Transitioning from Centralized to Distributed Intelligence

 Maximize the Value of Smart Grid Technology   There remains significant electricity industry emphasis on implementing smart grid technologies. These implementations include the investments necessary to refurbish and/or replace aging electric distribution infrastructure to enable a Smart Grid. As the electric industry succeeds in linking these related aspects of a truly modernized grid, few...

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...

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...

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...