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www.theiet.org/magazine 8 May - 28 May 2010 Engineering & Technology

POWERSMART GRID

grid looks tosmart solutions

A great deal of attention has beenlavished on the growth of renewablepower but, as Sean Davies discovers,without the implementation of a smartgrid it will not deliver

THERE HAS been an awful lot of rhetoric about smart grid, butdepending on who you listen to itcan seem to be a disparateconcept. Although there is nostandard global definition, the

European Technology PlatformSmartGrids defines smart gridsas electricity networks that canintelligently integrate thebehaviour and actions of all users

connected to it – generators,consumers and those that do both

– in order to eff iciently deliversustainable, economic and secureelectricity supplies.

It is a definition that Mike

Kay – engineering and planningdirector of Electricity NorthWest – has some affinity with.“A smart grid allows appro-priate interaction between

customers’ appliances andthe energy network supplyingthem, both at a local, regionaland national level,” he says.“It allows customers’ appliancesto be scheduled to either take

advantage of real time powercosts, or for the networks toachieve a demand responsein relation to local orregional needs.”

Jeff Douglas, head of networkstrategy & development atCentral Networks adds to thedebate: “It is a series of techniques that wil l overlay thepower network and provide

customer benefits – facilitatingadditional distributed genera-tion connection, helping theaddition of new electricitydemand for electric vehicles I M

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F and heat, and providing newnetwork security features.”

“The terms are quite genericand it explains why virtuallyeverything related to electricitycan be linked with the termsmart grid,” Maciej Goraj,utility marketing manager atRuggedCom, explains. “Forsome people smart grid is AMI

(Automatic MeteringInfrastructure) and DistributionAutomation, as it is obvious thatthese two applications lackedcommunications architecture inthe past. We had legacy metersnot equipped with communica-tion interfaces, and the samesituation with elements of electricity distribution grid like

distribution substations,reclosers and sectionalisingswitches.

“Despite the fact that trans-mission systems and highvoltage substations had beenconnected to communicationsarchitecture in many situations,the utility companies were notmaking efficient use of the data

available from the grid.Therefore smart grid is all aboutintelligent devices equippedwith communication interfacesand connected to the commondata network, but it is also aboutproper applications that willmake efficient and intelligentuse of the data available throughcommunications.”

These applications will, onthe one hand, enable theconsumers to be more aware of their electricity use and makeintelligent decisions, and, on theother, enable utility companiesto better operate the grid, bemore predictive, and manageassets in a more economical way.

According to Andrew Jones,managing director of S&CElectric Europe, smart grids areimportant for the UK as they arethe banner under which the UKwill drive and meet itslow-carbon targets, but heargues that smart grids havebeen in existence for manyyears. “There appears to be nosingle consensus on what smartgrids should entail, and to datemuch of the emphasis has beenplaced on smart meters,” hesays. “In reality without the gridinfrastructure in place thensmart meters form only a smallpart of the solution. From S&Cperspective the following arekey elements of the future,

On the right track?Even with the will in place, itrequires guidance from policy andregulators for a technology toevolve successfully. But are thecorrect policies in place tosupport the development of thesmart grid?

“The weak area for policy is thechanged relationship withcustomers. That is not to say thatthe policy framework is satisfactory elsewhere, but the challenge of changing customer behaviour is asgreat as any.

“The term ‘smart grid’ is pretty meaningless. You cannot have asmart grid without smart

customers. And how can customersbecome smart? Principally via theirappliances. So where is thecoordination between appliance

manufacturers and the govern-ment’s objectives?

“There should be an urgentdebate on the need for, and natureof, interaction between networksand appliances. This debate shouldtake into account the government’splans for smart meters – whichhave the potential to be part of thesolution, provided the specificationthat emerges this summer is flexibleenough and has these issuesthought through.”Mike Kay, engineering andplanning director, Electricity North West

“The first step should be

appropriate policies to push thechange in the utility companies tomodernise their grid,communications infrastructure

and enterprise level managementapplications.

“Once this has been achievedand utility companies have a clear

vision of how to engage customersand provide means for them to play an interactive role, then policiesshall target end-users to promoterenewal of appliances and substi-tuting legacy devices by modernsmart equipment.”Maciej Goraj, utility marketingmanager, RuggedCom

“There’s going to need to be aconcerted effort to make sure smartmetering functions and data meetthe future needs of the distribution

companies.” Jeff Douglas, head of network strategy & development, CentralNetworks

“There are national andinternational policies [especially

with regard to smart metering].However, we need clearer UK andEU policy to enable and ensuretimely smart grid deployment.

“Most of the EU electricity industry is now privatised and it cantherefore be difficult policy-wise toactively engage all industry partici-pants in smart grid deployment.

For example, in the UK distribu-tion network owners and operatorshave not always been able to partic-ipate in the definition of smartmetering functionality in order toensure the functionality is appro-priate to enable future smart grid

deployment.”Dr Gareth Taylor, course director &senior lecturer at Brunel Instituteof Power Systems (BIPS)

Consensus has notbeen reached on

what the term ‘smartgrid’ actually means –it can be applied to a

number of differenttechnologies

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E&T sked p ne f p wer gridexperts w c nfident t e re f

sm rt grid bec ming re it .

“I’m fairly confident given thepolitical imperative. If the politicaldrive is reduced in the near future,then the scale of the change willprobably hold back change – simply through the inertia of the existingarrangements.”Mike K , engineering ndp nning direct r, E ectricit N rt West

“I’m optimistic – these arechallenging and exciting times –and a real opportunity for theengineering community to showgreat leadership.”

Jeff D ug s, e d f netw rk str teg & deve pment, CentrNetw rks

“It seems like a storm right now; we have too many technologies forthe last mile and home appliances

as well as an uncertain situationat the utility companies. There isdefinitely lot of hype, many newcompanies have been created andall of them try to play their ro le inthe promising smart grid market.It will be a natural process that oncethe utilities clarify what aspects of the smart grid they want toimplement the crucial players willbecome stronger and remain in themarket. After two or three years anumber of companies will probably abandon the smart gr id arena.”M ciej G r j, uti it m rketingm n ger, RuggedC m

“If it is all to fall in place in theUK (for example) then theelectricity industry will need moretechnically detailed policy at anational governmental level.

The markets alone will not deliver

smart gr ids.”Dr G ret T r, c urse direct r &seni r ecturer t Brune Institute

f P wer S stems (BIPS)

t e future

Will it happen?

many of which we have liveinstallation operating todaythrough the world.”

PRESSING NEEDThe importance of developingan effective smart grid cannot beover-emphasised. As Gorajexplains, it will affect our verylifestyle. “It will be therevolution similar to whatInternet brought to IT,” she says.“Smart grid is the Internet of the electrical power grid.”

Another key motivator forsmart grid implementation isthe big changes in upstreampower sources – more renewa-bles, greater intermittency andnuclear power. Distributedgeneration will increase, partlyin response to incentives like‘feed-in tariffs’, while demandwill increase to use low-carbonsources for transport and heat.

Kay agrees that the decarbon-isation of both heat and trans-port will drive smart grid devel-opment. “Overall energyefficiency might have a signifi-cant impact in reducing energyusage overall, but the move to adecarbonised energy systembased on electricity will havetwo impacts: the increase ininflexible and intermittentgeneration and a growth inelectricity usage,” he says. “Thefirst impact needs demand-sideresponse to help manage the newgeneration mix, and the secondimpact will be ameliorated bythe ability of the network toshape demand patterns to

minimise the new build of network capacity.”

TEChNoloGy GaPSAccording to Kay there are noobvious technology gaps – although many of thetechnological elements that arerequired have never beendeployed at scale. “Thechallenges then relate to thetrialling and growth of existingtechniques rather than thedevelopment of new approaches,but inevitably new approacheswill emerge also,” he explains.

“The most significant gap is thelack of a relationship betweennetwork operators and customers.

“Currently the customerrelationship is held by energy

suppliers. This relationshipneeds to evolve to deal with theneeds of the networks, and forsuppliers to reflect this into thearrangements with customers.”

Consumer participation isalso high on the agenda for DavidHealy, the smart grid manager atthe Joule Centre. “Consumerparticipation is needed inreducing consumption or shiftingdemand to minimise peak loadrequirements,” he says“Significant work needs to bedone to identify what commer-cial and pricing arrangementswill realise such goals.

“Some of the initial experi-ences from rollouts in the UnitedStates are not positive. Forexample the simple matter of paying for actual usage has gener-ated significant ‘bill shock’ withsome bills doubling because theyare no longer based upon theannual usage being spread overa 12 month period thereby deliv-ering evenly-spread bills.”

Although he admits that wehave a great range of technolo-gies available, Douglas believesthat there are two key pieces of the jigsaw missing – namely “theready availability of smartmetering data for DNOs to use indesigning and managingnetwork constraints in conjunc-tion with their complex networkconnectivity models, and anoff-the-shelf f ault currentlimiting device for 11kVnetworks to help increase theamount of local generation thatcan be connected”.

According to Jones, the majorchallenge is to integrate all thedifferent technologies andmanufacturers within times-cales that are consideredchallenging for the industry.“OFGEM DPRC5 [DistributionPrice Review Control] with itsLow-Carbon Network fundingshould be the critical piece todrive integration over the nextfive years, but still taking timefor the industry to understandhow this will work.

“Generally there are policiesand funding in place that will

help establish smart grids, butthere are still some areas thatcould see improvement. Anexample of this is energystorage, which, for a long time,

was considered a competitor torenewable energy generationdevice manufacturers, but isnow starting to be seen asenabling technology.

“In other countries aroundthe world incentives are beingdiscussed in line with the onescurrently paid by governmentsto get renewables connectedwhich will in turn drive demandand get costs to a level to allowlarge scale implementation.”

The answer according toGoraj is how the data ismanaged. “Even if you have themost advanced smart meter onthe market, the utility companyneeds to know what to do withall the data it will be receiving,”she says. “Also robust andreliable communications archi-tecture is required. IT gradeequipment will not be valid forbuilding the smart grid.

“Unlike the Internet, which isbuilt on top of office-gradeequipment typically located inair-conditioned rooms operatedby telecom companies, thecommunication equipment for

the smart grid must be muchmore robust as the electricalsubstations and distributiongrids are a much more unfriendlyenvironment than the telecomworld. There are a lot of electro-magnetic phenomena andenvironmental issues present inhigh voltage networks that needto be addressed.

“Rugged communicationsequipment is the only choice if we want the smart grid not onlyto provide valuable informationfor smart application but also tobe extremely robust and reliablesystem that will guaranteecontinuous electricity supplyfor end customers and industry.”

All these and many othertopics will come under thespotlight at the IET’s influentialtwo-day conference ‘SmartGrid 2010: Making it a reality’that takes place in Londonlate in May. L

L F r m re inf rm ti n b ut t ec nference g thttp://conferences.theiet.org/smartgrid/index.htm

‘Co sum r r c os d d r duc g

co sum o or s f gd m d o m m sk o d r qu r m s’

David Healy, smart grid manager,Joule Centre