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Utility Automation & Monitoring


4 Benefits of Distribution Automation in a Decentralized Energy World

When dozens of utilities received stimulus funds for distribution automation projects in 2009, solar was barely a gigawatt-scale market in the U.S. Sandy was simply a lead character in Grease, not a superstorm that would prompt cities and states to reassess the future-readiness of their...

Grid Modernization


Renewable Energy Job Creation Is a Better Bet Than Coal

When it comes to renewable energy job creation, the Trump administration would do well to take a fresh look at clean energy rather than focusing only on fossil fuels. The solar power sector employed twice as many workers in 2016 than power generation from coal, gas and oil combined, according to a...

DMS & SCADA


RTU and HMI Redundancy in Electrical Substations

As the substation RTU takes on more applications, such as Human-Machine-Interface (HMI), alarm annunciation, math & logic and “relay communication processing”, its need for high availability increases. Anything that takes the RTU out of service – configuration change, firmware update, or...

Renewable Energy Connections


A Snapshot of the US Market for Smart Solar Inverters

Advanced solar inverters could be one of the biggest distributed energy resource communications and control points out there someday. With California now requiring at least early-stage “smart” capabilities from all new solar projects — and a standards road map for next-stage...

Cybersecurity & Privacy


Transmission Planning for Grid Security

Recent physical attacks on substations have heightened the industry’s awareness of the necessity for physical security of critical facilities on the bulk power system. The goal of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability...

Big Data


Optimizing Enterprise with Analytics

How utilities can become data-driven organizations As industry challenges continue to grow, the pressure on utilities to optimize their operations has never been stronger. From amplified pressure to manage customer relationships more effectively to the ever-present need to cut operational costs,...

Smart Grid

DER chart

Distributed Energy Resources: Part 1. Orchestral manoeuvres in grid innovation

If you thought growth in renewable electricity generation was a big deal – and it is – you haven’t seen anything yet. Full-scale transformation to a cleaner, smarter and more flexible grid will be driven by a suite of innovations – referred to as Distributed Energy Resources – that includes but extends well beyond renewables.
DERs consist in part of smaller-scale and geographically dispersed generating resources, which commonly use renewable fuels. They also consist of...

Smart Grid Articles