Computer Engineering 480 – Instructor: Yenumula V. Reddy
Individual Research Paper
Smart Grid Technology
Mark Swisher
Introduction
In today’s modern society, technology is constantly being improved and applied to areas
in which it did not originally form. This creates opportunities to radically change the structure of
how certain areas of civilization operate for the better. Common advancements that have been
prevalent over the past half-century are computerization of processes and evolved forms of
communication.
A current movement throughout the world involves these technologies being melded with
the electrical grid that powers all first-world countries. This would create a more efficient,
customer-friendly, and responsive system that could better combat many of the environmental
and economic problems being faced by the current scheme. The purpose of this paper is to
provide a well-rounded understanding of the current state of electrical grids, reasons for applying
these technologies, and what it could mean for the future of modern civilization.
Existing Electrical Structure
The electrical grid that is in use in most areas began being developed roughly seventy
years ago. Once the realization was made that electricity could be more useful than just being a
novelty, the construction of structures capable of producing, transporting, and delivering it were
underway.
This process of electrical production to servicing customers consists of three main stages.
First, the electrical energy must be generated. Over the years, various methods have been created
for this purpose. Some well-known generators used today are run by fossil-fuels, nuclear power,
hydro-power, wind, solar, and geothermal energy. In the beginning, mass production wasn’t as
much of a concern as it had only just begun to spread in mainstream society. However, the world
today relies on mass amounts of reliable electricity. Due to this, generators today have been
scaled to meet this demanding criteria. “Each individual generator unit is large with a rating of
up to 1000 Megawatts.” (Ekanayake, 2012, p. 1.1)
Once it is produced, it is fed “from large central generators up through generator
transformers to a high voltage interconnected network, known as the transmission grid.”
(Ekanayake, 2012, p. 1.1) It is transmitted at extremely high voltages to reduce the amount of
current flowing through the transmission lines. This assures that as small amount of power as
possible is lost during this process.
Finally, the lines are fed into local stations where the voltage is brought down to a usable
level by households and businesses. Lower voltage power lines distribute the power to the
surrounding area and service the customers.
For many years, the current infrastructure worked fine for the needs of populated areas,
but “the transmission and distribution equipment that was installed then is now beyond its design
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life and in need of replacement.” (Ekanayake, 2012, p. 1.1) Many of the current structures have
been in use for over 50 years now and the demand for electricity is clearly out pacing their
capacity. To make matters worse, the power companies are not able to simply send a larger load
to satisfy the demand due to the constraints of the equipment. Factors such as insulation,
clearances of wires, thermal constraints all cause safety concerns in the event of carrying a load
larger than what they are rated for. The only possible solution is to upgrade or add to the
equipment.
Instead of simply adding capacity to existing infrastructure, many are looking to change
some of the fundamental ways this whole process is approached. Currently, much of the
electricity in the United States is produced by fossil fuel burning power plants. This is a rather
dirty process that has gone under strong scrutiny in recent years for things such as the
contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Actions have been taken to regulate such
emissions, yet this type of solution is only temporary when considering the big picture.
Renewable energy technologies have developed much over the previous decade and are quickly
becoming economically viable competitors to cheap fossil fuels.
One example of renewable resources that are on the rise is solar energy. Advancements in
solar cell technology, as well as battery efficiency, have produced an alternate energy source for
both business and personal use. This causes the technology to be more readily available to the
average consumer allowing more households to begin investing in personal use solar panels. This
poses a unique challenge for the power companies to face that they have not seen before. It is
with relative ease that someone can now meet their energy needs through their own generation of
power at an economically efficient level. During the months in which there is much sunlight,
these small solar farms can produce a healthy amount of electricity. So much so that many times
it is more than that family needs at that time. Instead of just losing the unused power, the
customer is starting to have the option of selling it back to the grid for others to use when
needed. This is a new concept because of the old fashioned approach for distribution that has
been used up until now. Originally, the electric companies were the only part generating the
power and simply funneled it out to the customers. It “was designed essentially as a one-way
conduit to transmit vast amounts of power generated primarily at a limited number of large
central power stations to major load centers.” (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 32) The world is transforming
and beginning to require a two-way system that accepts and sends power between plant and
customer.
Another requirement this brings up that isn’t met by the traditional electrical grid is the
ability to communicate with the customer’s end. For example, if power is being sold back to the
grid, the company has to be able to monitor how much and then decide on how to handle the
extra energy. All of this requires digital communication throughout the infrastructure that
currently isn’t there (for the most part). The only type of surveillance in place at this time is
usually just to monitor the status of the high voltage lines from the power plants to the
transformer stations to ensure proper working conditions and to watch for abnormal behavior.
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A critical function of the current monitoring systems is to watch the current demand for
power throughout the day. Typical times for increased demand is during the middle of the day
when there is the most human activity. This is what is referred to as the “peak load”. To handle
this, the power company could continuously run a very large generator that is capable of
outputting this vast amount of power. However, this method would turn inefficient as the times
of lowest demand occur due to creating much more electricity than is needed. These times
typically are during the night when most people are asleep. Instead, the current solution used by
many in practice is to model the size of the main generators to handle the lower demand.
Whenever the demand rises above the capability of the main generator set, a separate set of
generators will be activated to handle the excess load. This is referred to as “peak load shaving”.
An early lesson learned in economics is the principle of supply and demand. Whenever a
certain resource is in high demand, there is less of a supply available. This correlates to an
increase in price in normal markets. However, this has not been the case throughout history for
power companies due to lack of metering technologies. “Until recently, primitive
electromechanical meters in use to measure consumption for all but the largest customers were
only capable of registering volumetric usage not differentiated by time of use, voltage, wattage,
or anything else.” (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 32) This means that electricity has been priced at a flat
rate since the companies didn’t have a way of keeping track of if the power a customer used was
during peak hours (when it should have been more expensive) or during the low demand hours
(when it should be cheaper). This limitation has its effects on both parties. For the customer,
using electricity during the night can be expensive as the price is just the same as it is during the
day even though there is a higher supply of it. For the power company, they are missing out on
making more revenue by charging more for the high demand during peak hour times. This
difference in consumption does not only appear across the hours of the day. There are also major
differences in electricity usage across the different months of the year.
Figure 1: The Average California Load throughout the Year
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Finally, one of the most important flaws within the current power sector is the degrading
shape of the equipment. Over the years, many companies have opted to implement patchwork
and outdated solutions in lieu of investing capital in new technology studies. This type of repair
can only be used as short term solutions and is finally beginning to show as such.
All of these issues with the current state of the electrical grid are preventing the market
from operating with the optimal efficiency and precision that modern technology allows. The
Smart Grid plan takes many of these into account and are the focal point of many ambitious
engineers’ visions. The following section will delve into how its innovations plan to overcome
these challenges of moving the electrical grid into the 21st century.
Smart Grid – The Plan
The basic plans behind implementing a smart grid is to integrate smart metering and
sensors throughout the network, accommodate renewable energy sources and power generation
by consumers, efficiently handle the distribution of power, and improve the reliability and
consistency of the system. Some of these features have already began to immerge in the current
market, but have not truly been seen on a widespread level.
The first advancement that will be discussed is the use of smart metering and smart
sensors for the consumer’s household. “In this new environment, meter data management
requires significantly more functionality.” (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 281) The previous meters only
record one kind of data four times per hour, whereas “the data volume is now being increased by
a factor of nearly 3,000.” (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 281) By eliminating the out of date, purely
volumetric style of metering, the power companies would then be able to assess the nature of the
usage of the household. Also, this would add many other functional abilities, including: alerts if a
line is being potentially tampered with, voltage and outage data, and information about the
changing load of the connection. The digital communication lines would also need to be updated
to allow for the transfer of data in both directions. These accomplishments would give the grid a
better digital communication link with all ends of service, not just the generation portion.
In addition to providing better real-time data, this would give the needed information to
implement a dynamic pricing scheme on electricity use. The power company would be able to
ascertain if any usage came during certain time periods where the price of usage would be
different than normal. This brings some ethical arguments against the long standing tradition of
the flat-rate model. Many of the ones who bring these ethics into question are ones who are
negatively affected by this change. The ones who use more power during the peak hours would
consequently be charged more for the service. While those who use the most energy during the
low demand period get cuts on their bills. “The beneficiaries will be delighted but those who are
no longer subsidized will be upset.” (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 62) However, these prices would simply
be modeled after the increased cost in generating power during the high demand times (ie.
Having to start separate generators to pick up the extra load).
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Another way to circumvent dealing with such premium rates is to participate in
distributed generation. This includes using sources of power from places other than the power
company. Using the new smart grid, actions could be taken to reroute power in times of
emergency. If there are wind turbines or solar farms near an area that is being affected by a
blackout, the power for that area could be switched over to use that temporary form of power.
This could also be used to grant electricity to emergency personnel in times of disaster or to keep
rolling blackouts affecting as few people as possible. This would also allow for quicker repair
times as the problem area would be able to be better identified and isolated.
Due to technology advancement, concerns with security of present fuel sources, and the
repercussions of continued fossil fuel use, renewable energy sources have begun to take center
stage. Switching off of the fuels that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions would start the
world in a better direction to take better care of the environment. ”Currently, more than 80% of
the world’s energy is produced from fossil fuel that pollutes surrounding environments each and
every day, which causes global warming.” (Ali, 2013, p. 46) However, it is important to not
overstate the emergence of renewable energies for they do come with caveats in terms of
execution. “To integrate large amount of electricity from these sources into the grid, main
concerns are the variability in energy from these sources.” (Ali, 2013, p. 46) For example, take a
look at solar energy. It can be a great source of clean energy whenever the environment is right.
During the summer months, whenever the sun is highest in the sky, the photons given off travel
through the least amount of atmosphere. This means that they have more energy by the time they
reach the Earth’s surface. This is in comparison to the winter when the sun is at a much lower
angle in the sky forcing the sunlight to travel through much more of the atmosphere, losing
energy. These variations in conjunction with the fact that solar power can’t be produced at night,
have to be able to be handled by the smart grid. The old grid is only used to fueled generators
that produce constant output. This will need the use of digital controllers to sense the changes
and relay that to the head of the grid. Once reported, the proper variables would be changed to
funnel the electricity to the proper area of need.
Making all of these changes is no simple task. Many will require overhauls of much of
the existing infrastructure and large amounts of capital from the power companies themselves. If
the past serves as any indication, this process will probably take place over many more decades
as they slowly conform to what this world is capable of. Money is the driving force for many
motives throughout the world and this is certainly no exception. As economic viability increases,
along with continued pressure from environmental agencies, the choice to upgrade the grid will
gain favorability. They will benefit consumers, producers, as well as the environment as
efficiency, autonomous ability, situational conformity, and reliability become the norm. Once
everyone is on board, we will all get to see the true potential behind these better methods of
powering the world.
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References
Ekanayake, J., Liyanage, K., Wu, J., Yokoyama, A., & Jenkins, N. (2012). The Smart Grid.
In Smart Grid: Technology and Applications. John Wiley & Sons.
Sioshansi, F. (2011). Smart Grid. Academic Press.
Ali, A. (Ed.). (2013). Smart Grids: Opportunities, Developments, and Trends. Green Energy and
Technology.
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