Asset health management in the smart grid era

An end-to-end asset health management strategy can help prioritize repair-replace decisions, improve reliability, increase workforce efficiency and meet regulatory milestones. For more information, download this free white paper, Using smart grid data to power end-to-end asset health management.

Watch this video to learn how an end- to-end asset health management strategy ties analytics and equipment monitoring to a business intelligence platform that provides actionable results.

Smart Grid Investment Trends: Follow the money, Part 1

The progression of smart grid implementation in North America has been interesting to watch as the focus shifts to different stakeholders and technologies. When I look at the smart grid implementations, new investment trends are emerging. The trickier question is which trend is driving the most implementation and what benefits utilities are able to capture.  

The two biggest investment drivers right now are the need to improve utility operational effectiveness – the subject of this blog -- and connecting renewable energy resources to the grid. Operational effectiveness encompasses advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), distribution grid management, utility analytics (aka “Big Data”), and distributed energy resources (DERs). In each case, underlying drivers such as aging infrastructure and operational cost pressures are increasingly compelling utilities to invest in new solutions to meet new, more demanding expectations of customers, shareholders, and regulators. 

I attended a conference three years ago and one of the speakers said that advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) had “hijacked” smart grid.  At the time, the ARRA funding for the DOE Smart Grid Investment Grants was largely focused on AMI projects. In my opinion, this happened for three reasons. Politically, customer engagement is important and many consumers associate the meter on the side of their house with the grid and hopefully link a smart meter to a smarter grid. The second reason is that for many utilities, the business case for AMI is generally positive or at least break even. The business cases looked even better with the ARRA grants covering up to 50% of the project costs. Finally, AMI technology can be deployed within the three-year time frame required by the grants. (find out more) 

But if we follow the money, many utilities are finding a business case for distribution grid management investments built around improving operational reliability (Fault Detection Isolation and Restoration, or FDIR) and efficiency improvements (Volt/VAr control and optimization, or VVO). The capability to improve operations without having to convince customers to change their energy-use behavior – something that has proven to be a challenge during some AMI implementations – appears to be attractive to utilities.  

Additionally, the utility investments in AMI and distribution grid management are pushing another smart grid investment trend: “Big Data”.  Meter data management systems are capturing interval data from residential customer meters that can now be provided to consumers, and this data can be analyzed to help define customer usage patterns and preferences for demand response programs. Business intelligence solutions can also provide situational awareness and improved performance for grid operations based on analysis and display of operational information captured by systems such as distribution management systems.

Another “Big Data” play is asset health.Asset health management addresses the industry’s aging infrastructure and aging workforce by managing the process of capturing asset data and using this data to achieve asset reliability performance goals more efficiently. Algorithms and performance models are applied to the data to determine condition and health of assets, to provide situation awareness and identify needed condition-based maintenance, and to execute the asset maintenance that drives grid performance.     

Improving operational effectiveness also means using the best of new demand response technologies for peak shaving, load shedding, and load shifting applications to gain more control over energy supply and demand.  Today, two-way communications and programmable communicating thermostats or web portals for capturing consumer usage patterns and preferences have enabled more sophisticated demand response programs for residential customers. Commercial and industrial customers are now using demand response for peak shaving to avoid excessive demand charges, load shedding in response to emergency utility requests, production scheduling and load shifting based on electricity market prices, and ancillary services such as spinning reserve capacity and frequency regulation.  Aggregators have emerged to offer ancillary services to the energy markets established by regional independent system operators. In each case, demand response represents new business model opportunities to more effectively and efficiently deliver power to end customers.

So far, many investments in DER applications such as distributed generation (i.e. solar PV installations), distributed energy storage, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure, are mostly pilot projects to demonstrate the technologies, quantify the benefits, and gain operational experience. Investment interest is growing in this segment.  

In my next blog, I will talk more about interconnecting renewables and also how utilities are managing and monetizing distributed energy resources.

How is the grid getting smarter?

We are seeing technology advancements in four areas that are making the grid smarter: 1) expanded communications channels, information technology, and security that support smart grid systems and applications, 2) new distribution automation enabling the grid to be more efficient and to also self-diagnose and take corrective action, 3) utility analytics to improve management of the grid and its assets, and 4) new equipment and software that better integrates distributed energy resources such as demand response, distributed generation, energy storage, and electric vehicle charging.

Watch this newly released short video where I discuss ABB’s vision for smart grid, including the benefits of smart grid, how it helps to deliver power with better reliability and efficiency, and how it supports renewable energy and customer engagement.

Smart Grid industry events

One challenge for people engaged in smart grids is determining which events to attend since there seem to be multiple conferences and seminars each week. April and early May have been exceptionally busy based on the industry events that have taken place that I thought I should attend. I attended two industry events, two major events that ABB sponsored, and a meeting with Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chu.

The largest of these four events was the IEEE T&D Conference and Exposition that was held in Orlando, Florida earlier this month. IEEE holds this event every other year and I have to think that it is easily the largest T&D equipment conference in North America. This year the attendance was over 13,000 people and the exhibition floor was expansive. I had a limited amount of time at the exhibition but I did spend most of the second day of the conference attending the smart grid program. This program included sessions on standards; lessons learned from deployments, public education, and customer engagement; and the future of smart grid including technology, policy, standards, and customer involvement. This last session was the most valuable from my perspective and provided insight from the speakers on the direction and issues facing grid modernization and smart grid investments.

One of the factors that limited my time at the IEEE event was the Ventyx Mindshare event that was also held in Orlando at the same time as IEEE. This event was sponsored by Ventyx, an ABB company, and provided a program for the Ventyx software users. The agenda included customer advisory board meetings, organization and product updates, overviews of product roadmaps, technical sessions related to the software applications, and a Solutions Pavilion for Ventyx and its partners’ products. Attendance this year was the largest ever with additional customers in attendance based on the acquisitions that Ventyx made last year. Obvient Focal Point business intelligence software, Insert Key Solutions equipment reliability software, and the Mincom Ellipse enterprise asset management software were added to the Ventyx software portfolio last year.

From a smart grid perspective, I focused on the Mindshare sessions for the distribution management system, demand response management system, asset health center system, and integration of these applications to enterprise-level applications such as mobile work force enablement and enterprise work and asset management.

ABB hosts its Automation & Power World (APW) event each spring. This event was initially formed by combining the Automation World and the Power World events – the two events that preceded APW. Automation World was focused on customer training and automation products and Power World started as a sales training event for power products and systems. This year, APW was held in late April in Houston. We had sales training over the weekend and then the customer portion of the event immediately following Monday through Thursday. The total number of attendees this year was over 5000 people! The common element was the Technology & Solution Center that included over 130,000 square feet of product and systems exhibits – all ABB and its business partners. The customer program has been expanded to over 500 hours of educational training that included a business forum, customer case studies, hands-on training, panel discussions, and technical workshops. We had an extensive program for smart grid that addressed all facets of transmission technologies, distribution grid management, asset health management, and distributed energy resources including distributed generation and energy storage.

For me, one highlight of the Technology & Solution Center was the entrance to the exhibit area. We had this area dedicated to the ABB Industry Segment Initiatives (ISIs) which are global strategic growth initiatives that engage multiple divisions and businesses across ABB and focus on customer requirements and relationships with partners. The ISIs include smart grid, solar, wind, data centers, energy efficiency, water, rail, and electric vehicles. Leading the Smart Grid ISI for North America, I routinely work with my colleagues from the other ISIs since smart grid solutions frequently interface across these technologies, especially renewable generation, data centers, energy efficiency, and electric vehicle service infrastructure.

The Electricity Storage Association (ESA) held its 22nd annual meeting the first week of May in Washington, DC. The theme of the event was “Electricity Storage: Meeting the Challenges of an Evolving Grid.” The event included a Technology Showcase and a technical program that addressed distribution and “edge of grid” energy storage, end-user and microgrid storage applications, and large-scale applications for generation and transmission. Sessions also discussed storage economics and the aggregation, integration, and control of energy storage.

There are two conclusions that I would make after attending the event. The first is that lithium-ion battery technology is receiving most of the attention for battery energy technology although the range of battery chemistries extends from lead-acid to flow-based technologies. The second conclusion is that one of the growth areas for battery energy storage is addressing the variability of renewable energy resources, particularly solar PV which can change rapidly with steep ramp rates. I attended the presentation at ESA given by Powercorp, the microgrid company that ABB recently acquired. This presentation included an example of how fossil generation and renewable generation can be effectively managed by a microgrid that incorporates both flywheel and battery energy storage. The flywheel provides fast response regulation and the battery energy storage provides additional storage to back up the flywheel and helps to address the variability of the renewable generation.

The National Alliance for Advanced Technology Batteries (NAATBatt) is launching a distributed energy storage (DES) initiative. I joined the NATTBatt DES group, consisting of approximately a dozen companies, in a recent meeting with DOE Secretary Chu to get support for the DES initiative and to present two specific recommendations.

The first recommendation was to establish DES technology as a focus among the different types of electricity storage technology being investigated by the DOE for stationary energy storage technology. Battery technologies that must be designed to be volume and weight restricted, such as those that will likely to be used in most DES applications, offer the prospect of creating a combined market for both stationary and automotive batteries. The prospect of this combined, multi-gigawatt market would be a catalyst for innovation, additional private investment, and electrification of transportation.

The second recommendation was to strongly request continued DOE support for DES demonstration projects. Although DES is a critical technology of the future, DES system costs are still too high to justify widespread commercial investment in those systems by utilities today. The fastest way down the cost curve is to support continued deployment of DES systems by utilities in geographically diverse demonstration projects that are small, inexpensive, and fast. These projects would give participating utilities the experience with DES systems that they need to identify the cost savings and to create the innovations necessary to push these systems into full commercial deployment.

The group is proposing to develop an outline of proposed projects in consultation with other utilities, battery and materials suppliers, and automakers. One immediate goal is to expand the NAATBatt DES working group by inviting these other companies to join the group.

It is great to see that the smart grid momentum continues to grow in North America. Over the next couple of years, the market analysts forecast growing investment in smart grid technologies, with distribution grid management, utility analytics, and distributed energy resources leading the way.

Data Centers and the Smart Grid

Guest post: Clemens Pfeiffer, Chief Technology Officer, Power Assure

The Smart Grid will bring about many changes, and data centers will not be exempt as they consume and waste an enormous amount of electricity. In the U.S., data centers consumed 61 billion kilowatt-hours or 1.5 percent of the nation’s total electricity in 2006, according to an August 2007 study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That is twice what was consumed just six years earlier, and the EPA forecasted data center power consumption to double again from 2006 to 2012.

'Big Fish' in an emerging smart grid market

GTM Research recently published The Networked Grid 150 report, a compilation of the industry's leading players, vendor rankings, competitive positioning and market forecasts for each smart grid segment. ABB was among only four companies to be named a ‘Big Fish of Smart Grid’ as well as a ‘Top Ten Vendor’ based on an extensive list of qualifying characteristics. The electrical system of the future requires capacity, reliability, efficiency and sustainability which technologies in the ABB portfolio provide. To learn more about ABB technology and smart grid solutions, I invite you to view the free webinar: How to determine the right self-healing grid strategy to achieve your budget and reliability goals. Learn what type of investment and reliability improvements you can expect and discover options to determine the best strategy for your budget. Click here to view today!

New Smart Grid Center of Excellence Unveiled

Guest post: Adam Litowsky, Marketing, ABB Smart Grid Center of Excellence

ABB’s new Smart Grid Center of Excellence (COE), the nation’s first-of-its-kind smart grid demonstration center and verification lab, was unveiled at last week’s ribbon cutting ceremony on North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus. Several local dignitaries attended the event including the Mayor of Raleigh, Nancy McFarlane; NC State Chancellor, Dr. Randy Woodson; and ABB NAM Regional Manager, Enrique Santacana. These officials as well as other attendees toured the facility to learn how ABB’s cutting-edge smart grid hardware and software solutions can help prepare cities to deal with weather emergencies.