Smart or Brilliant
Our industry is not technology adverse, although we have heard this a lot through the years. Utilities have always used technologies but – with the increase in energy demand … the emphasis on “going green” … the movement to alternative energy sources … the enormous effort to rebuild the electric grid infrastructure … and the drive to make the energy consumer manage his own power needs – our industry has had to change the way it uses technology. Of course, you know about smart meters and home automation networks. You also know about AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) and meter data management systems. But what are you doing to make your grid smart … not just smarter (that’s like an IQ improvement from 50 to 60) … but really smart? Like an IQ of 200. Actually, when we sit down and talk to various utility companies (muni’s, co-ops, IOU’s, government owned, etc.), after they think about it for a moment, the answer is usually … “not much”.
Most utilities are adding smart meters and metering communication infrastructures, but that does not make the grid, smart. It makes everything around the grid, smart … but it does not make the grid itself smart. That’s like building the human body and starting with the hands and feet, then adding a nervous system and finding yourself without a brain to manage everything. The gird is just like a human body. It has to have a brain. That’s where GRIDiant comes in to play. We provide the “grid brains”. The illustration below shows the market alignment and some of the vendors that work in this space as well as the anatomy metaphor.
There are two major reasons for investing in products that can make your grid smart. First, the grid needs to absorb all of the massive amounts of data you are bringing into it … then it has to analyze that data in near real-time intervals … and finally it has to use that data to make decisions that control, optimize and manage the distribution grid’s performance. Secondly, the grid needs to evaluate every component of its physical health including load factors on its assets. This results in the grid’s ability to tell your network operators and your power engineers where it has problems as well as predicting where there may be potential problems. Now that’s not just smart … that’s downright brilliant!
So, as you spend your ARRA stimulus funds or just part of your capital budget, remember that your “smart grid” program is severely hindered without a brain. The return-on-investment for your AMR / AMI will not occur if you simply settle for improved billing or informational needs. Give your grid a brain … make it brilliant!