Underground Secondary Networks

Secondary networks are commonly used to serve downtown business and mixed residential/commercial districts in an underground urban setting. They are typically made up of ‘square blocks’ requiring highly reliable service using underground facilities from just inside the substation all the way to the meter. The Figure shown to the left is an IEEE diagram that shows a typical secondary grid...

Service Restoration Overview

The service (or outage) restoration process is perhaps the most complicated operational process at any electric utility. It requires coordination and communication across all of the key functions of the distribution business and is implemented in a time-critical environment (often in extreme weather conditions and non-standard working hours). It requires an extraordinary focus on safety while...

Lightning Protection and Impact on Electric System Reliability

Figure 1: US Lightning Patterns Most of the lightning-prone area in the United States tends to be in the far southeast. The figure presents the map of the continental United States displaying isokeraunic contours (lines of equal lightning activity per year). Clearly, the most significant occurrences for lightning is in the southeast ( with levels ranging between 80 and 100), but even in areas...

Distribution Line Losses

Distribution Line Losses (By Voltage) Distribution line losses are often a significant cost to an electric utility and thus to the energy consumer in its cost-of-service rate regime. Consequently, each electric utility is continuously exploring ways to improve efficiency (through reducing these losses) across its networks by: Reducing Transformation – Voltage transformation inherently produces...

Energy Utilities Approaches to Grid Modernization

Successful Grid Modernization Programs There are a number of energy utilities that have adopted a holistic approach to Grid Modernization that ensures the network is properly refurbished and hardened, thus ensuring that the full benefits of SmartGrid (e.g. grid automation) are realized by the vast majority of their customers. In so doing, these utilities have been able to meet the near-term...

The Rising and Critical Role of Electricity

Energy is the Foundation of Modern U.S. Life GDP Growth and Energy Usage Each electric utility’s transmission and distribution system is fundamentally an energy delivery network. A first principle is that total energy usage (broadly defined) and GDP growth have always been and always will be highly correlated. Simply stated, economic growth in the U.S. (and in every developed economy)...

Electric Distribution – System Hardening and Modernization

Hardening and modernizing the electrical distribution system for any utility involve a number of related, yet separate actions. These actions are typically tied to: Effecting Repairs and Replacement, Improving Reliability, Meeting Load Projections and Modernizing the Grid Most of these actions are already incorporated in existing energy delivery operating plans, but typically in an incremental...

Distribution Automation – The Key to Achieving Top-Quartile Smart Grid Reliability

The electric utility industry has envisioned distribution automation in one form or another since the early 1980s. With recent improvements to communications technology (particularly cellular telephone/data, GPS satellites, power line carrier, and fiber optic cable technologies) that vision is rapidly becoming a reality, and, in fact, a virtual necessity, as customers have come to expect...

Rebirth of Nuclear Power and New Generations of Nuclear Reactors-Part of a Clean Energy Strategy

There is growing interest world-wide in the potential for nuclear energy to have a major role in reducing carbon emissions (i.e. providing clean energy) in addition the traditional benefits of nuclear energy efficiency and the ability to meet energy generation capacity requirements. Recent Gallup Inc. poll results indicate that U.S. public opinion is increasingly favorable towards nuclear power,...

Types of Nuclear Reactors

The Nuclear Power industry classifies Nuclear Reactors based on the: Type of Nuclear Reaction, Nature of the Moderator Material, Coolant Type, and Reactor Design Types   Types of Nuclear Reaction Nuclear fission – All commercial nuclear reactors operate under the principles of nuclear fission, for which they generally use uranium. Fission reactors can be further categorized based...