Often when project developers talk about the cost of a new power plant, wind farm, or solar installation, they’re referring to the capital cost of building a facility. Certainly those development costs have dropped over time—especially for wind and solar.
But developers overlook the cost to move power—at their peril. You might think that transmission costs—at least the fraction of those that developers of new plants must bear—are a very small part of the total....
How to improve reliability by hardening the power grid BY BO ZENG, WEI YUAN & LONG ZHAO, University of South Florida North America relies heavily on its interconnected power grid. Throughout its history, the grid has provided years of reliable electricity to 300 million people to power home...
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...
Ben Franklin famously said, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”. This saying certainly holds true for Smart Grid deployments, which can cost utilities several hundred million dollars. Given these high stakes, effective planning is essential. Many North American electric utilities...
The electric power industry is increasingly having to evaluate the growing penetration of distributed energy resources (DER). New sets of challenges exist for planning and operating the grid, especially with the distribution systems in which these new resources must be integrated. Now electric...
A coalition of large energy consumers and ratepayer advocates has filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), urging the agency to prohibit transmission owners from independently planning "local" transmission projects exceeding 100 kilovolts (kV). The coalition argues...
In a significant move that underscores the growing demand for reliable and sustainable energy to power the expanding digital infrastructure, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved an interconnection agreement between Talen Energy, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Exelon. This...
The evolving demands of modern power grids necessitate the adoption of advanced technologies that can provide enhanced efficiency, reliability, and flexibility. Smart transformers are at the forefront of this technological revolution, offering a range of capabilities that significantly improve the...
The electric power industry is increasingly having to evaluate the growing penetration of distributed energy resources (DER). New sets of challenges exist for planning and operating the grid, especially with the distribution systems in which these new resources must be integrated. Now electric...
Increasing the hosting capacity of distributed generation in power distribution systems is identified as key low-carbon solution to help meet the aggressive greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in the energy sector. The deployment of distributed generation technologies is creating a paradigm...
NEURAL GRID TAKES SMART GRID INTO THE CLOUD The Neural Grid represents more than Smart Grid v2.0—much more. Today, the smart grid implies the legacy mechanical power transmission and distribution (T&D) networks enhanced by pockets of automation, connectivity, and centralized IT systems. The...
