Aging Electric Utility Workforce – Challenge and Opportunity

We are in the midst of a perfect storm with respect to the electric utility workforce: A review of electric utilities’ staffing within North America reveal that 35 to 50 percent of workforce performing critical maintenance, operations, and engineering functions are likely to retire or leave the industry within the next 5 years. A significant percentage of the North American electric grid is...

Smart Meters and Electric Utility Customers

As the roll out of smart meters continues, these new devices provide customers with the ability to monitor their electricity usage on a real time basis and electric utilities with the capability of reading meters at frequent intervals. These meters have also become the source of growing controversy: Smart Meter Customers are questioning their accuracy, particularly in the wake of sudden...

Smart Grid – Challenges and Opportunities

Smart Grid, with all of its features and potential to redefine the electricity market, can easily become disconnected from the wants and needs of the customers it is designed to serve. The challenge is clear yet not easy: Electric utilities must position themselves to listen to what their customers want and are willing to pay for, yet Recognize that their customers are not always able to...

Decision Factors Related to Grid Modernization

The rationale for modernizing the electric transmission and distribution (T&D) network is obvious, particularly as one contemplates the specific application of Smart Grid and AMI and general implementation of full-scale distribution automation. However, any discussion about grid modernization needs to quickly shift to the planning and sequencing of the myriad actions to achieve the vision of...

Energy Storage – Essential to Renewable Energy

Electric energy storage has becoming a more dominant topic of the overall energy management discussion primarily because of the: Increased production of electric vehicles being plugged into outlets for recharging every evening, Advent of net-zero homes, and Expansion of intermittent solar and wind generation into the mainstream of energy supply options. As these factors begin to take on greater...

Introduction to Micro Grids

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle With the increased importance of electricity in our day-to-day lives and overall economic prosperity, the notion of depending on outdated, centralized power grids that inefficiently deliver power and occasionally fails to meet basic needs for power may be insufficient, if not outdated. This has brought about the application of localized power grids, as part of an...

Customer Acceptance of the Smart Grid

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb-Energy Efficiency Significant investments have already been made in designing and constructing an electric grid that is automated, managed, and controlled by information and communications technologies. Thus far, the approach has been to place these enabling capabilities on top of a relatively aged and obsolete infrastructure, somewhat offsetting the potential...

SmartGrid and Renewable Energy: The Unresolved Questions

Wind Turbine Farms As the electricity industry forges ahead in defining and ultimately implementing SmartGrid and transitioning to a supply portfolio that includes renewable energy sources, there are a number of unanswered questions and obvious objections that must be confronted to ensure the full benefits of improved reliability, increased energy efficiency, and reduced CO2 emissions.  These...

The Inevitability of Smart Grid

Expansion of Driving Forces Point to Smart Grid Wind Turbine Farm Much of the current industry discussion around Smart Grid tends to focus on its benefits related to improved environmental stewardship through energy conservation and the introduction of renewable energy resources. Although these benefits will have a permanent role in the overall business case for Smart Grid investments, there are...

The Smart Grid Defined

Smart Meters-AMI One of the more commonly used yet least understood terms in today’s electric utility vocabulary is the term Smart Grid. Much like other often-used terms, with broader use it now lacks any precision, particularly given the evolution of many related programs and initiatives. Virtually every presentation on the topic starts with a definition of what Smart Grid is relative to the...