The electric power grid can be defined as a large system of high-tension cables that connects the power plants to consumers across a region. The grid is responsible for transmitting the generated power to the end-user. The electricity produced at power plants is usually “stepped up” to high voltages before it is transmitted through the grid. At a substation near the consumer, the power gets “stepped down” to voltages suitable for household and commercial use.

The beauty of the grid is that power can be bought and sold across vast expanses. Since the storage of electricity is very difficult, power grids support an optimal distribution of electricity allowing for a more balanced supply-and-demand equation. Also, minor transmission failures in one section of the grid can also be compensated for by using electricity available in another section of the grid.
Due to expanding demand, higher fuel costs and pollution-related issues, there has been a recent push to develop smarter electrical grids that are more efficient, cost effective and robust. The introduction of renewable energy systems such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal generation facilities also entail the use of complex power management techniques in the grid. Since the power generated from the renewable power systems heavily depend on environmental factors, the power grids need to have sufficient “intelligence” to switch the transmission on/off based on the power generated.

The Smart Grid

The Smart Grid is achieved by incorporating digital technology to power grids to deliver electricity from power plants to consumers in a more intelligent, efficient, and transparent way. The basic concept of Smart Grid is to add monitoring, analysis, control and communication capabilities to the power grid to maximise the throughput of the system while reducing the energy consumption. As all systems are automated and metered, they track when and how much electricity is used. By analysing and reporting all critical usage and health statistics, smart grids help system engineers to better manage loads and effectively cater to power demands.

Factors Driving the Need for Smart Power Grids

Increased Energy Demand
Increase in peak energy demand required to power industrial growth and expanding population

Economic Factors
Rising asset costs such as capital, raw materials, labour and increasing costs to support aging power infrastructure

Policy and Regulation
Impetus towards using renewable power sources and increased efficiency of power delivery

Greenhouse Gas Reductions
Deliver reductions through optimal use of power plants, end-user conservation and renewable energy

Technology Advancement
Advancements in computers and embedded technology to support high-voltage applications

Smart Grid Architecture

Smart grid architecture relies on embedded technology to manage an energy system and automatically track usage. The conventional power grid management was carried out manually by disparate teams situated at each section of the grid, i.e. power plant, substation etc. The information available to these teams was mostly limited to their subsections alone and information about demand and outages were usually communicated through phone calls or fax messages.

In sharp contrast, Smart Grids allow for seamless transfer of information across the entire power grid. Embedded computers deployed at various points of the grid, from power generation to end-user consumption, help in analysing the critical characteristics of the system and also communicate it to other systems attached to the grid to achieve excellent energy management capabilities. The use of embedded technology also allows the deployment of centralised Smart Energy Management Software to control the power available across the entire grid.

Interfacing with Electrical Appliances

Embedded systems are ubiquitous and are finding its use in almost all kinds of consumer and commercial equipments. Thus, a power delivery network built on embedded technology can far easily be interfaced with such equipments. This can ensure flow of electricity as well as information between the power plant and the equipments. The combined intelligence of the interconnected devices, coupled with automated control systems, can permit real-time power transactions and seamless interfaces among people, buildings, industrial plants, generation facilities and the electric network.

The information received from all the interconnected applications will enable the centralised energy management software to create an efficient power generation and transmission plan. An “intelligent” electric grid will also facilitate the proper delivery of electricity from renewable power systems such as wind, hydro, and geothermal power plants that are often located at remote regions, far off from load centres. Additionally, interconnected systems will also enable faster detection of outages, correction of faults and quicker restoration of power supply. This will also improve the reliability of the grid and ensure security of the region as well.

Benefits of Smart Power Grids

Self-Healing
Intelligent embedded systems placed throughout the power grid provides self-healing capabilities

Optimisation
Better usage of existing power plants and optimal management of peak power demands

Energy Monitoring and Control
System-wide ability to manage energy and demand

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Reduced Pollution
Lesser dependency on conventional gas/thermal plants to cater to peak demands & thus reducing carbon emissions

Advanced Metering
Manage energy usage through dynamic monitoring of two-way power metering

Cost reduction
Customers use less energy through incentivised usage enabling potential cost savings for customer and provider.

Conclusion

The Smart Grid represents the futuristic extension of the movement for better and efficient power management and consumption. Intelligence embedded power grids can create value up and down the chain – from efficient production of electricity in power plants to optimal supply and distribution of power to match the usage patterns of the end-users. Embedded technology has the power to move electric power grid from an electromechanically controlled system to an electronically controlled network of control systems. The primary advantage is that the grid can grow from an operator controlled and managed system to an “intelligent” self-healing and self-guided system that works continuously to match the supply with the demand. Revolutionary developments in both information technology and materials science and engineering promise significant improvements in the security, reliability, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of electric power delivery systems. Embedded and intelligent power grids is the way forward in ensuring a smarter, cleaner and a well-organised management of energy sources driving future growth requirements.

Additional resources

Sounds like science fiction, but this is real technology commercially available today. Israeli startup Intucell has already deployed it in its home country with operator Pelephone and is engaged in multiple other trials. AT&T, however, is the big fish, and Intucell is hoping its nationwide launch of the technology across its HSPA and LTE networks will validate SON for the rest of the world.

I detailed how Intucell’s dynamic SON platform works in December, but in short, it uses a distributed network intelligence to track the network’s health and levels of congestion. It then adjusts the transmission power of each cell in the network to create the best possible configuration for both coverage and capacity. Quite literally cell towers start following you, expanding their cell radii as you move closer to their edges, while neighboring cells recede. By moving the network around you as you yourself move through the network, SON can find the optimal overall topology at any given movement to provide the best coverage and capacity to thousands of users within a cluster of cells. It’s pretty cool stuff.

So what’s the benefit? According to AT&T, its initial trials of the technology over HSPA networks in two markets resulted in a 10 percent reduction in dropped calls. That is a tangible benefit, but it is nothing when you compare it to SON’s impact on mobile data capacity. AT&T isn’t releasing any numbers on how SON improved data performance, but Intucell pointed to data it has collected from other trials.

According to Intucell CEO Rani Wellingstein, the technology can reduce cell congestion anywhere from 10 to 40 percent depending on the configuration of the network, allowing operators to pack more capacity onto less infrastructure. Those capacity increases are also passed onto the consumer in the form of faster speeds. SON can boost the average throughput by up to 15 percent of the network’s theoretical limit, which in many cases could equate to a 1 Mbps or greater increase in downlink speeds.

“AT&T is perceived as the operator with the highest data crunch problem,” Wellingstein said. “It has the highest penetration of smartphones and the highest penetration of iPhones. It makes sense that it would be the first operator in North America to deploy dynamic SON.”

SON has other benefits. It can make networks self-healing. If a cell site is down — which, according to Wellingstein, is the case for 1 to 2 percent of the world’s cells at any given time — the surrounding cells can expand their radius to fill the hole in the network. When the site is repaired the cells retract to their normal size.

AT&T is moving aggressively with the technology. It started trialing Intucell’s platform last April, but it plans to have the technology in all of its networks nationwide by the end of the year. Intucell and AT&T did not disclose the financial terms of their deal, but Wellingstein said deploying SON is a fraction of the cost of adding the same capacity through new radio infrastructure. He said a U.S. operator could add basic SON functions to a nationwide network for around $50 million. Not exactly cheap, but in a country the size of the U.S., even the most modest network deployment can run multiple billions of dollars.