The document discusses the concept of the smart grid, which aims to enhance the reliability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of electricity delivery using modern technology. It highlights the challenges of the current electricity grid, including difficulties in fault detection, increasing demand, and the integration of renewable energy sources. A smarter grid will facilitate better consumer choices, improve grid health awareness for providers, and incorporate advanced digital technologies to optimize power supply and reduce emissions.

1. What Is the
Smart Grid and
Why Should We
Care? By: Roger Hicks
For: Rachel Carson Middle School
January 26, 2012

2. What is
Electric
Power?

3. What Does Electric Power Look Like?
A spinning electric generator
Alternating Power Waveform
outputs a waveform like this
1/60th of a second per cycle = 60 Hz
Voltage Level (volts) X Current Flow (amps) = Power (watts)
If the generator stops spinning the current
stops flowing and the lights go out.!

4. What is
the GRID?

5. The National Electric Power Grid

6. What Are The Parts Of
The Electric Power Grid?
Power Generation Plants
(power plants)
Transmission Networks
(wires)
Distribution System
(wires, transformers, switches)
Consumption and Monitoring
(loads)

7. Power Generation - Central
Easy to Schedule

8. Power Generation - Distributed
Wind
Solar
Hard to Schedule

9. Power Transmission

10. The 100 yr old Electric Power Grid Will
Soon Go Through a Rapid Evolution

11. Power Distribution
Neighborhood
Sub-Station Transformer Transformer

12. At The Home
Load Center
(Breaker Box)
Watt-Hour Meter

13. Loads

14. Home Energy Information Display
(Future?)

15. History – last 100 years +
Ultimate Customers
Distribution of Electricity
Substation
Transmission

16. What are
the Grid
Problems?

17. Hard To Remotely Detect Faults
A power
company may
not know a line
is down until
someone calls
them about a
power outage

18. We Have To Build New Capacity To
Meet Increasing Demand
The Cost per
Watt of Power
for New
Generation is
Getting More
Expensive All
The Time
The Output To Meet New Demand Has
More Than Doubled in Less Than 20 Yrs

19. Unused Capacity is a Waste of Money
capacity
We spend
money on a
system that big
enough to
handle the
total load -
which does not
happen all the
time.

20. Peak Loads Are Rare And The Cost of
That Peak Power Source is Expensive
Because we
want our power
to always be on
we pay a high
price for
meeting peak
demand just a
few hours per
year

21. New Loads Are Going to Impact The
Stability of The Electric Grid
If there are a lot
of plug-in electric
cars and everyone
plugs in at the
same time
(evening) to
charge up the grid
could be
overloaded.

22. Cannot Easily Store Electricity
For Later Use
Have to back
up renewable
wind and
solar power
with other
sources which
may be hard
to secure.

23. We Don’t Know Our Personal Fuel Mix
Users have no
information to
tell them the mix
of fuels being
used for the
electricity they
are using when
they use it.

24. No Transparency of Real Electric
Costs or Shifting of Load Based on
Price Incentives
Would people
use energy
differently if
they were
charged what it
really cost in
real time?

25. How Will The Grid Becomes Smarter
EPRI – The Green Grid

26. A Smarter Grid Will….
• Make it easier for people to get information
about the electricity they use so they can make
better choices about how they want to consume
energy.
• Make it easier for power providers to know about
the health of the grid and take actions to make it
more reliable and efficient.
• Make it easier to fully integrate the intermittent
power production from distributed renewable
generation sources.

27. Smart Grid Things to Work On

28. It’s Time to Think Different
• While the Smart Grid will utilize the latest
technology to achieve its goals, it is not just
about technology.
• Implementation of the Smart Grid will require
a complete rethinking of the public policy,
utility business models, business processes
and consumer behavior.
• This is a real paradigm shift!

29. Thank You

30. Extra

31. Why All This Interest In Energy?
• Electricity is one of the largest and most capital-intensive sectors of the economy.
– Total asset value is estimated to exceed $800 billion, with approximately 60% invested in power
plants, 30% in distribution facilities, and 10% in transmission facilities.
• Annual electric revenues – the Nation’s “electric bill” – are about $247 billion
– Paid by America’s 131 million electricity customers, which includes nearly every business and
household.
– There are more than 3,100 electric utilities and additionally, there are nearly 2,100 non-utility power
producers, including both independent power companies and customer-owned distributed energy
facilities.
• “The grid of the future will require $165 billion over the next 20 years” - EPRI
– The benefits to society will be $638 to 802 billion. The cost-benefit is 4 to 1.
• There are a lot of risks we face by staying on the current path.
– Uncertain access to fuel resources – cost may go out of control
– Increasing harm to the atmosphere – global warming may change the planet
– Unpredictable power outages – cascading grid failures disrupt commerce
– Poor utilization of economic capital – unnecessary cost increases for energy users

34. What is the Smart Grid?
• According to US Department of Energy (DOE):
–Smart Grid is the term used for an
electricity delivery system that is
integrated with modern digital and
information technology to provide
improved reliability, security,
efficiency and ultimately lower cost
to the user.

35. What is the Smart Grid?
• According the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC)
– “The Smart Grid means a lot of things, but for us, the Smart Grid
means a more efficient transmission system that can reduce emissions
and increase reliability,” FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller said. “For
example, by minimizing line losses, Smart Grid technologies will allow
generators to produce less energy and less pollution, while delivering
the same amount of electricity to customers.”
• According to Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
– The term Smart Grid may be best understood as the overlaying
of a unified communications and control system on the existing
power delivery infrastructure to provide the right information to
the right entity (e.g. end-use devices, T&D system controls,
customers, etc.) at the right time to take the right action.
– It is a system that optimizes power supply and delivery,
minimizes losses, is self-healing, and enables next-generation
energy efficiency and demand response applications.

36. Goals and Characteristics, Which Together
Characterize a Smart Grid
From: FERC – Smart Grid Policy, March 2009
• Integration of “smart” appliances and consumer devices.
• Deployment and integration of advanced electricity storage and peak-
shaving technologies, including plug-in electric and hybrid electric
vehicles, and thermal storage air conditioning.
• Provision to consumers of timely information and control options.
• Development of standards for communication and interoperability of
appliances and equipment connected to the electric grid, including the
infrastructure serving the grid.
• Identification and lowering of unreasonable or unnecessary barriers to
adoption of smart grid technologies, practices, and services.

37. Goals and Characteristics, Which Together
Characterize a Smart Grid
From: FERC – Smart Grid Policy, March 2009
• Increased use of digital information and controls technology to improve
reliability, security, and efficiency of the electric grid.
• Dynamic optimization of grid operations and resources, with full cyber-
security.
• Deployment and integration of distributed resources and generation,
including renewable resources.
• Development and incorporation of demand response, demand-side
resources, and energy efficiency resources.
• Deployment of “smart” technologies (real-time, automated, interactive
technologies that optimize the physical operation of appliances and
consumer devices) for metering, communications concerning grid
operations and status, and distribution automation.

38. Smart Grid Knowledge Domains
Energy Advanced Renewable
Management Metering portfolio
Systems EMS Infrastructure RPS standard
AMI
Demand
Transmission
Response
and
Distribution T&D DR
REP Smart C&T Cap and
Grid Trade
Renewable
Energy
Payments
Home Area HAN DG Distributed
Networks Generation
EV
TOU FERC Federal
Electric
Time of Use Energy
Vehicles
Rates Regulatory
Commission

39. Source: NETL – A Systems View of the Modern Grid – Spring 2009
Visit our website at www.netl.doe.gov/moderngrid/ to find out how you can
become more involved in this national effort to modernize the grid.

40. Smart Grid Ingredients
Capgemini

41. The Vision of the Smart Grid

42. What Are The Utilities Doing?

44. From Grid 2030 report by US DOE 2003

45. Benefits of the Smart Grid
• Summary of Energy-Savings & Carbon-Reduction
Mechanisms Enabled by a Smart Grid
EPRI – The Green Grid

46. Copyright © 2009 EnerNex Corporation. All rights reserved

47. Communications Will Change
Smart Grid Standards Assessment and
Recommendations for Adoption and
Development, February 2009
Copyright © 2009 EnerNex Corporation. All rights reserved.