What is an Intelligent Power GRID?

Answer 1

The intelligent power grid is characterized by increased
grid observability with modern data integration and analytics
to support advanced grid operation and control,
power delivery chain integration and high-level utility
strategic planning functions. Some key characteristics
of the intelligent power grid are:
• Grid equipment and assets contain or are monitored
by intelligent IP-enabled devices (digital processors);
• Digital communication networks permit the intelligent
devices to communicate securely with the utility enterprise
and possibly with each other;
• Data from the intelligent devices and many other
sources are consolidated to support the transformation
of raw data into useful information through
advanced analytics; and
• Business intelligence and optimization tools provide
advanced decision support at both the automatic and
human supervisory level.
For both transmission and distribution grids, a great
deal of utility asset value resides in the substations,
whereas for distribution grids, the vast zone between
substations and customer meters contains significant
utility assets whose status is unknown until a failure
triggers a manual inspection or until a regular maintenance
patrol discovers a problem. The goal of an
intelligent power grid system is to provide greater observability
and, therefore, greater controllability of these
assets, thus enhancing power system performance and
aiding in cost control and system planning.

The functions of an intelligent power grid system fall
into both real-time and nonreal-time categories. In the
real-time category, distributed sensing provides increased
power grid observability for the purposes of
power grid state measurement, power grid device
status and health monitoring, failure detection and localization,
power quality and reliability monitoring, and
safety and security monitoring. Examples of such functions
include demand distribution for load balancing;
transformer, circuit breaker and tap changer monitoring;
detection of energized downed lines, high
impedance faults and faults in underground cables including
arcing faults; and stray voltage monitoring.
In the non-real-time category, functions include the integration
of existing and new utility databases so operational data can be fused with financial and other data to support operational optimization, asset utilization maximization and life cycle management, asset replacement optimization, strategic planning and capital expenditure planning, maximization of customer satisfaction, optimization of system performance metrics
and regulatory reporting. Electric utilities already have many of the data sources needed to support analytics for these functions, but these data sources are usually siloed and, therefore,
very difficult to combine. Worse, the operational data is usually
sequestered in the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
(SCADA) system and not readily available to support analytics or
business intelligence tools. By providing a common integration
point and an enterprise service bus, an intelligent power grid
system can enable everything from data mining for strategic
planning support to real-timedashboard- type displays of daily
asset profitability and asset failure system risk for utility
executives.
Some elements of an intelligent power grid already exist
in most electric utilities, but the effort to transform an
electric power grid into an intelligent power grid involves
much more than just hardware and software
tools. It also requires a utilitywide business transformation
to obtain the full benefit of this added technology.
This transformation extends beyond simply monitoring
power grid sensors and implementing some new
alarms and key performance indicators. Proper integration
of an intelligent power grid requires fundamental
changes in how a utility functions, extending from grid
operations to field service to inventory management to
backoffice operations to inventory management to strategic
planning. Properly used, the intelligent power grid
can lead to streamlined and improved relationships with
connected organizations in the power delivery chain,
with regulators, and with consumers and the general
public as well.
Intelligent power grid systems comprise five major
components: data sources, data transport, data integration,
analytics and optimization. Clearly,
intelligent power grid systems must have efficient
means to distribute results. These means include publish-
and-subscribe middleware, portals and Web-based
services. These technologies are well-known.