White Paper: Grid Modernization and the Imperative for Utility Transformation
by Mani Vadari, President, Modern Grid Soultions
April 25, 2018 --
A friend once made a comment about the electric system, “You are in the only industry, in which you send us a product and take it right back.” He was alluding to the closed loop which needs to exist for electricity to flow.
While being somewhat humorous, it is a very profound statement. The grid still depends on electrons flowing from a generating source to the consuming source. It still depends on physics for the flow to occur with a product that flows at the speed of light.
The key takeaway from this is – “Don’t forget Kirchhoff’s law, Maxwell’s equations, and other laws of physics that make the electric grid work but also don’t let it stop you from changing how service is provided to the customer”.
According to Wikipedia, the birth of the Pearl Street Station in Manhattan was the beginning of what we would eventually come to recognize as the modern electrical grid by providing power to 85 customers.
Over time, this grid has evolved to a system that includes (mostly) centralized generation, transmission, distribution and the end-use customer. For the longest time, this electric grid evolved with much of the progress happening in generation and transmission. So much had evolved there that in the mid-1990s, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decided to set up wholesale energy markets across the country. These markets are still successfully operating today.
Progress at the distribution level was sparse and sporadic until the term “Smart Grid” was coined sometime in the early 2000s. Then, it exploded. Smart Grid gave birth to new terms and technologies called distribution automation, energy storage, distributed energy, microgrids, smart homes, data analytics, and so on. Over the last 10-15 years or so, as these technologies were being rolled out and maturing, the utility industry has stayed the same. Utilities are still for most intents and purposes regulated monopolies, designated as the franchise entity that will deliver power to the customer.
For the electric utility, this is a tough place to stand because everything under them is shifting. Distributed energy allows the customer to produce energy and either use it for themselves or sell it back to the utility. Storage allows anyone to store energy when it is plentiful and cheap and release it when it is not. Microgrids allow a group of homes, offices or industries to ring-fence themselves and manage their own electric needs whether still connected to the electric grid or not. Electric vehicles are becoming more relevant bringing a completely new type of load to the electric grid; a life-saver to the declining power consumption faced by most utilities. Homes and buildings are becoming smarter thereby allowing for the control of their consumption and generation if available. And lastly, a new genre of automaton is becoming available enabling improved sensing and control of everything in the grid and beyond-the-meter.
This article is about these changes and how they are affecting the transformation of the utility of yesterday and influencing their journey to the utility of tomorrow.
To view the full article, click here
About the Author: Dr. Mani Vadari is Founder and President of Modern Grid Solutions delivering consulting and training services to a global set of entities (cities, utilities, and vendors) seeking deep subject matter expertise in developing the next-generation electric energy and other sustainable mechanisms. Also, he is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington and a Technical Consultant to New York State Smart Grid Consortium where he participates in an architecture role in the core REV team. His past roles have been VP of Infrastructure at Battelle Memorial Institute, Partner and Global lead for System Operations and Smart Grid at Accenture, Lead engineer at ESCA Corporation (now GE Digital Grid Solutions). A Smart Grid and Smart Cities expert, he offers sought-after perspectives on the entire electric value chain.
Dr. Vadari’s book “Electric System Operations – Evolving to the Modern Grid” is available at leading book-sellers and has received 5 Star reviews from industry leaders. His new book “Smart Grid Redefined – The Transformation of the Electric Utility” is already being received with excellent reviews. Dr. Vadari has published over 50 Articles and several blogs on a broad range of subjects ranging from Electric System Operations to Smart Grid to Big Data and the Internet of Things.
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