POWER May 2011 - 98

EuropE spEcial advErtising sEction
Proactive management of energy usage
Economic slump or not, efficiency is the key to effective energy management. So how
do we create Smart Grids? By building smart networks, says Alcatel-Lucent
T
o improve operational efficiency and to
help understand usage behavior in real
time, smart grid is easily becoming the " goto "
system. In Washington, D.C., for instance,
a smart grid project involving smart meters,
smart thermostats, dynamic pricing, and
enhanced energy information reduced peak
demand by as much as 51%, among other
significant results.
To find the optimal approach to smart
grid projects, however, utilities need to
consider factors such as available infrastructure,
geography, frequency of data reads or
updates, data volume, information sensitivity,
and prioritization.
The network needs to be dynamic, secure,
and adapted to support increasing numbers
of smart grid applications. To drive operational
decisions, it has to reach the entire
grid, collect real-time data, deliver data to
operations systems, manage the volume of
data, and enable data analysis and correlation.
Critical components are:
* a network infrastructure that enables
real-time communications throughout the
entire grid;
* data processing systems able to correlate
and analyze the resulting large amounts
of data;
* management tools with end-to-end visibility
to better analyze and proactively manage
events; and
* asset management systems to track individual
assets, maintenance schedules and
warranty information, and integrate with
physical and logical topology, event management,
trouble ticketing, dispatch and
work management systems.
It is essential that smart grid data can be
organized, filtered and analyzed according
to many criteria: power consumption, operational,
system status, and events.
Meter data management systems must
reliably collect, process and store data for
the purpose of calculating billing determinants.
As well as being critical to meterto-cash
business processes, meter data
management can also be highly strategic.
Heart of the smart grid: communications
technology from Alcatel-Lucent
It encourages consumer participation in
time-of-use pricing, demand response, distributed
generation, market settlement, rate
plan modeling, rate program design, strategic
planning, and operational efficiency.
It transforms power consumption data into
business-critical information used to manage
consumption patterns and increase reliability
and efficiency.
www.alcatel-lucent.com/smartgrid
The Low-NOx Experts
Fuel Tech offers an integrated suite of advanced
technologies for boiler and combustion optimization,
effi ciency improvement, and air pollution control to
utility and industrial customers worldwide.
The company's core activities are its nitrogen
oxide (NOx) reduction systems and processes
and its unique application of chemicals to
improve combustion unit performance. Fuel
Tech's products and services rely heavily on
the company's exceptional computational
fl uid dynamics modeling skills, enhanced by
internally developed, high-end visualization
software.
Fuel Tech is based in Warrenville, Illinois
(USA) with international offi ces in Milan
(Italy) and Beijing (China).
www.ftek.com
May 2011 | POWER
Fuel Tech ad 178 x 241.indd 1
www.powermag.com
13/04/2011 15:57
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http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/smartgrid http://www.ftek.com http://www.powermag.com
POWER May 2011

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