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Decoding the Smart Grid DNA
Table 1: Views on Deployment from the EU Technology Platform –
participation, customer microgeneration, heat networks and carrier
Smart Grids
communications in their systems. As an optimiser, network companies
would manage constraints and minimise losses, utilise smart meter data,
Demonstration projects on real networks are key to progress
Government and regulators must help address the framework issues
manage asset condition and predict failure events and facilitate intelligent
Smart Grids are critical to meeting sustainability and security of supply goals
demand management in cases of emergencies. As an aggregator,
Both deployment and research will be required in parallel
network companies would aggregate and manage dispersed power
Today’s innovative technologies can be used to meet the challenges for 2020
Ambitious research is needed to go beyond 2020 an onwards to 2050
sources as well as ancillary services for the local networks and the grid.
Figure 1: The Electric Elements
What Are the Risks and Challenges?
The opportunities are emerging worldwide and have very real business
potential for all in the value chain, including the export of technology and
Smart grids
know-how. However, perhaps the greatest challenge in harnessing and
Inter-
delivering these opportunities is garnering the level of engagement needed
connections
Centralised
generation
to succeed. Smart Grids must embrace transport, the built environment
Transmission
network
Distribution
and customer behaviour, as well as having societal permission. In other
generation
Distribution
words, the power sector’s greatest challenge is how to communicate with
network
Smart metering
and convince other sectors and the wider public to accept and actively
Electric
Meters and
vehicles
displays
participate in Smart Grids. Ultimately, the Smart Grid is an issue for society
Residential
Supplier
and policy-makers and not the electricity sector alone.
Storage
demand
transactions
Electrical
Next Steps
appliances Customer
behaviour
Network companies face a significant change from business as usual. To
Micro- Energy some this will be seen as a threat, to others an opportunity for growth.
generation efficiency
Companies that include Smart Grids in their strategic thinking will need to
engage actively as innovators. This will need a fresh approach as most
have not been active in such activities for many years.
Table 2: The More ‘Internet-like’ Smart Grid
KEMA’s experience is that companies find significant added value in
taking a structured approach to addressing these steps. For example,
Central and dispersed intelligence
KEMA can offer tools that help a company to assess its strengths and
Multidirection ‘flows’ of power and information
Central and dispersed sources
weaknesses for innovation; we can provide a systematic
Plug and play: seamless integration of the new methodology for identifying Smart Grid solutions that allows options
Complexity is transparent to the user
to be scored, weighted and ranked; we can assist with business case
Automated payments through the value chain
End-user realtime information and participation
analysis for specific initiatives such as smart metering and provide
Creative, dynamic, organic... but co-ordinated laboratory services that minimise the risk of bringing new
technologies into real networks.
Table 3: The Transmission and Distribution Engineering Challenges
Future Challenges
Today’s Grids – The Challenges Encountered and Solved
Unlocking the Smart Grid code not only opens the way to many
Transient and dynamic stability
Voltage control
potential business opportunities, but also enables the road ahead to
Fast transients be seen more clearly. Evidently, there are many challenges and some
Ferro-resonance
of these present risks; as with all new business ventures it is
Pollution performance
important to have clarity of intent, to be able to communicate it, to
Tomorrow’s Grids – The Challenges That May Lie Ahead
Trans-European grids and inter-dependence identify and mitigate risks and to decide on the strategic approach
Integrating macro and micro
that is right for your organisation. Strategic factors include business
Dependence on customer behaviours
Distributed intelligence
evaluation, the prioritisation of tasks, the lead times and starting
Agent and embedded devices points for effective integration of activities, identification of partners
Scalability and adaptability of solutions
and the company culture needed for success (see Table 3). It is
Dynamic and transient performance
observable from case histories that innovation fails if a company tries
DC/AC integration
Aggregation and modelling of mass micro
to simply ‘switch it on’ – an instruction to the procurement
New business and settlement frameworks
department alone is likely to result in failure or, equally
unsatisfactorily, produce a once-only demonstration project that adds
What Are the Opportunities for Grid Companies? little to commercial out-turn or customer benefit.
These changes present radically new opportunities for network companies
who, in many cases, are simply today’s ‘wire owners and operators’. There The move to Smart Grids has been described as the ‘third industrial
is a good case to be made for these companies to fulfil the roles revolution’: revolutions need revolutionaries who are energised by
of integrator, optimiser and aggregator. As an integrator, network passion, but are sustained by thorough planning, careful analysis
companies would facilitate energy efficiency, overall customer and attention to implementation. n
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