05.04.09v2
Smart Grid Depends on
Smart Planning
by José Delgado
Executive Chairman
American Transmission Company
T
he world of electricity production and transmission
is moving to a place where it has not been in
recent decades: the public’s imagination. Recent ads
by General Electric, including one that ran during the
Super Bowl, use the scarecrow character from The Wizard
of Oz to suggest a need for the power grid to become
“smarter.” The implication that the existing electric
system does not have a brain, metaphorically speaking, is
not accurate.
The U.S. Eastern Interconnection of transmission lines
and power plants is the largest single machine in the
world, covering more than 100 operating areas. What
complicates this system is the fact that electricity is a
commodity that is consumed the instant it is created,
with very limited storage capabilities. Some pretty
sophisticated equipment is needed to monitor this
complex system, which is why the transmission grid and
major generators have been computer-monitored and
controlled since the 1970s.
An overview of the communications and control
technology used among high-voltage transmission
and generation operators yields an impressive array
of capabilities that are currently deployed across the
country. These technologies, however, are rarely applied
at the distribution levels used to supply most end users.
Going forward, once these capabilities are expanded to
the end-user level, a variety of new challenges must be
addressed. Without a crystal ball, a smart and comprehensive planning process will be needed to prepare for a
range of possible future scenarios.
Smart Technologies in Use at High Level
Most utilities, including American Transmission
Company (ATC), have a number of highly sophisticated
capabilities in place across their transmission systems.
Data on the status of generators and transmission lines
is refreshed every few seconds by energy management
systems (EMS) that perform a wide variety of analyses
and control functions. They also provide alarms and
other information to generation and transmission
operators. Over time, automated energy management
systems have enhanced the use of the data. Many
transmission operators, and ATC, in particular, have
invested in a variety of other smart technologies as well:
Extensive use of communication technology
establishes two-way flow of data and control signals
between the system control computers and all the
major elements of the network, as well as between
adjacent control areas.
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Over 3,000 microprocessor-based relays can be
“interrogated” by operators to locate faults and other
anomalies across the grid. These relays allow for
flexible and dynamic control of the system, based on
monitoring and comparing multiple system parameters.
The relays go hand in hand with composite ground
wire with optical fiber, and make the system better,
faster, and more reliable.
Superconductor energy storage devices deliver brief
injections of energy to maintain voltage stability
while automatic relays disconnect damaged elements
from the system. These devices provide smoother and
more reliable electricity for remote energy users with
sophisticated control systems, such as paper mills.
As a result, these customers can operate reliably in
areas where the existing transmission system does
not have a high level of redundancy.
Phasor measurement units (PMUs) take advantage of
the microprocessors and high-speed communications
circuits to sample system characteristics at a frequency
rate that is 100 times higher than the usual EMS data
acquisition rate. Among other enhancements, the
use of PMU data results in a much faster analysis
of the status of the network and provides a synchronized snapshot of system conditions that will allow
the detection of very subtle shifts in the stability
of the grid and the development of alarms to give
operators an advanced warning of potential system
events.
End-use consumers currently interact only based on
their consumption, not based on two-way data. The talk
of “smart-grid,” then, is not so much a question of making
the transmission system smart as it is of expanding the
existing capabilities of the bulk power network and making
them available to end-use consumers to help them manage
their electric energy usage and costs. Accomplishing that
will require planning for improvements years before
knowing which public policies and consumer technologies
will most affect future electric system flows. This will
require a very smart planning process.
Our strategic flexible planning process is not
common in the industry and is predicated on
the idea that no single person or company
can accurately predict the future.
reliability, and so on.
One cornerstone of our success is a comprehensive
and collaborative planning process. Working closely
with all stakeholders allows us to address their needs
and concerns through the planning process, and it has
resulted in successful system upgrades in all parts of our
footprint. As part of this comprehensive and collaborative
planning process for particularly large projects, we exercise
a strategic flexibility component.
Our strategic flexible planning process is not common
in the industry and is predicated on the idea that no
single person or company can accurately predict the
future. To assess and narrow a group of possible solutions,
then, we value-test our high-cost projects against a range
of plausible futures. In the spirit of collaboration, the
various futures are developed with heavy input from all
customers and stakeholders and are refined each year.
The identified futures are used to bound the range
of plausible outcomes, rather than to identify the most
likely future scenario. The testing process ensures robust
performance and value from our transmission line
proposals in that we select only those that are successful
in most of the future scenarios.
Strategic, Flexible Planning Provides Value
and Options
ATC’s service area, bordered on two sides by Lake Superior
and Lake Michigan, was home to the nation’s second
most constrained transmission interface at the time
of our formation in 2001. Since then we have built or
upgraded more than 1,700 miles of transmission line in
a heavily regulated environment, thus relieving much
of the congestion, opening our service area to a much
wider regional market, reducing energy losses, improving
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In more concrete terms, our current analysis looks
at the potential for slow, medium or high growth in
demand, generation retirements, carbon caps, renewable
standards and energy conservation, along with how
these variables affect transmission needs. By selecting
high-performing proposals, we can help ensure that these
major facilities will be more likely to meet multiple needs
and offer greater value for the dollars invested.
While the industry has much experience
in the application of “smarts” at the
transmission level, “smarting up” the
distribution system will use all of that
experience and a lot more imagination.
While the parameters we evaluate include economic, fuel
and conservation scenarios, conceptually this approach
can be expanded to include a variety of demand-side
scenarios, aggregating consumer demand resources and
changing the patterns of usage on an hour-by-hour basis.
These are the changes that will result from the expansion
of the smart grid to end users. Depending on how the
future smart grid is designed and implemented, it could
have a significant impact on generation dispatch, infrastructure needs, fuel choice and power flow management.
Technical Challenges of Future Smart Grid
At a technical level, extrapolating from transmissionlevel applications to the end-user level is a little daunting.
To begin with, distribution-system elements are far more
numerous. And the “drivers” motivating the actions
of end users are more complex and harder to predict.
Having taken that into account, a few key challenges
can be identified from the successful experience of
“smart” transmission. The industry also must ensure
that system reliability is maintained while programs to
address the following challenges are being developed,
tested and implemented.
1. Interoperability. Standards allowing end-use
customers to participate interactively have yet to
be developed but will progress together with the
advancement of pre-programmed energy strategies
for household appliances. End users will interact
with the system in new ways. In the past, consumer
usage patterns were based heavily on the time of
day and the weather, but with millions of new
“demand operators,” usage patterns may be based
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on price, green-power availability or some other
indicator. The utility plans must anticipate the
range of these patterns.
2. Cyber-security concerns. This is a major concern
to the electric industry and it is a corollary to the
interoperability initiative: If consumers can access
data and capability to change usage patterns, how
can the industry prevent malicious actions? Smartgrid advancements must be designed with a strong
security component.
3. Interaction with new resource sets. The old
paradigm of generation dispatch was based on cost
within a local operating area, and it assumed that
generation was located reasonably close to demand
centers. The movement toward low-carbon resources
may cause more generation to be located farther
away from population centers while older sources
of generation, closer to the loads, are shut down.
Transmission planners and operators will deal with
longer and more complex transmission paths and
variable or intermittent generation characteristics in
addition to changes in load behavior as distribution
customers gain new capabilities.
In conclusion, the changes envisioned by the application
of smart-grid capabilities to end-use customers present
subtle yet daunting challenges to a system of remarkable
complexity. While the industry has much experience
in the application of “smarts” at the transmission level,
“smarting up” the distribution system will use all of that
experience and a lot more imagination. n
José Delgado is executive chairman of American
Transmission Company (ATC). ATC owns, operates, builds
and maintains the high-voltage electric transmission
system serving portions of Wisconsin, Michigan,
Minnesota and Illinois. Formed in 2001 as the nation’s
first multistate transmission-only utility, ATC has invested
$2 billion to improve the adequacy and reliability of its
infrastructure. ATC now is a $2.5 billion company with
9,350 miles of transmission lines and 510 substations.
The company is a member of the Midwest ISO regional
transmission organization, and it provides nondiscriminatory service to all customers, supporting effective
competition in energy markets without favoring any
market participant.
Mr. Delgado is also chairman of the Transmission Owners
and Operators Forum of North American Electric
Reliability Corp. In addition, he is cochair of Edison
Electric Institute’s CEO Task Force on Electric System
Reliability.