Cyber Security – A Growing Priority for the Electric Grid

Cyber Security Requires a Change in Strategy Electric Grid With the electric industry trend toward implementing Smart Grid and AMI, the definition of electric grid security has broadened from guarding against weather-related outages to protecting against the possibility of cyber attacks. The challenge is even more pronounced as the nature of the threats is likely to evolve as the sophistication...

Network Planning for SmartGrid Communication

There are a number of factors that drive the plans and programs of a SmartGrid implementation; these include: Economic Pressures, Cyber Security, Overall System Reliability, Energy Efficiency, and Customer Participation However, one can argue that none of these factors is more important to overall success than the manner in which an electric utility incorporates communications into its Smart...

Broadband Communications and the Smart Grid

Smart Grid and the Need for an Improved Communications Infrastructure Electric Grid The U.S. electric grid consists of over 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and more than 6 million miles of distribution lines that serve over 100 million customers (283 million people). Electricity usage continues to grow and it now represents over 40 percent of overall energy consumption in the...

The ABCs of the Smart Grid

Smart Grid-Improved Reliability The U.S. electric power grid consists of more than 300,000 miles of transmission lines weaving there way across the country that despite its age performs remarkably well. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) assigns it a reliability rating in excess of 99.9 percent However, the relatively few outages that do occur each year in the U.S. cost the American economy an...

An Introduction to Capacitors

Electric Capacitor Like batteries, capacitors store electrical energy. However, unlike batteries they do not produce electrons. Capacitors consist of two terminals, each connected to a metal plate which is separated by a non-conducting substance referred to as a dielectric. The plate that is attached to the: Negative terminal of the battery that accepts the electrons that the battery is...

Integration of MDMS and OMS

Outage Management-An Evolving Process The electric industry has come a long way since the 1980s with respect to service restoration during unplanned system outages: The manual process of collecting and sorting trouble reports to the call center and manually discerning patterns from which to generate work orders has largely been replaced by sophisticated algorithms of computerized outage...

Grid Automation: More Than Smart Meters (AMI or AMR)

keep the air clean for our children Many energy utilities have made a move to develop a power system that combines traditional and cutting-edge technologies to support the ever-increasing array of digital services desired by customers while effectively managing the requisite flow of energy. A number of fully integrated smart grid communities (e.g. Boulder, CO) are being developed, anticipating...

Energy Transmission and Distribution Infrastructure-Cornerstone to an effective Smart Grid Network

Executive and legislative policy makers at national, state, and local levels of government are highly focused on critical infrastructure issues of all types. Their focus encompasses both infrastructure security (which has vastly increased since September 2001 and further since the Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007) and the role that energy (specifically electricity) plays in the economic...

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...

Expected Results and Benefits from Grid Modernization (Including SmartGrid and AMI)

Grid Modernization: Electric Infrastructure with SmartGrid and AMI Most electric customers and other stakeholders are keenly aware of the vast innovations, improvements, and cost reductions that have occurred in their telecommunications networks and they clearly recognize the benefits they have realized from them. In contrast, few customers and other stakeholders recognize the potential for...