Are Your Transformers Ready for the 'Smart Grid'?

Posted: Oct, 19 - 2009

Published: Oct, 20 - 2009

Format: application/pdf

No Of Pages: 7 pages

Language: English

Abstract

The definition of the 'Smart Grid' is still something that is taking shape. Utility professionals concur on some aspects and ideas of what the smart grid should be, but there are still grey areas that, however, promise to become clearer soon. Some groups will tend to focus on the specific technologies that go into creating this 'intelligence' in a power network; others will take a more generalized view and look at the smart grid's operational characteristics and capabilities.
Power system intelligence is essentially about taking sensory and analytical capabilities down to the substation or device level, all the way at the bottom of the system hierarchy. Smart grids will produce a steady stream of information about system conditions and operating characteristics that are valuable for managing the commercial side of a given utility or grid operator.
More intelligent systems for monitoring combined with the substation and feeder automation in power distribution networks can bring several improvements:

• Better reliability
• More availability
• Enhanced security
• Energy efficiency

This Whitepaper takes an open view of the smart grid. It begins by noting the need for a smart grid and locating its capabilities and operational characteristics. The paper also takes a closer look at the smart grid as a concept and the various energy benefits the economy can reap from its implementation.
The smart grid is essentially a highly automated system that will evolve based on adoption of fresh standards industry-wide. With something as large as a power grid, radical change cannot occur ? the existing system will go through a series of gradual transformations. And energy transformers have a crucial role to play in this evolving 'smart' system.
The whitepaper goes on to describe the importance of the millions of transformers that play a crucial role in the energy distribution system in the US. It then touches upon the role Pacific Crest Transformers can play in the emerging milieu.
Introduction
The century-old power grid is the US has often been called 'the largest interconnected machine on Earth'. Little wonder, because it consists of more than 9,200 electricity generating units, with more than 1,000,000 megawatts of generating capacity connected to more than 300,000 miles of transmission lines. However this mammoth power infrastructure is nearly a century old and is understandably running out of steam. The lights may still be on but relying on an often-overtaxed grid is becoming increasingly risky.
Since 1982, growth in peak demand for electricity driven by population growth, bigger houses, bigger TVs, more air conditioners and more computers has exceeded transmission growth by almost 25% every year. Yet spending on research and development. the first step toward innovation and renewal is among the lowest when compared to all other industries.
Even as the demand for energy has skyrocketed, there has been chronic underinvestment in getting energy where it needs to go through transmission and distribution, further limiting grid efficiency and reliability. While hundreds of thousands of high-voltage transmission lines course throughout the United States, only 668 additional miles of interstate transmission have been built since 2000. As a result, system constraints worsen and power quality issues are estimated to cost American businesses an average of more than $100 billion each year.
The grid's centralized structure also leaves the US open to blackouts. In fact, the interdependencies of various grid components can have a cascading series of failures that could bring banking, communications, traffic, and security systems among other things to a complete standstill.
National challenges like the aging power grid, increasing energy demands, spiraling cost of generating electricity and its cost on the environment are all pointing in one direction, and one direction only: a grid that is more efficient in energy production and distribution.
For years technologists have been toying with the idea of a 'Smart Grid', an electricity distribution system that uses digital technology to eliminate waste and improve reliability.
Advocates of the smart grid also say that it would open up new markets for large and small scale alternative energy producers by decentralizing generation. It would allow consumers to have a much more complex relationship with their energy supplier.