tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60599476948245537142024-03-13T15:15:38.449-07:00Gunther on Smart GridNews and commentary from Erich Gunther on all aspects of electric grid modernization and enhancement.Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-6896589321189668422012-02-03T12:39:00.000-08:002012-02-06T12:00:44.762-08:00Cost of Smart Meter FUD Established in California<br />
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It is well established through many examples that fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD) and ignorance has a real cost in terms of time, money, relationships, and other aspects of everyday life. One great example that society dealt with for years was the idea that using seat belts would cause you greater injury than not using them. Thousands of people died during the period that this FUD was being spread. While the current FUD on smart metering does not rise to this level, it is based on the same kind of “scientific” foundation as the seat belt myths. The recent compromise decision by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regarding PG&E's opt out program establishes a very specific cost for Smart Meter FUD - $75 up front and $10 a month.</div>
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The good news about this decision is that it puts the direct cost of FUD and ignorance directly on those who could otherwise mitigate it. They have the option to learn and overcome their FUD at any time. It still seems unfortunate that some will spend more time, money and energy complaining about a situation they don't understand rather than taking the time to learn about it from authoritative sources. This is the same kind of enforcement that seat belt laws and tickets were enacted to address.</div>
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We can't just blame those who are expressing Smart Meter FUD however. Our industry does have a responsibility to proactively make authoritative information on new technology readily available to the consumers who will use it and in an easy to understand form. Information on new technology needs to clearly articulate the fundamentals of the technology itself, how it compares to older technology, how the technology compares to similar things in other industries, places or situations, what the tangible and intangible benefits are, what the downside is and how those negatives relate to other situations we find ourselves in on a regular basic. None of the key players with the requisite knowledge in our industry have done a good job in this arena - regulators, utilities, vendors, consultants, etc. - let alone in the education system.</div>
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Another issue is related to how we respond to those who do exhibit FUD. How far do we go allowing a problem to persist that is readily solved by education and instead coddle those who express FUD? That is a societal question but my common sense tells me that we should avoid coddling as much as possible. Here are some questions I came up with to explore this aspect:</div>
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<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Can I opt out of receiving public water because I hear it might contain small but legal amounts of carcinogenic substances and instead require the water company to deliver bottled water to my home?</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Can I demand that cell phone makers provide an analog rotary dial on cell phones because I believe that pressing digital buttons causes arthritis (I read it on the Internet so it must be true)?</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Can I opt out of being exposed to television signals and choose to have the entertainers come to my house and perform in person?</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Can I opt out of receiving my phone calls by cellular signal and choose to have a long wire run to my mobile phone with a crew following me everywhere with a spool of wire?</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Can I opt out of breathing public California air because it sometimes looks or smells bad? The option is to mandate the creation of a new California Department of Air Supply to deliver canned air to my home. It would of course be a precisely regulated mix of oxygen/nitrogen with elaborate testing, certification, and penalties for non-compliance - and a department to run it - and a new tax to pay for that!</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Can I opt out of stopping at traffic lights because I hear the color red might cause a seizure or require that stop lights I might be near use orange instead of red?</span></li>
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I hope regulators don't go too far in forcing regulated entities to coddle consumers who have a fear of technology change. The business case tells us that it may be cheaper to coddle a few than fight it on principle. This may be a slippery slope however and doesn't bode well for the prospects of instead focusing on improving education in science and technology to not only make it easier to live in an increasingly technology driven world but to actually contribute to advancing technology forward for the betterment of us all.</div>
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<br /></div>Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-18876456679893589172012-01-20T13:35:00.000-08:002012-01-20T13:35:59.771-08:00Smart Grid Workforce Strategy<br />
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surrounding preparing the workforce to support smart grid application
deployment. One of those issues is
related to the changing needs of the field workforce to support the merger of
electrical apparatus infrastructure with communications infrastructure. This includes new training for lineman as
well as finding a role for meter readers in those utility territories where
automated meter reading is being deployed.
I have seen a lot of discussion around these issues and there are many
non degree education programs sprouting up that focus on this need (see the
list at http://www.sgiclearinghouse.org/Education). In this post, I want to focus more on the
changing requirements for electric power engineer skills in a smart grid world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Traditionally, engineering
schools that have an electric power concentration option have focused on a
standardized set of basic electric power engineering disciplines and the
supporting mathematics. Typical topics
include basic steady state electric power theory, transmission line
characteristics, symmetrical components, load flow, short circuit and stability
analysis, power generation and control, transient analysis, electromagnetic
fields, power electronics and several others.
We have been turning out electric power engineers with these core
disciplines for decades. Recently there
has been a trend in universities to encourage engineers to go beyond the
masters program and seek a doctorate in a narrow discipline of electric power
engineering. From my point of view as
an employer of electric power engineers, this has resulted in an ever
decreasing pool of engineers with broad interest that normally come out of a
masters level program. Unfortunately,
this is exactly the type of engineer we need to address the extreme breadth of
engineering challenges related to grid modernization. For example, I can't really use an engineer
that has spent the past 2-3 years in a PhD program drilling down into the
nuances of how to optimize one specific issue related to a snubber circuit in a
power electronic front end for a specific type of power electronic inverter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So what skills do we really
need in a smart grid engineer? I would
argue that to answer that question we look at the various disciplines that are
implied in various definitions of the smart grid. The starting point I use is the list of smart
grid functions in the US EISA 2007 legislation:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to <b>store, send and receive digital information</b>
through a combination of devices</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to do same to or from
a <b>computer</b> or <b>control device</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to <b>measure and monitor</b> as a function of
time of day, <b>power quality</b>, source
and type of generation, etc</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to <b>sense disruptions</b> in power flows and <b>communicate</b> on such instantaneously</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to <b>detect, respond to, recover,</b> etc
relative to <b>security threats</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability of appliances and
equipment to <b>respond without human
intervention</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to <b>use digital information for grid operations</b>
that were previously electromechanical or manual</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Ability to <b>use digital controls</b> to <b>manage demand</b>, congestion, and provide <b>ancillary services</b></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">These
functions are not unique to the US definition of smart grid - they are
consistent with applications that define grid modernization and hence the smart
grid around the world. These functions
do imply disciplines that are not normally found in the electric power
engineering workforce - some of which I highlighted in the list above. If I summarize these into categories of
skills for a Smart Grid Engineer, I come up with 8 areas of concentration:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Basic electrical and electric
power engineering</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Communications</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Distributed Computing /
Intelligence / Complex Systems</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Security</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Systems of Systems Engineering</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Enterprise Architecture</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Business, Economics, and
Regulation</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Enhanced People Skills</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I have this advice for electric power engineering educators -
develop in your students a holistic view and understanding of the power system;
build a solid foundation in power systems behavior in steady state and
transient domains; collaborate with other university departments including
CompSci, systems, electronics, and business management; avoid creating
"siloed" professionals; apply systems engineering discipline
everywhere; keep your eyes open - don't reinvent - be aware of and utilize
industry resources; listen carefully to overall industry needs - not just the
noisiest or the biggest funder. For
engineering students and current engineering practitioners I would suggest:
thinking globally in systems of systems terms - systems engineering disciple is
critical to your success; everything matters - thoroughly understand the power
system, thoroughly discover and understand the system requirements, and evaluate
device and system interactions; manage technology change; appreciate and
understand the business case; build in metrics in your designs that can be
captured to monitor technical and business performance; keep your eyes open -
don't reinvent - collaborate instead; and engage in continuous learning and
self improvement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A longer version of this post is scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of Power Grid International.</span></div>Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-41445324911614186602011-09-29T14:21:00.000-07:002011-10-05T14:47:45.539-07:00Chris Knudsen to leave PG&E<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The utility industry is losing one of our best thought leaders in
grid modernization - at least for the time being. Chris came to the
utility industry and PG&E with a background in communications, business and
venture capital - not your standard utility guy pedigree. With that
background came a unique skill set and view of infrastructure that truly helped
the industry foster new ideas on how we need to apply advanced communications, sensing
and control technologies to modernize and extract more value from electric
power infrastructure. Chris has been a leader in developing utility
technology development laboratories within the utility to ensure that he and
his team were in a position to understand all of the technology they are
considering for grid modernization and consumer empowerment. Most other
industries do this as a matter of doing business but utilities have been
notoriously behind the curve in this regard. Utilities have often relied
upon vendors to tell them what they need rather than utilities developing the
necessary requirements and technology understanding to more directly specify
what they need. Several utilities under the leadership of key thought
leaders like Chris have managed to turn this trend around in recent years.
Southern California Edison (SCE) was probably the first and Chris the
most recent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">As I write this is occurs to me that it is striking that several of
our most influential thought leaders have left or about to leave their
respective utilities - Paul De Martini (SCE), Wayne Longcore (Consumers
Energy), Brent Hodges (Reliant Energy), Scott Blackburn (FPL) and now Chris Knudsen. I sure hope this is not a trend
indicating that that dynamic, bright, and well spoken individuals are not able
to accomplish their business and professional objectives in a utility
environment - that would be most unfortunate. We need leaders such as
Chris and the others I mentioned to help us transform our industry in all
aspects necessary to ensure that we modernize our aging infrastructure.
We need that transformation to occur before it begins to fail more often
and in time to support new energy sources before energy prices skyrocket due to
neglect and expensive last minute fixes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I have had the pleasure to work with Chris Knudsen for a couple of
years now in several roles - I turned over the reins of the chairmanship of
OpenSG group under the UCAIug to Chris and have worked with him closely as
secretary to move that organization forward under his leadership. I have
also had the pleasure to work for Chris as a contractor to provide PG&E
engineering services developing an enterprise architecture framework and
approach to support smart grid application evolution. I am pleased to
learn that Chris will be continuing in his OpenSG chairman role and I wish him
all the best in his future endeavors. I hope we see him in another role
in our industry where his intellect, experience, and leadership can be best
utilized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-43977037549793027612011-04-26T17:43:00.001-07:002011-04-26T17:43:16.280-07:00Wayne Longcore leaving Consumers Energy for SAPI serve with Wayne on the DOE GridWise Architecture Council and on the UCA International Users Group board of directors. I work with Wayne closely in his role as member of the SGIP Governing Board and mine as an ex-officio member of the board as the NIST funded administrator for the SGIP. Wayne is also a long time client – having found me several years ago when looking for a consultant to help him in the early days of Consumers Energy's AMI program. Like Paul De Martini at Southern California Edison not long before, Wayne took a chance on a small company called EnerNex to apply the then new fangled discipline of use case based requirements development and systems of systems engineering (the EPRI IntelliGrid Methodology) at Consumers Energy. Wayne is one of the smartest guys I know and it has been a privilege working with him on all of these endeavors. He may be even a little more ADD than I am! Tonight on the eve of Consumers Energy hosting the DOE GridWise Architecture Council meeting in Jackson, Michigan, we are having a party with a who's who of smart grid to celebrate his accomplishments during his time at Consumers Energy and postulating the new challenges ahead of him at SAP. I am sure that he will continue to have a significant impact on our industry since I know he will continue to hold many of these industry volunteer positions after his move to SAP. I am confident that SAP will have the same foresight that Consumer's Energy had to fully support Wayne in these activities due to their intrinsic value to the company and to the industry as a whole. Congratulations to Wayne on his new adventure!<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Jackson,%20MI&z=10'>Jackson, MI</a></p>Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-45478830917680821232011-03-28T14:48:00.000-07:002011-03-28T14:48:58.505-07:00Is a wired meter solution feasible for selected PG&E customers?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br />
<div>There has been a lot of discussion in recent days over PG&E's response to a CPUC order to allow consumers to opt out of using wireless metering. The remaining options involve going back to human based meter reading with all of its historical issues of cost and potential for incorrect or missed reads as well as the worker safety issue. Another option floated is to use a wired option. Of course a wired option (low speed Power Line Carrier - PLC) is what PG&E initially proposed prior to their wireless solution but that technology proved to be incapable of meeting the applications requirements necessary to support regulatory policy objectives (e.g. secure firmware update capability, large payload delivery for pervasive consumer targeted demand response program deployment, distribution management applications, etc.). PG&E correctly points out that integrating a nearly obsolete PLC based wired option with a modern wireless infrastructure would be costly since it requires equipment at each substation even if only one customer was served. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Piggy backing on other wired infrastructure is equally problematic. Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) connections are very difficult to scale. They work well for low volume commercial and industrial applications, but the software applications that manage those systems are designed for relatively small numbers of meters and difficult to scale. Also, POTS is a dying technology – being replaced rapidly by cellular wireless phones in dramatically increasing numbers – technology which has far higher RF emissions than a radio connected electric or gas meter. POTS physical infrastructure is also the delivery mechanism used for DSL Internet access – a much more robust use of POTS infrastructure with high bandwidth. Using it or other wired broadband connection (cable TV) would require meters that support that technology which presently are not readily available for residential applications. Even if that hurdle were solved, the cost of those interfaces would be significantly higher than other communications interface technologies. Even if the cost issue could be addressed, there is a problem with the utility ceding responsibility for managing their meter data collection network to a third party (a broadband internet provider). Regulations, technical standards, security and policies would have to be established to allow a third party to take responsibility for that traffic being carried over the Internet rather than over a secure connection. Some would argue that the utility already uses public infrastructure for backhaul purposes, but these connections have well established Service Level Agreements (SLA's), aggregate data from many meters, and are secured at the aggregating access point interface.</div><div><br />
</div><div>As is usually the case, a simple, one size fits all answer is not feasible. Systems that must scale to millions of devices such as a metering network must be designed using a disciplined, systems engineering based process that takes into account numerous interactions. Unfortunately most people – even many very good engineers – are not systems thinkers and tend to promote siloed solutions without thinking through all of the ripple effects of other system interactions let alone the business, security, and policy implications – let alone analyzing all of that across the additional dimension of time for complete system lifecycle management. Large systems work best when they use homogeneous, standards based technologies that can be readily duplicated with few if any special cases or human interactions. Special cases of course will always exist – but they have a cost. And that cost can't be compared to how things may have been done in the past since the systems that allowed the old technology to scale are no longer available.</div><div><br />
</div><div>For all of these reasons, I think PG&E has made a reasonable response – at least technically. I don't have enough information to comment on the details of the cost of managing the exceptions but based on my experience in managing other projects involving data gathering and special exception handling, the cost multipliers seem to be at least in the ballpark. Special handling is always expensive. Think about the multiplier associated with making an operator assisted or collect call – it is much more expensive to handle than the fully automated approach using the best available technology.</div><div><br />
</div>Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-51209733231921216862010-12-02T19:19:00.001-08:002010-12-02T19:19:12.763-08:00BiomimicryI am sitting in a dinner presentation by Chris Allen at the #GridInterop conference on applying biomimicry concepts to the smart grid. I asked him the following question:<br /><br />3.8 billion years of evolution have resulted in the first species - Homo Sapiens - that can alter their environment on a large scale to suit individual, local community, and global requirements and goals. How do you reconcile this highly evolved adaptation that allows us to manipulate our environment with mimicking what nature has done previously to simply coexist with and exploit an unaltered environment.<br /><br />The response was to consider whether we are an invasive species. Highly optimized but destined to die out. The same might be true for some smart grid technologies and standards. Highly advanced but not necessarily in the best interest of the grid in the long term.<br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=N%20River%20Rd,Des%20Plaines,United%20States%4041.979814%2C-87.860982&z=10'>N River Rd,Des Plaines,United States</a></p>Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-30762056781919354392010-11-28T19:45:00.000-08:002010-11-28T19:45:50.555-08:00Smart Grid - The Convergence of Low Tech and Hi Tech in Power SystemsThe need to move from the grid as we have known it for the last 100 years or so to what we have been calling the smart grid can be characterized in many ways. One of those characterizations is that we are merging old, brute stupid, low technology with new, super whiz bang computer driven high technology. One of the problems with this characterizations is that it considers technology that is mature, works with high reliability, and is therefore almost invisible to the everyday person is somehow low technology. In fact, the “traditional” electric power infrastructure is extremely high technology in almost every sense of the word. We generate, transmit, distribute, and utilize massive amounts of energy at high efficiency through the application of fundamental, yet extremely complex laws of physics that engineers have harnessed in elegant and easily implemented ways over the past 100 years. There is an extremely small community of engineers who understand the fundamental electromagnetic field theory, control theory, and other physics, engineering, and mathematical disciplines that are the foundation of how generators, transformers, transmission lines, breakers, vacuum switches, and other power systems equipment operate. This technology is so hi tech and well optimized that it only appears to be low tech.<br />
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What we should be focused on is how we manage the integration of the stable, mature, highly optimized, slow changing technologies that constitute the existing grid with the new, more volatile, fast changing technologies in the communications, computing, command, and control arena. Both classes of technology are high tech, but they have different maturity levels, technology change time constants, and roles in a business case. In today’s world of emerging smart grid applications, we are looking for new and innovative ways to utilize the high technology embedded in our classic power systems infrastructure to support these new applications with the assistance of emerging advanced communications and computing technology. Once we realize this, we can apply systems engineering and engineering economics discipline to develop a strategy for merging these two forms of technology to meet the technical, environmental, social, and business requirements associated with smart grid applications. To do this, we need new business models in utility infrastructure companies be they generation, transmission, distribution, or consumer services companies. No longer can we maintain the silo based approach of managing the business. The engineering and business optimizations must occur across traditional organizational silos and the architecture of the systems implementing smart grid applications must use techniques that manage technology change that occurs at different rates in these systems.<br />
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The basics of an integrated, multiple technology, systems-of-systems engineering approach was first proposed by the participants and developers in EPRI’s IntelliGrid program (and its predecessor – CEIDS/IECSA) started in the early 2000’s time frame. This approach has been slowly gaining momentum with notable large scale applications of the methodology such as Southern California Edison’s AMI and smart grid projects. Since then, these concepts have found their way into the foundational principles of other utility projects and national efforts such as the NIST Smart Grid Roadmap and the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP).<br />
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The IEEE is playing a significant role in facilitating this change of approach through the application of the NIST Conceptual model in the IEEE Smart Grid Portal, by coordinating the work of all societies in smart grid through a formal coordination process, and via coordination of smart grid standards activity within the Power and Energy Society through its Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee. We have a lot of work ahead to implement new thinking, new business models, and attract new engineers with new ideas into the smart grid world, but I am optimistic that we have a good technical foundation in place to leverage current regulatory policy and political drivers and foster exponential progress in the years to come.Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-63754573911692899822010-10-05T14:39:00.000-07:002010-10-05T14:39:25.475-07:00Installed SmartMeters - A Living Lab and Educational ToolNow that smart meters capable of interval metering are being widely deployed in many utilities, we have an incredible opportunity to use them as an educational tool to build awareness of the potential for smart metering, explain clearly and concretely new rate options, and help consumers discover the relationship between various load types and cost.<br />
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For years we have been relying on small pilots to gather this kind of information. Various pundits, the press, regulators and stakeholders have been postulating and pontificating on the impact to the consumer of new rate options that take advantage of interval metering sometimes based on these pilots - or more often just based on their own world view regardless of that pesky data. Now in areas where smart meters have been rolled out, we can present to the consumer what their bill (and carbon impact) would have been if they were on several different available or proposed rates. Data can be presented to the customer on how others like them are faring, which rate types are working for them. It will be refreshing to see the discussion of innovative rates that reflect the actual cost of energy based on actual, indisputable data so we can get beyond this game of pretending the statistics captured from pilots are not reliable or don't apply to some group.<br />
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An installed smart meter plant is therefore a brand new living laboratory on consumer energy consumption patterns and behaviours. This laboratory can also be used to evaluate the viability of new end consumer enabling technologies to take advantage of a rate structure, evaluate the rate structure itself, evaluate the ability of a consumer to change energy behaviours and if that behaviour change is temporary or long lasting - all without the consumer, utility, or the regulator taking any real financial or political risk. Most cool. My only fear is that some of the factions out there find a way to turn even this capability to capture unambiguous, deterministic knowledge into something evil and continue to promote the head buried in the sand approach.<br />
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ErichErich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-18875852102042787962010-10-02T17:48:00.000-07:002010-10-02T17:48:17.689-07:00Revisiting my Google Tech Talk on TCP/IP in Utility NetworksI am shamelessly posting this to begin building content for my new blog. Back in April 2010 I was invited by Vint Cerf (<a HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf</a>) to give a talk at Google HQ on the use of TCP/IP and other communication protocols in utility infrastructure. Google refers to these presentations from invited speakers as Google Tech Talks and they post them to YouTube in their entirety. If you have a spare 80 minutes, check out my talk at <a HREF="http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?xl=xl_blazer&v=zB4-mBQPd7k">http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?xl=xl_blazer&v=zB4-mBQPd7k</a>.Erich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059947694824553714.post-1857991303366742452010-10-01T10:02:00.000-07:002010-10-02T17:29:16.755-07:00London US Embassy Sponsored UK Speaking TourBack in July of this year, I was contacted by the cultural affairs office of the US Embassy in London with a request to participate in their US Speakers program. The only condition was that I accept an all expenses paid trip to Scotland and London for a week and speak at a conference and some other venues. Heck yeah! <br />
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The week started out on Monday, September 27 with a reception in my honor at the US Consulate in Edinburgh Scotland - very humbling. I had the privilege to meet many interesting people at this reception and through the week who are addressing a multitude of issues related to energy from technical, business, educational, and policy perspectives. I learned that there is considerable controversy over the new transmission line required in Scotland to facilitate access to offshore renewable energy being constructed there. It seems that many stakeholders have not realized that significant investment is needed in the grid itself in order to realize the benefits of renewable resources. We had many discussions of this sort during the week.<br />
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On Tuesday, I gave a guest lecture on smart grid at Dundee University in Dundee Scotland (<a href="http://www.dundee.ac.uk/">http://www.dundee.ac.uk/</a>) to an audience of more than 120 students and faculty. It turns out that I was the first guest lecturer in a series for a new masters program in environmental science where multiple disciplines are merged to address environmental issues from a systems of systems perspective. This concept fit well with my lecture on smart grid where I stressed the importance of a systems engineering approach to grid modernization. We had a great discussion on how a smarter grid is required to realize the full potential of new, innovative, and renewable energy sources.<br />
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Tuesday night I attended an amazing reception and dinner for the Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference at the Edinburgh Castle (<a href="http://www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk/">http://www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk/</a>). It has to be the best business dinner I have ever attended - for both ambiance and food. Totally immersed in centuries of history it was fascinating to think about what has occurred within the castle walls over all its history. They had a bagpipe band for entertainment in the Grand Hall where we had dinner. A short video I captured of them can be found at <a HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTMgXhnjiuQ&sns=em">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTMgXhnjiuQ&sns=em</a>.<br />
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On Wednesday I participated on a panel of experts at the Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference (<a href="http://www.slciconference.com/">http://www.slciconference.com/</a>) on "smart investment opportunities for managing the mix of distributed generation." Several core themes emerged from this panel; 1) stable regulatory policy is required before significant investment will be made in grid modernization and renewable generation deployment; 2) the availability of technology nor capital is not a limiting factor - the ability to articulate a clear business case within a well defined policy framework or roadmap is the gating factor; 3) significant investment must be made in transmission and distribution grids to ensure they have the capacity, manageability, and controlability to support non-traditional energy sources.<br />
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I travelled to London with my embassy sponsor Thursday morning to give a lecture at Kings College Strand Campus (<a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/">http://www.kcl.ac.uk/</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_College_London">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_College_London</a>). This was a smaller group with an even more varied background in environmental issues but the lecture seemed to have been very well received. I even had the opportunity to discuss concerns over the upcoming increase in solar flare activity in the 11 year solar cycle (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle</a>). They were fascinated to hear how the environment (in this case the sun) can have such a profound effect on the stability of electric power systems during solar events that cause geomagnetically induced currents in transmission lines and transformers.<br />
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I completed by speaking tour on Friday with two activities. First I spent some time in the London US Embassy TV studio where I was interviewed for what will be one or more YouTube video's on the various topics I spoke and learned about during the week. All of this activity was done as part of the US State Departments U.S. Speakers program (<a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/120948.pdf">http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/120948.pdf</a>). This program is implemented by the Cultural Affairs Office and for me by their staff at the London Embassy (<a href="http://london.usembassy.gov/ukpa_cultural.html">http://london.usembassy.gov/ukpa_cultural.html</a>). As a taxpayer, it was impressive to see how seriously our diplomats take their responsibility to expose other countries to our culture and expertise from a variety of dimensions and points of view.<br />
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The final activity of the day and week was a lunch with several "alumni" of the embassy's cultural exchange program. They included Dr. Andy Fraser, Head of Climate Change, Welsh Assembly Government; Dr. Jeff Hardy, Knowledge Exchange Manager for the UK Energy Research Centre; Ms Jill Osmond, Business Support Manager for the UK National Environment Transformation Fund and Low Carbon Investment Funding within the Department of Energy and Climate Change; Mr. Vishant Vaze, Chief Economist, Consumer Focus; and Mr. Simon James, Stakeholder and Government Relationships Manager for ESBI in Ireland. This was a diverse group of very bright individuals that lead to some lively discussion on a variety of topics. We had considerable discussion on the role of smart meters to support load shifting and other desirable consumer behaviors. There seems to be considerable skepticism over whether smart meters are required to facilitate these policy goals. I spent a lot of time talking about how diverse our business cases are for smart metering in the US - how a disciplined requirements development process is needed to ensure that technical, business, and policy requirements are mapped to the appropriate technologies needed to implement applications that meet those requirements.<br />
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Kate Bentley (<a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/katebentley">http://uk.linkedin.com/in/katebentley</a>), Deputy Cultural Affairs Officer, was my sponsor and guide this week. She and her staff (especially Susan Wedlake) did an amazing job making the arrangements for my visit. It was time well spent.<br />
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ErichErich W. Guntherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08212000997074832465noreply@blogger.com1