POWER January 2013 - 29

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
7. Want to get closer to utility customers? There are apps for that, and the industry
is using them. In a survey of 24 major utilities, 67% said that the company is currently deploying
and using mobile devices in its T&D operations, but often in different ways. Source: EPRI
Not implementing & not planning to
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Inspection &
assessment
Work order
management
Workforce
deployment
shape even at high temperatures. Molybdenum
also exhibits high wear resistance,
high dimensional stability, low thermal
expansion, and high thermal conductivity.
The metal is chemically stable up to 2,000
degrees Celsius. EPRI research suggests a
duplex or triplex fabrication approach to
make the cladding compatible with current
light water reactor coolants. Duplex cladding
would have a thin layer of zirconium
or other alloy on the outside of the molybdenum
tube, while triplex cladding would
have thin layers on both the inside and
outside. Such fabrication techniques are
challenging, but the industry already has
experience fabricating duplex and triplex
zirconium cladding.
As a ceramic material, silicon carbide
has favorable high-temperature characteristics
as a potential cladding material,
but it also faces significant technical obstacles,
such as fabrication. A more feasible
goal may involve the use of silicon
carbide to fabricate " channels, " the enclosures
found between each fuel assembly
in boiling water reactors. In 2008, EPRI
began investigating the use of silicon carbide
as a replacement for zirconium alloys
to prevent channel deformation, a problem
called bowing. By replacing zirconium in
the channels with silicon carbide, less hydrogen
would be produced in an accident,
thereby increasing safety. Channels represent
about 40% of the zirconium mass in
a boiling water reactor core. EPRI has developed
silicon carbide channels and has
begun testing their viability.
Implementing nuclear fuel cladding at
commercial nuclear power plants will require
an extensive testing and evaluation
program involving the fuel vendors, nucleJanuary
2013 | POWER
Switching
orders
Surveying Vegetation
management
Aggregate results: distribution, substations, transmission
ar plant owners, research entities such as
EPRI and the DOE, and other international
organizations such as the International
Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear
Energy Agency. Given the resource commitment
required and high-risk nature of
this research, no single entity or group can
succeed alone. Collaboration will be critical
in conducting the necessary laboratory
and field testing, and in assessing whether
these new technologies are commercially
viable.
Leveraging Consumer Technologies
Consumers are using smart devices-
primarily phones and tablets-in ways
that are profoundly impacting society and
the electric industry. Consider the smart
phone, which was introduced in 2007.
In 2011, manufacturers shipped 500 million
of them. Apple introduced the iPad in
April 2011 and built more than 100 million
of them last year. This profusion of devices
has fueled an explosion in the development
of applications and uses. In 2007, a
little-known network called Twitter carried
340 " tweets " a day. By 2012, the volume
had increased a million-fold, and many of
Twitter's users also were among the 900
million active Facebook users. On an average
day, more than 200 billion e-mails are
sent worldwide.
EPRI is developing a variety of apps,
primarily for utility staff, that enable use
of smart devices for tasks that include operating
valves, navigating robots, providing
field force data visualization for utility
engineering and operations professionals,
finding and analyzing stray voltage, analyzing
power quality, and finding the locations
of electric vehicle charging stations.
www.powermag.com
Training
Planning to in the future
Implementing now
The data visualization technology combines
tablet and smart phone technologies,
real-time data from the internal magnetometer,
and 3-axis gyroscopic to stabilize
and provide a more accurate " compass "
when a user points the mobile device at
a distribution pole or at transmission and
distribution conductors. GPS and Common
Information Model messages serve
to locate and retrieve segmented GIS data
from a utility GIS database, and the device
renders the GIS data segments on screen as
a map information overlay from the camera
image. An example of this would be
seeing a pole structure symbol through the
camera while the screen displays the camera
image with the one-line circuit drawing
overlaid.
EPRI's iCV Analyzer Application is a
contact voltage detector app that is used
in concert with a commercially available
probe (antenna) and amplifier (wand) that
allows users to identify metal objects that
may have become inadvertently energized.
The iCV Analyzer app can be downloaded
from iTunes. There is now interest from
commercial manufacturers to manufacture
and sell the add-on wand device for contact
voltage detection. E-mailing datasets,
user site info, and GPS location features
are included capabilities of this app.
Utility companies are finding more
and more ways to enhance their points of
contact with consumers. Of the companies
responding to a recent buildnetwork
.com survey, 40% said smart devices have
changed how they communicate/connect
with their customers, and 24% said they
have impacted their products and services
and how they are delivered.
EPRI recently surveyed a number of its
utility members to find out how they are
using mobile platforms, both internally
to support transmission and distribution
(T&D) operations and to provide services
to end-use customers. Of the 24 companies
that had responded as of this writing, twothirds
currently are using mobile devices
for utility operations (not including mobile
terminals used by utility crews). The
main uses are inspection and assessment,
followed by work order management and
workforce deployment (Figure 7).
On the consumer side, 63% of the responding
utilities are sending text messages
to customers and 38% are connecting
via downloadable apps. For both T&D and
consumer purposes, cyber security concerns
and support costs were listed among
the top barriers. ■
-Arshad Mansoor is senior vice
president, research & development for the
Electric Power Research Institute.
29
Percentage

http://www.powermag.com

POWER January 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER January 2013