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Are Your Transformers Ready for the ‘Smart Grid’?
 
 
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Executive Summary
The definition of the ‘Smart Grid’ is still something that is taking shape. Utility professionals concur onsome 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 intocreating this ‘intelligence’ in a power network; others will take a more generalized view and look at thesmart grid’s operational characteristics and capabilities.Power system intelligence is essentially about taking sensory and analytical capabilities down to thesubstation or device level, all the way at the bottom of the system hierarchy. Smart grids will produce asteady stream of information about system conditions and operating characteristics that are valuable formanaging the commercial side of a given utility or grid operator.More intelligent systems for monitoring combined with the substation and feeder automation in powerdistribution networks can bring several improvements:
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Better reliability
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More availability
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Enhanced security
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Energy efficiencyThis Whitepaper takes an open view of the smart grid. It begins by noting the need for a smart grid andlocating its capabilities and operational characteristics. The paper also takes a closer look at the smartgrid 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 freshstandards industry-wide. With something as large as a power grid, radical change cannot occur – theexisting system will go through a series of gradual transformations. And energy transformers have acrucial 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 rolein the energy distribution system in the US. It then touches upon the role Pacific Crest Transformers canplay in the emerging milieu.
Introduction
The century-old power grid is the US has often been called “the largest interconnected machine onEarth”. Little wonder, because it consists of more than 9,200 electricity generating units, with more than1,000,000 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 ofsteam. 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, biggerTVs, 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 gettingenergy where it needs to go through transmission and distribution, further limiting grid efficiency andreliability. While hundreds of thousands of high-voltage transmission lines course throughout the United
 
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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 anaverage of more than $100 billion each year.The grid’s centralized structure also leaves the US open to blackouts. In fact, the interdependencies ofvarious 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 generatingelectricity and its cost on the environment are all pointing in one direction, and one direction only: a gridthat is more efficient in energy production and distribution.For years technologists have been toying with the idea of a ‘Smart Grid’, an electricity distribution systemthat 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 scalealternative energy producers by decentralizing generation. It would allow consumers to have a muchmore complex relationship with their energy supplier.
More on the Smart Grid
To put it in the simplest way possible,
“the Smart Grid will deliver electricity from suppliers toconsumers using digital technology to save energy, reduce cost, and increase reliability andtransparency.”
 
What’s Driving the Development of the Smart Grid?
1. Efficiency and Reliability
Even the most modern power systems lose up to 8% ofthe electricity leaving the power plant, thanks toinefficiencies in transmission and distribution. Utilitiesand grid operators are also facing growing problems withreliability of an aging grid. The United States accounts foronly 4% of the world’s population and produces 25% ofits greenhouse gases. According to research sponsoredby the U.S. Government, improving the efficiency of thenational electricity grid by even 5 % would be theequivalent of eliminating the fuel use and carbonemissions of 53 million cars!
2. Renewable Energy Generation
Our world is running out of fossil fuel, and increasingenvironmental concerns are encouraging thedevelopment of renewable energy sources. Solar power,wind energy and other renewable power generation,however, presents several challenges – primarilybecause of their sporadic nature. The existing powerinfrastructure is severely limited in its capability tointegrate more renewable sources, and also toincorporate the new paradigm of consumer-generatedelectricity, which can feed excess power back into thegrid. The smart grid is the logical step to enable these newer technologies to flourish.Another aspect of renewable energy is transportation – we are likely to see many more electric
Technologies that Will Drive SmartGrid Evolution
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Integrated communication thatconnects grid components toopen architecture
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Software that can be upgradedand enhanced for real-timeinformation
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Control, allowing every part of the grid to ‘talk’ and ‘listen’
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Sensing and measurementtechnologies that supportremote monitoring
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Time-of-use pricing (pricingdetermined as the power isused, rather than weeks laterwhen a meter is read) forcompanies and consumers
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