Name: Nagum, Carl Joseph, B.

Date: May 3, 2021

Course/Section: TE1-PSE2-EE32S1 Quiz 6.1 Instructor: Engr. Ladero

1.) What is the advantage of Smart grid in the following?

1.1 End users – it includes the commercial, industrial, and residential sectors. There are two main advantages of having a
smart grid, which are better customer service, more accurate bills, and lessen the risk of electricity pilferage. With the
installation of smart meters, the bills become more accurate because they reflect the real consumption of each month instead
of estimates and it also reduces the cost of manual meter reading, which is less accurate. The smart meter provides
transparency to the end-users regarding their power consumption. Moreover, the smart meter is used for two-way
communication between the distribution utility and consumers by relaying supply and demand information. In this way, the
end-users don’t have to be bothered when a fault occurs because, with the use of remote control and wide-area monitoring,
the distribution utility can respond faster and manage it quickly. Next is electricity pilferage, which is widely known as electricity
theft. Honestly speaking, this doesn’t affect the distribution utilities at any angle, but the end-users tend to pay for the price
because the electricity theft is included in the charge of system losses which is categorized as non-technical losses. As
mentioned earlier, smart meters provide supply and demand information, which means that by analyzing customers' energy
usage patterns and detecting unauthorized consumers based on anomalies in consumption, the implementation of a smart
grid and the use of the advance control monitoring system will dramatically reduce this type of loss.

1.2 Power Plant – Smart grid operation allows more sources of generated power because there are different sources of
generated energy aside from the burning of fossil fuels, which are the electricity generated from solar, wind, thermal, and
other renewable sources of energy. It maximizes the utilization of renewable energy from micro-grid substations with the help
of smart grid operation. Thus, the smart grid contributes to keeping the environment green and lessening the negative impact
of fossil fuels such as greenhouse gases. Moreover, the addition of micro-grid substations means that the smart grid is capable
of meeting the increased consumer demand and providing a continuous supply of power. Lastly, it makes the generation of
power plants more efficient during the off-load and peak-load hours. Take note that, nowadays, conserving energy and
efficient power consumption is taken into account. By the use of advanced monitoring devices, the power generating plants
can do accurate and precise load forecasting to ensure that the losses are tolerable. Therefore, the power generating plants
can lower the generation output of power when the demand is less and quickly increase the generation as the peak load
periods approaches, which allows the system to operate cost-effectively and flexibly.

1.3 Transmission lines – The smart grid operation reduces the transmission losses, resulting in a reliable and efficient
transmission of electricity. The smart grid can provide advanced metering infrastructure with the help of smart meters, which
provide two-way communication to instantly detect the power quality issues and loss of power, enabling system operators to
rapidly diagnose system problems and more rapidly restore devices. Technically speaking, it is given that in the transmission
of electricity, 100% efficiency is impossible because the different equipment has their internal resistance that leads to technical
losses in the system. However, this type of loss can be managed for further improvement in terms of economic value.
1.4 Distribution lines – The advantage of smart grid application in the distribution lines is that the distribution utility can easily
detect faults and disturbances because of the advanced monitoring system and the installation of sensors along the
distribution lines. The average interruption of distribution utilities must be low value to ensure that their system is efficient and
reliable. With the operation of a smart grid, the faults and disturbances that can occur in the distribution lines of the utility can
be managed in a short period which can improve their reliability indices, which are the System Average Interruption Frequency
(SAIFI), System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), and Customer Average Interruption Frequency Index (CAIDI).
For instance, a fault occurs in one of the distribution lines of MERALCO in Quezon City, power can be restored quickly to
most of the customers in a short period because of the help of the sensors that can detect when part of the distribution system
has lost power. Moreover, the operation of a smart grid uses integrated automatic switching with an intelligent system that
decides on what is the most cost-effective way to approach the disturbance. Also, one of the benefits of smart grid operation
in distribution lines is self-healing restoration, in which sensors can identify issues on the line and perform basic
troubleshooting and repairs without the need for human intervention, which means that power outages can be limited to a
specific neighborhood while other customers' power sources are restored quickly, the utility can keep their reliability indices
relatively low while still providing safe electricity to their customers.

2.) Discuss the operation, advantages, and disadvantages of smart meters.

Figure 1: The digital smart meter

Digital smart meters are a two-way device that provides communication between the distribution utilities and the end-
users by relaying supply and demand information. The process of operation of digital smart meters is divided into four steps.

STEP 1: The digital smart meter from measures and records the electricity usage of the end-users.

STEP 2: The data collected from the end-users will be transmitted to the electric distribution utilities.

STEP 3: The distribution utility providers receive the data and make an accurate and precise billing.

STEP 4: After the accurate billing, the end-user can monitor its energy usage for efficient power consumption.
 Another feature of having smart meters is outage detection and restoration because the smart meters let the utility
provider if the end-user suffers a power outage and let them know what is the cause of the said interruption so that they can
quickly manage the situation

Table 1: Advantages and Disadvantages of digital smart meters to the distribution utilities

Advantages of Smart meters Disadvantages of Smart meters

→Eliminate the cost of manual meter reading.

→Making it possible to use power resources more
→ Managing and storing vast quantities of metering data
efficiently.
→Privacy concerns because the utility provider must ensure
→Providing real-time data that can be used to
the security of metering data.
balance electric loads and cut down on power
→There are some cases reported that smart meters suffer
outages.
poor signal under extreme weather conditions.
→Avoiding the capital expense of building new
power plants.

Table 2: Advantages and Disadvantages of digital smart meters to the end-users

Advantages of Smart meters Disadvantages of Smart meters

→Provides accurate and precise electric billing.
→Helps the end-users to track their power consumption
and learn to conserve energy.
→It can be used to lessen the case of electricity
pilferage.
→It can provide customized reporting wherein the
customers can have a transparent breakdown
regarding their power consumption.
→ Some smart meters are prone to hacking which can be
used for increasing and decreasing the demand of power
and may result to electric billing fraud.
→Technically smart meters do not directly save money for
the end-users. Its purposes are to provide transparency
regarding the power consumption.
→Some utility provider does not support smart meters due
to privacy concerns.
→The device is expensive.