Getting from Smart Metering to the Optimized Grid: How Can You Get There Today?
• How can you leverage current investments in smart metering to get the vital grid intelligence required for an optimized grid?
• What role does communication, standards and interoperability play?
• How far away are we from the “future of the smart grid” when electric vehicles, integration of renewables and decentralized generation are happening today? How can you prepare for this future today?
• Speaker: Par Schroder, Echelon Corporation
1. SMART METERING TO THE OPTIMIZED GRID:
HOW CAN YOU GET THERE TODAY
Smart Utility Scandinavia 2012, Copenhagen
Pär Schröder
Vice President Sales
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2. Key Take Aways
What does the optimized grid look like?
How far away from the future are we?
How can you get there?
Importance of standards in grid optimization
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3. Smart Energy Starts With Echelon
35M+ meters, 300,000 buildings, 500 cities
35M+ meters on 300,000 500
the Smart Grid Smart Buildings Smart Cities
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4. A Global Utility Customer Base
Over 35M Meters Deployed and Growing!
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5. Grid, City, Building Applications Coming Together
Demand management
Smart Cities
Outage prevention
Renewable integration
Theft reduction
Safety improvements
OPEX reduction
All from one proven, open
Smart Grid Smart Buildings standard, multi-application
energy control networking
platform
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6. What is Grid Optimization?
Smart Solar
Substation
Transformer
Smart Buildings
Grid optimization creates smart energy that reduces your expenses by:
Transformer
Improving lifetime of the assets Smart Metering
Balancing loads to get the most efficiency from assets
Transformer
Having more preventive maintenance to avoid outages
Transformer
Smart Street Lighting
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7. How Do you Get Smart Energy?
Smart Solar
Substation
Transformer
Smart Buildings
Visibility and knowledge at the edge:
Transformer
Transformer monitoring
Smart Metering
Phase balancing
Near real-time grid health data from smart meters
Transformer
Reliable PLC that can predict failures
Transformer
Smart Street Lighting
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8. Imagine a Grid that Detects Failures First
Fix the problem before the outage occurs
Reduce operating expenses in high labor markets
Your assets last longer
Leverage more renewables
Have happier customers
Improve safety
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9. How Far Away Are We?
Smart Grid Optimization Solution
Today Tomorrow Future
Smart Metering Smart Metering + Grid Optimization Proactive Grid
Smart Metering
Billing solutions
Basic PQ values being
collected
Basic rate structures
Little consumer participation
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10. How Far Away Are We?
Smart Grid Optimization Solution
Today Tomorrow Future
Smart Metering Smart Metering + Grid Optimization Proactive Grid
Smart Metering Transformer Monitoring
Billing solutions Usage of alarms in DMS
Basic PQ values being GIS integration
collected Basic Outage Management
Basic rate structures integration (reconciliation)
Little consumer participation Asset monitoring and
management
Reach to customers through
portals and IHD
More flexible rates
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11. How Far Away Are We?
Smart Grid Optimization Solution
Today Tomorrow Future
Smart Metering Smart Metering + Grid Optimization Proactive Grid
Smart Metering Transformer Monitoring Proactive grid management
Billing solutions Usage of alarms in DMS Automation of LV controls
Basic PQ values being GIS integration Fault identification before
problem occurs
collected Basic Outage Management
Basic rate structures integration (reconciliation) Integration of load analysis,
DMS and distributed grid
Little consumer participation Asset monitoring and management
management
Reach to customers through Participation of consumers in
electricity market buying and
portals and IHD
selling electricity generated
More flexible rates and/or stored at their premise
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12. Getting There
Leveraging the Assets You Already Have Today
At the Smart Meter: Smart Solar
Rich set of energy and power quality
Substation
elements – capture near real time Transformer
Smart Buildings
ATM – Automatic Topology
Management
Provide data collection for billing and
Smart Meters Transformer
power quality at separate intervals
Outage detection and restoration
notification Transformer
Upgradeable firmware
Transformer
Smart Meters
Smart Street Lighting
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13. Getting There
Leveraging the Assets You Already Have Today
Smart Solar
Substation
Transformer
Smart Buildings
At the Transformer:
Turn into smart transformers by Transformer
adding transformer monitoring Control Nodes
Collect temperature, load and Transformer
peak load
Collect over current,Transformer
Voltage
swells and sags
Decentralized decisions – get
near real time decisions
Smart Street Lighting
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15. GIS integration - Topology
Adding power quality measurements :
Sag, swell, number of over-current occurrences,
Power factor
signal strength across the power line
Outage detection and restoration notification
Maximum and minimum frequency,
Phase loss,
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) events.
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19. Standards
OSGP includes important grid optimization requirements
Smart meters as a grid sensor
Addresses not only billing, but power quality and all aspects of smart meters and other
grid sensing devices
Turning transformers in to “smart transformers”
Allow data to be requested (and/or digested) by a head-end or a data concentrator
based application
Support other devices on the grid together with meters
Open
Reliable: >99,8%,
Easy to do remote firware upgrade
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20. OSGP Backed By Industry Leaders
Optimizing the Grid and Making it a Future Proof Investment
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21. In Conclusion
You can get to grid optimization today:
1. Smart meters can be used as grid sensors
2. Transformers become “smart” with simple monitoring
Standards are essential
OSGP includes key grid optimization requirements – today!
OSGP is backed by industry leaders – many are at the show!
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Thank you – today I am going to cover how you can use your current smart metering investment to get to a more optimized grid. We’ll cover four key points:What is grid optimization and what does it look likeHow far away from a grid optimized future are we and how can you get thereThe importance of standards in grid optimization
Quick snapshot of our Experience in the grid. At Echelon, we play in the low voltage grid, and we offer an energy control networking platform that is being used to deliver intelligence to all kinds of asset at the edge from homes, to street lights and buildings. Today, over 35M smart meters, over 300,000 smart buildings and 500 cities use Echelon technology. More than 20 years experienceDevelopment in Sillicon Valley and Germany100 patents We approach grid optimization from this point and perspective in the market.
In the grid, we work with a number of the world’s leading utilities, with over 35 million meters deployed. In fact, many of our customers are here in Denmark including SEAS, EnergiMidt and NRGi and we are a market leader here with over 50% of the deployments.
Here is a simplified picture of the grid. It connects everything from buildings, to homes, street lighting and solar panels. Over time more of the energy produced will come back onto the grid in the form of unpredictable generation like solar and wind renewables and we expect growing demand for Electric Vehicle charging from the grid. As this happens, grid optimization will become more of a necessity to balance unpredictable generations and loads but also to get the most energy efficiency from assets, improve the lifetime of assets. And, finally, to get to a future where we have the data and intelligence back from the grid to avoid outages and establish preventatitive maintenance. At Echleon, we call this smart energy, and we think it can dramatically reduce your operating expenses.
So how do you get to Smart Energy and an more optimized grid? The answer is with visibility, intelligence and data from the edge of the grid. The grid must be able to manage itself. You need to monitor transformers, you need to have phase balancing, you can collect grid health statistics from smart meters – not just billing data by collecting power quality data. By using advanced Power Line Communication you can use a rich set of data to better predict failure.
The real benefit from grid optimization comes from a grid that has the ability to detect failure first, that gives you the knowledge from edge to fix problems before they occur – or can help you pinpoint them faster. Imagine detecting line failures before they occur and reducing operating expenses when you can reduce the number of reparative trips you need to make to the field.Your assets can last longer, you can integrate more renewables without fear and overall you’ll have happier customers – or at least more customers with fewer reasons to call your call center to complain!
So how do we get to Grid Optimization?First, by turning the smart meters you already have into grid sensors you can provide better troubleshooting data back to your operations center and begin to reap some of the operational expense saving benefits available through smart energy.Look for smart meters to have the ability to- Capture power quality information in near real time - Power factor, signal strength across the power line, Maximum and minimum frequency, Phase loss, and total, Harmonic distortion (THD) events. - Do Automatic Topology Management that gives you the ability to map the low-voltage grid – to see exactly to wish transformer each meter is conected.- Separate the collection of billing data from grid health/power quality data- And finally, that has the ability to do upgradable firmware
On the transformer side, with a little bit of monitoring and colleting things like temperature, load and peak load, you can make transformers “smart” and they can help you predict and troubleshoot potential problems before they occur. For instance, the aggregated energy consumption on transformer level is of interest. If a an individual household suddenly drops energy consumption but the aggregated consumption remains stable you know there are something wrong that you should investigate.Over current and over temperature (due to high current) are leading indicators of transformer failure. Alarming and logging of over current events helps utilities plan needed capacity upgrades before failure, avoiding customer relations issues and loss of opportunity to sell power—revenue protection. Over time, parameters such as rises in THD and temperature as well as degradation of PLC signal strength can indicate near-term transformer failure before it happens. Being able to detect loss of neutral is of a concern to many utilities, as it is a safety concern. Theft can be detected by comparing metered power at points served by that transformer with power provided by that transformer. In the afternoons on sunny days some utilities are seeing one phase going backward due to the high concentration of PV in an area—it is valuable to know where and how this power is getting put back onto the grid, for re-balancing and infrastructure upgrades. Critical issues in the LV grid needs sometime quick decissions and should rather be troubleshoted locally by a high performing Data Concentrator rather than handled centrally as an event as you otherwise will risk data overflow and to slow actions to prevent failures.Over currentHigh temperatureVoltage swells and sagsTotal Harmonic DistortionLoss of NeutralTheft detectionRenewable imbalanceIntrusion detectionPole and pad mount solutions
Here is an an example of a GIS integration in Denmark, simple integration with Google Map. When signaling is over the power line and by utilizing the ATM features of the NES system, a smart metering system can determine which metera transformer is hooked up to.We hear customers saying this visibility is of great use and they have many times been surprized realizing how some meters are connected to transformers.
This feature in combination with a rich set of quality measurementsgive this utility the ability to act proactively to prevent outages before they occur.When they get a quality alarm they know exactly were to go, and check it up, they know to what transformer the event is related and if necessary get it fixed before there is a serious situation.
In this case different colours indicate meters at different stages, green colour is all normal, yellow means there are some health indications and red colour indicates an outage.
Not only that but another advantage for this customer using PLC is that the system can determine which phases are being used in each meter hooked to a transformer.
This customer can analyze how well the different phases under a transformer are balanced and in this case we can see there are significant inbalances. Why is this information important?Because with this information they can go out in the field and correct the imbalances by changing how the phases are being used in each meter. By improving the balance they will improve efficiency and lifetime of transformers, save money, avoid outages before they occure and keep customers happy.
Standards are critical, and not to be ignored.Not all protocols are designed to support Grid Optimization, there are many examples out there designed for automatic meter readings only.OSGP has envisioned a future where meters are not just addressing billing, but they are also being used as a grid health sensor.And, at the transformer, OSGP outlines how data can be requested or digested not just at the head end, but at the data concentrator, getting decisions decentralized so you can have near real-time responsiveness. It was also designed to support otherdevices on the grid together with meters. Any device on the grid can be integrated in to one system and firmware in devices can efficiently be remotely upgraded in scale.
OSGP is a standard that is backed by industry leaders. Many are at the show today, so if you are looking forward to grid optimization in your future and you want to get their today, with 2-3 simple steps, visit them and Echelon on the show floor.
So, I’d like to leave you with the suggestion that you can get to a grid optimization future sooner than you think with smart energy. Think of your smart meters and transformers as the two most important assets you can leverage today and finally, look at the standards. Are they taking into consideration what you might want to do 2 – 20 years down the line? How expandable and future proof is the standard?Thank you and I look forward to your questions.