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Substation Automation T&D


Boost Power Grid Resilience

Exploring communications for real-time network visibility BY DONALD POLLOCK, Ambient Corporation In August 2013, a report entitled “Economic Benefits of Increasing Electric Grid Resilience to Weather Outages” prepared by the White House Council of Economic Advisors and the U.S. Department of...

Distribution Automation


The Digital Substation Utopia

Electric utilities have long considered digital substations an insubstantial concept: an ideal vision of all-knowing substations networked into an intelligent grid. However, technological innovations have slowly emerged in the past few decades, consequently, transforming this utopian vision into a...

Smart Metering T&D


Texas PUC Shelves $1B Grid Credit Mechanism

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) has unanimously decided to shelve the proposed $1 billion Performance Credit Mechanism (PCM) for power generators, concluding that it would not deliver the anticipated grid reliability benefits. The PCM was conceived as a means to incentivize power...

Utility Automation & Monitoring T&D


IT and OT Technologies for the Smart Grid

Convergence of information and operation technologies (IT & OT) to build a successful Smart Grid BY RICK NICHOLSON, Ventyx Smart Grid is a buzzword that has become an intrinsic part of the North American electric utility industry language in the past few years. Nearly every participant in the...

Energy Storage & Grid Integration


Asset Management & Maintenance


Trends in SCADA Security

The importance of up-to-date critical system monitoring BY MARLEE ROSEN, Rosen Associates Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) networks contain computers and applications that perform critical capabilities in delivering essential services and commodities (for example, electricity,...

T&D Automation

Ethernet Cable Selection for Utilities

Electric utilities are constantly searching for the most efficient, reliable and cost-effective methods to deliver electricity to customers. A vision for accomplishing this is the migration of the electrical grid from a reliable, but inflexible system to the Smart Grid, which promises adaptability and efficiency.

One definition of the Smart Grid, based on work from the U.S. Department of Energy, is: "A modernized electrical grid that uses information and communications technology to gather and act on information in an automated fashion…to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity".

The promises of the Smart Grid are exciting on many fronts...

T&D Automation Articles