Utility Horizons - Second Quarter 2013 - (Page 57)

Purviews... also underscores the time it takes after an event to develop consensus for action and the development of sound strategies to address the issue. Shoring up the grid, like its cousin, modernizing the grid, doesn’t happen overnight. The project I describe here may be thought of as a pilot design, in that it addresses just two communities and a limited amount of utility infrastructure on a Northeastern utility grid. But both elected officials and utility executives want to assess what’s currently possible and at what cost, before implementing our design or scaling it across a service territory. As we’ll see, determining value and recovering costs present their own challenges. One Concept – Selective Applications utility crews and first-response, emergency crews clearing trees is being explored. A microgrid controller with situational awareness to orchestrate the interplay of supply and load is included in our design. The Anatomy of Resiliency Managing resiliency has many facets. The effort described here is designed to address the front end of a disruptive event. What can be done from a new design point of view to minimize the impact and its aftermath? The first step is selective undergrounding of the medium voltage distribution feeders most important to the legacy system on the ground, to counter the threat of falling trees and other wind-blown debris related damage. The second step is to selectively sectionalize overhead lines to limit the extent of faults that do occur and to enable operators to reroute power around damaged lines and maintain power to undamaged areas – particularly those parts of the grid serving loads critical to civil order and safety. The primary concept driving our work in this case is to maintain essential services (i.e., police, fire, gas stations, shelters, etc.) for a specific locale and thereby preserve civil order and promote the health and safety of the citizenry in Sensors and the event of a devastating communication networks cyber or natural event. will help operators determine the location We’re pursuing that goal by designing a and cause of an outage hardened microgrid in Underground excavation is temporarily disruptive for more accurate two communities out of an but returns big benefits. dispatching of field entire service territory with crews as well as alert each involving two substations and two feeders. them when damaged areas are brought back online. The components of this microgrid include selective The microgrid controller will provide the situational undergrounding of medium voltage cables, selective awareness to understand what load is connected sectionalizing in small increments along pertinent both for the safety of linemen as well as notification feeders and laterals, the installation of distributed of customers. Placing two diesel generators on energy resources and automated processes, aided circuits in the area that can be bridged or operated by sensors and communication networks. (The DERs independently to carry the load would provide power include two diesel generators, one of which could in case upstream transmission is the issue. If one carry the circuit’s entire load for a limited time.) The generator goes out, the system has redundancy. use of dispatch software for connectivity between www.UtilityHorizons.com Q2 - 2013 • UTILITY HORIZONS • 57 http://www.UtilityHorizons.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Utility Horizons - Second Quarter 2013

Utility Horizons - Second Quarter 2013
Publisher’s Message
Contents
The Queue
Automation Rising!
Inside Tracks
Focal Point
Automation and Innovation at Epcor Water Services
BLeading Edge: Advanced Technology Perspectives
Consumer Engagement: The Future Goes Mobile
Demand Response: Why the Future Is in the Cloud
Building Paths to Smarter Water Management
Bullet-Proofing Your Scada System Against the Evil-Doers
Education Matters
Standard Bearings
Regulation De Rigueur
On the Horizon
Purviews
Intersections
Eventualities
Thinking It Through With Sparky Flamedrop
Loose Ends

Utility Horizons - Second Quarter 2013

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