The Benefits of District Energy Systems

District energy systems offer a variety of benefits, including: Improved energy efficiency – Steam, hot water or chilled water arrive at a building ready to use. They are 100 percent efficient “at the door,” as compared with 80 percent efficient or less when burning natural gas or fuel oil at a building. In addition, district energy systems can use the “reject heat”...

The History of District Energy Systems

District energy systems date back to the Roman Empire when heating systems were developed for hypocausts (ancient heating systems), greenhouses, water pipes, and hot water heating. This technology was used even more widely during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries during a particularly cold period. Early District Energy Systems Some of the more noteworthy developments in district energy...

Smart Grid – System Communication Architecture for Residential Customers

The greatest opportunity to realize benefit, yet the highest risk in terms of recovering costs, lie in the deployment of the Smart Grid to residential customers. Much of the Smart Grid-related functionality has already been provided to the commercial and industrial sectors, as the economics of higher revenues and lower deployment costs (relative to delivery capacity) create a strong business case...

Impact of Customer Segmentation on Smart Grid Deployment

Smart Grid Deployment Faster Among Industrial and Commercial Segments The costs of deploying a smart grid can vary dramatically by customer segment. Industrial and commercial customers combined represent only 12 percent of an average electric utility’s customer base, but they typically consume between 65 and 70 percent of the electricity. This large per capita power consumption (and resulting...

An Introduction to Smart Grid

Smart Grid – the Time is Now “Smart Grid” fulfills a comprehensive vision to improve the reliability, efficiency, and security of the electric network. The current grid (or network) becomes “smart” when the conventional electric system is augmented with communications infrastructure, data management, automation, and control technologies that provide for improved management of power...

Smart Grid – A Call for Improved Security

Energy Management Panel Smart Grid includes a proliferation of intelligent devices across the entire energy delivery system, thereby establishing a communication link between these devices and developing a means to collect, convert, and analyze a myriad of system data. Measures to Improve Electric System Security In accomplishing this proliferation of intelligent devices, electric utilities are...

Smart Grid Technology’s Impact on Vegetation Management

Vegetation Management-Enhanced Tree Trimming With the advent of Smart Grid technology electric utilities will no longer be dependent on customers to report outages. Smart Grid sensing devices will in many instances (particularly in the case of vegetation management) be able to anticipate an outage prior to the initiating event. With respect to vegetation management and depending on the actual...

Management of Smart Grid Data

The advent of Smart Grid has significantly expanded the role and importance of data and information management requiring: Strategies to ensure the proper collection, analysis and utilization of data and information Development of robust and flexible communication networks Being proactive in addressing any legal ramifications relating to data ownership Leveraging Smart Grid Data There are a...

Enterprise Resource Planning for Effective Deployment of Smart Grid and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)

Long term success in transitioning to an intelligent or smart grid includes integration of the different elements of new information technologies with a utility’s traditional transaction systems. One of the most notable and important integration point is the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The implications of a smart grid on the ERP system include: Moving beyond the traditional ERP...

Understanding the Benefits and Risks of SF6

What are the Characteristics of SF6? Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6) is colorless, odorless, non-flammable, and chemically stable gas. At room temperature it does not react with any other substance. This stability is the result of a symmetrical arrangement of six fluorine atoms around a central sulfur atom. It makes the gas useful as an effective electrical insulator that extinguishes arcs; making it...