SMART GRIDand ethical concerns about smart grid technology

The electric industry is poised to make the transformation from a centralized, producer-controlled network to one that is less centralized and more consumer-interactive. The move to

a smarter grid promises to change the industry’s entire business model and its relationship with all stakeholders, involving and affecting utilities, regulators, energy service

providers, technology and automation vendors and all consumers of electric power.

Through the 1970s to the 1990s, growing demand led to increasing numbers of power stations. In some areas, supply of electricity, especially at peak times, could not keep up with this demand, resulting in poor power quality including blackouts, power cuts, and brownouts. Increasingly, electricity was depended on for industry, heating, communication, lighting, and entertainment, and consumers demanded ever higher levels of reliability.

Since the early 21st century, opportunities to take advantage of improvements in electronic communication technology to resolve the limitations and costs of the electrical grid have become apparent. Technological limitations on metering no longer force peak power prices to be averaged out and passed on to all consumers equally. In parallel, growing concerns over environmental damage from fossil-fired power stations has led to a desire to use large amounts of renewable energy.

What is a smart grid?A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operational and energy measures including smart meters, smart appliances, renewable energy resources, and energy efficiency resources. Electronic power conditioning and control of the production and distribution of electricity are important aspects of the smart grid.

An electrical grid is an interconnected network for delivering electricity from suppliers to consumers. It consists of generating stations that produce electrical power, high-voltage transmission lines that carry power from distant sources to demand centers, and distribution lines that connect individual customers

ProsA Smart Grid employs innovative products and services together with intelligent monitoring, control, communication, and self-healing technologies to:

● facilitate the connection and operation of generators of all sizes and technologies;

● allow consumers to play a part in optimizing the operation of the system;● provide consumers with greater information and choice of supply;● significantly reduce the environmental impact of the whole electricity supply

system;● deliver enhanced levels of reliability and security of supply.

WHAT

IS

FREQUENCY?

What is angular frequency and why do we use it?

What is Impedancethe effective resistance of an electric circuit or component to alternating current, arising from the combined effects of ohmic resistance and reactance.

Z = R + jwL + 1/(jwC)

Why is frequency important?

A circuit’s Characteristics Depend on The Frequency

Electronic devices are designed to work at a certain small frequency range

If the whole grid’s frequency changes it causes the system to collapse.

What other questionable issues?One of the goals of building smart grids is to allow consumers to choose between Power Companies.

If a consumer buys some certain minimum value of power each month, then that consumer is allowed to choose a power utility company. If you are running a university for instance, you can choose from which utility company you will buy your electricity.

The price the companies offer changes even during the day hours. It depends on the demand.

Nowadays this minimum value for being able to choose utility company is planned to be decreased from 1000Mwatts to 1Mwatts.

If smart grids are built successfully then every consumer will be able to choose power companies. This is one of the goals of this technology. But will it be fair for us to pay different amounts of money for the same amount of energy?

For instance the power utility company supplies a huge amount of power when Ereğlidemir A.Ş. melts down iron. At that time power will be very expensive.

Just an example, will old people be able to involve in this new technology market as well as the younger generation?

Will it be fair at all actually?

Who will control the grid?The delivery of “electricity” occurs in two stages. Transmission and distribution. Transmission is the delivery of the bulk power that is generated. This grid is controlled by ISOs (Independent system operators) in USA. Like CaliforniaISO, NYISO. In Turkey TEİAŞ makes the transmission.

When the bulk power is carried to cities, the distribution part is done by local companies. Like Gediz elektrik for İzmir. Dedaş for Diyarbakır.

These are the companies that control the grid.

Smart grids will make electric transmission and distribution much easier and safer.

As safe as the reliability of the distribution or the transmission company.

If it is done right a smart grid surely make it easier and safer to deliver power.

But this is a sophisticated technology, it needs harder work.

The “easy” requires a harder work actually.

Referenceshttp://www.iec.ch/smartgrid/background/explained.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid