IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014 - 108
in my view (continued from p. 112)
In Sandy's case, coastal areas were
subject to storm surges and flooding,
while inland, high winds and lashing rain produced the most damage.
Improved hardening and resilience for
distribution systems in those different environments would take different
forms. Underground substations along
the coasts may have to be rebuilt on the
surface, while it might be cost effective
to perform "selective undergrounding"
for some overhead lines further inland.
The one generalization we can make,
however, is that the pursuit of an intelligent, self-healing grid has some common
characteristics that will make the grid
highly reliable in most circumstances-
certainly in cases where disruptions are
less catastrophic than Hurricane Sandy.
Additional, location-specific steps based
on rational risk assessment also can be
taken by utilities and customers.
What's the Problem?
It's fair to ask: why should we make
significant investments in upgrading
the electric grid?
Currently, outages from all sources
cost the U.S. economy US$80-$188
billion annually. A 2011 competitiveness report by the World Economic
Forum ranked the U.S. infrastructure
below 20 among the world's nations in
most of nine categories and below 30
for the quality of our air transport and
electric power sectors.
Clearly, the United States needs to
invest in grid modernization simply to
catch up with its global rivals.
The Value Proposition
We have to take a critical approach to
the enormous investments needed to
improve reliability and resiliency and
enable economic competitiveness. One
metric is return on investment (ROI).
Having studied in depth the various options and their associated costs,
benefits, and ROI, each US$1 invested
garners a return of US$2.80-6 to the
broader economy. The ROI begins
immediately with job creation and
economic stimulus. To reach these
108
ieee power & energy magazine
numbers, we used a very narrow definition of the smart grid. If the definition
is broadened, the benefits increase.
A smarter, stronger grid would
reduce the low-end estimate of current
outage costs of US$80 billion annually
by US$49 billion, by my estimates. That
smarter grid would increase the system's efficiency by about 4.5%. That's
worth another US$20.4 billion, annually. Together, improving just those two
aspects-reducing outages, improving
efficiency-brings about US$70 billion
in annual benefits. A smarter grid would
also reduce CO2 emissions by 12-18%.
To accomplish this, cost estimates
for the United States as a whole range
somewhere between US$338 billion and
US$476 billion for a smarter grid and
about US$82 billion in hardening costs
for a stronger grid. So when you recast
it as a 20-year project, it's going to cost
the United States somewhere between
US$25-30 billion a year for 20 years.
Much of the early work has been
done in the past few years as federal
stimulus funding encouraged advanced
metering infrastructure (AMI). AMI has
introduced end-of-line sensors (a.k.a.
"smart meters") that can communicate
price signals and demand response
actions that can serve to balance supply
and demand and provide "last gasps"
that automatically indicate when power
has failed at the customer's premise.
The coming wave of distribution
automation is enhancing the overlay of
sensing, secure communications and
control by adding distributed intelligence, intelligent electronic devices
and enabling improved fault detection,
isolation and restoration as distribution
management systems and outage management systems are integrated. But we
need to follow this initial effort with
serious levels of annual investment for
decades to meet 21st century economic
and environmental challenges.
The "Self-Healing"
Power Grid
For the purposes of our projects since
January 1998, we define a smart grid to
be an end-to-end cyber-enabled electric
power system, from fuel source to generation, transmission, distribution, and
end use, that will:
✔ enable integration of intermittent
renewable energy sources and
help decarbonize power systems
✔ allow reliable and secure twoway power and information flows
✔ enable energy efficiency, effective demand management, and
customer choice
✔ provide self-healing from power
disturbance events
✔ operate resiliently against physical and cyber attacks.
The path for realizing the smart
grid is fraught with several formidable
challenges. Increased penetration of
renewables implies that the transmission systems have to be expanded by
a significant amount, by about 42,000
mi, which is 9% of the current 450,000
mi in North America, to support these
renewables in dispersed areas. It also
introduces operational challenges in
terms of requiring significantly higher
levels of regulation and ramping capacity. New flow patterns enter the picture
at the distribution level and necessitate
drastic changes to the protection, distribution automation, and voltage and
VAR management. Increased renewable generation also implies limited
dispatchability and increased intermittencies, which are concomitant with
increased ancillary services. Increased
demand the world over, including the
anticipated rapid increase in electrification of transportation, will lead to
significant new loads on distribution
networks, many of which are woefully
inadequate when it comes to monitoring and automation.
Without these capabilities and
upgrades, just using the word "smart
grid" isn't a very precise term. I prefer
smart "self-healing" grid, because it better describes the desired outcome of the
investments I advocate for in grid modernization. The pursuit of a self-healing
grid brings a number of benefits through
stability and adaptation.
january/february 2014
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014 - Cover1
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014 - Cover3
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