACTS are advanced systems that can change the flow of power in transmission lines. A phase shift transformer is an example of a FACT. Distributed and autonomous control: models demonstrate that advanced automatic control systems that cooperate with each other could in some cases do a better job than a centralised human operation of the system.