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Smart Grid
The 21 st Century Utility
Long-standing electric utility business models are rapidly becoming outdated in light of new technologies, policy changes and more demanding consumers. Roles along the value chain are shifting, with traditional buyers gaining a foothold as value providers. To succeed in this new environment, industry model innovators will develop fresh business models, as well as the infrastructure, rules and standards to facilitate not only traditional energy generation and delivery, but also emerging products and services enabled by new technologies.
Smart Grid
The United States is home to vast quantities of clean energy resources – wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower. Yet it lacks a modern interstate transmission grid to deliver carbon-free electricity to customers in highly populated areas of the country. The U.S. administration has called for the United States to double the production of renewable energy in three years and to secure 25 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2025. Achieving this will require a cohesive effort from local, state, and federal officials and significant new investment in our transmission infrastructure.
Transmission is Critical for Renewable Energy
The massive deployment of renewable generation envisioned by the U.S. administration cannot occur without a renewed investment in the country's transmission infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has identified transmission limitations as the greatest obstacle to realizing the enormous economic, environmental and energy security benefits of obtaining at least 20 percent of U.S. electricity from wind.
Green Power Superhighways
To promote the expansion of renewable energy, the transmission grid should be built to link areas with vast potential to generate clean electricity to the areas that have significant demand for electric power. “Green power superhighways” is a term to describe the power lines that would be carrying electricity from remote to populated areas. While any number of different build-out plans can be envisioned for green power superhighways, the key to any cost-effective plan is the use of high-voltage transmission lines in place of the low-voltage lines commonly deployed in the U.S. today.
Current Challenges
Policy barriers – not technical or economic barriers – are the chief factors impeding the construction of green power superhighways. However, there are notable changes that should be implemented to make better use of U.S. transmission infrastructure.
Coordinating Regional Transmission Operations
Today's highly constrained patchwork transmission system makes it very difficult to move large amounts of renewable power around the country. A solution is to use the existing grid more efficiently through technology and new operating protocols. This is not a replacement for green power superhighways, but these changes would allow more wind and solar energy to be integrated with the grid at lower cost. Increased efficiency would provide greater flexibility for changes in electricity supply and demand and would improve economic performance of the grid even in the absence of renewable energy.
Smart Grid Benefits
While we can identify several quantifiable benefits the smart grid will bring today, we believe many other significant benefits exist that will not become apparent until the smart grid begins to be implemented. Specifically, we believe there is compelling evidence that supports the following long-term benefit assumptions:
• Significant reductions in residential peak demand energy consumption achieved by providing real-time price and environmental signals in conjunction with advanced in-home technologies
• Additional reductions in residential peak demand by fully integrating the utility system with distributed generation technologies (scalable for mass penetration)
• Up to 30% reduction in distribution losses from optimal power factor performance and system balancing
• Potential carbon footprint reduction as a result of lowered residential peak demand and energy consumption, improved distribution losses and increased conservation options
• Possible reductions in the number of customer minutes out as a result of improved abilities to predict and/or prevent potential outages, and more effective responses to outages and restoration
• Expected deferral of capital spends for distribution and transmission projects based on improved load estimates and reduction in peak load from enhanced demand management
• Potential utility cost savings from remote and automated disconnects and reconnects, elimination of unneeded field trips and reduced customer outage and high-bill calls through home automation
A fully modernized grid is essential to provide service that is reliable, secure, cost-effective, efficient, safe, and environmentally responsible. To achieve this vision of the smart grid, a wide range of technologies must be developed and implemented. These technologies can be grouped into the following five Key Technology Areas (KTAs):
• Integrated Communications. High-speed, fully integrated, two-way communication technologies that make the smart grid a dynamic, interactive “mega-infrastructure” for real-time information and power exchange. An open architecture creates a plug-and-play environment that securely networks grid components, customers, and operators, enabling them to talk, listen, and interact.
• Advanced Components. Advanced components play an active role in determining the electrical behavior of the grid. These power system devices apply the latest research in materials, superconductivity, energy storage, power electronics, and microelectronics to produce higher power densities, greater reliability and power quality, enhanced electrical efficiency that produces major environmental gains, and improved real-time diagnostics.
• Advanced Control Methods. New methods and algorithms monitor power system components, enabling rapid diagnosis and timely, appropriate response to any event. They also support market pricing and enhance asset management and efficient operations.
• Sensing and Measurement. Technologies that enhance power system measurements and enable the transformation of data into information. They evaluate the health of equipment, the integrity of the grid, and support advanced protective relaying. They enable consumer choice and demand response, and help relieve congestion.
• Improved Interfaces and Decision Support. The smart grid will require wide, seamless, often real-time use of applications and tools that enable grid operators and managers to make decisions quickly. Decision support and improved interfaces will enable more accurate and timely human decision making at all levels of the grid, including the consumer level, while also enabling more advanced operator training. |
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