POWER January 2020 - 26

TECHNOLOGY
rail and automated vehicles on smart
grids. That could spawn more business
opportunities for utilities and telecom3.
Contractors work on renovations to a substation at Beale Air Force Base in California. The
base in 2017 upgraded five substations, and built a new substation, to support the area's growing
demand for energy. Such upgrades are occurring worldwide, in part to install smart grid
technology and improve the efficiency of power transmission. Source: U.S. Air Force / Airman
1st Class Tristan D. Viglianco
smart grid technology, to do power isolation,
to get closer to the impacted area,
without impacting other neighborhoods.
It allows for isolation deeper in the grid. "
Kantor said this is important not just
for power companies. " It's not just the
electric grid that's impacted here, " he
said, referring to the proactive outages.
" During the recent outages in Northern
California, I kept my power, but lost my
internet connectivity and cell coverage.
My cable provider turned off [its] power.
So, I had power at my home, but I
didn't have [internet] connectivity. That
resulted in the cell phone system getting
overloaded. The impacts of these
outages go beyond just the residential
or consumer level of power, impacting
other critical services. "
Upgrading Transmission and
Distribution
Digitization is key for the smart grid, but
improving physical
grid
wind, solar, and hydropower.
A Morgan Stanley report released in
December said growth in the Chinese
economy, which has slowed over the
past several months for many reasons,
including a trade war with the U.S.,
could be improved with the application
of more smart grid technologies, which
also would support adoption of more renewable
energy resources.
" A second wave of urbanization driven
by smart tech 'supercities'-regional
clusters of giant hub cities surrounded by
large satellite cities-could hold the key
to giving China a new gear for growth,
with significant implications for investors
and the global economy, " the investment
bank said in its report.
Kantor noted the importance of smart
infrastructure
(Figure 3) is a starting point for any upgrades.
Chinese officials talk about their
" Strong Grid " concept, which involves
improving infrastructure as the first step,
followed by the addition of a digital layer,
and then " business process transformation " -the
ability to capitalize on the investment
in those upgrades.
The Chinese government's ownership
of the transmission and distribution sector
in that country has enabled a more
rapid advancement of smart grid technologies,
important for China's integration
of renewable energy resources. China at
year-end 2018 had 728 GW of renewable
energy generation capacity, according to
the International Energy Agency, leading
the world-and by a large margin-in
26
grid technology to renewable energy.
" Where we focus is the communications
infrastructure, automated re-closers,
voltage regulators, there's a whole
host of pieces critical to distribution
automation, " he said. " The impact of
solar, energy flowing back into the grid,
utilities need to be able to absorb that
in real time, with smart inverters for solar
[to] allow the input of electricity back
into the grid when it's required. There
are a number of technologies leading
to what you would call the true smart
grid. These alternative forms of energy
are having a large impact on the grid,
and without the smart grid they won't
be absorbed properly. "
The Morgan Stanley report touched
on those aspects, including 5G connectivity,
saying that future life in a potentially
smart supercity could see not
only automated homes utilizing IoT, but
also daily commuting via high-speed
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munications companies.
" Over the longer run, more advanced
smart city features, such as driverless
cars, auto-delivery drones, and fully
interconnected and automated home
appliances should take productivity to
the next level, " said Shawn Kim, head
of Morgan Stanley's Asia Technology
research team, in a statement about
the report.
" Data streams are needed to inform
decisions within a smart grid. Advancements
in the IoT are enabling the smart
grid to become more interconnected
with the technologies that comprise
it, " said Van Heel. " 5G's low latency is
going to be a major step forward for
the industry, especially since we could
[theoretically] have more than 100 billion
interconnected devices that make up
the smart grid within the next 20 years.
When 5G advancements are eventually
combined with edge computing, the grid
will become exponentially more responsive
and autonomous. "
Said GE's Iyer: " My vision, what I see,
is the revolution that will happen in the
power sector. You have to see [the] power
sector evolving the same way as the
telecom sector. The telecom sector has
undergone a lot of change in the last four
or five decades, it's unprecedented.
" I see the power sector evolving in
that direction, with the infrastructure
being built today recognizing power as
an essential part of life, " Iyer said. " I
think this is the way it has to be seen.
The technology to realize the renewable
energy potential, in terms of bulk
resources, and with HVDC [high-voltage
direct current] enabling connection
points from remote generation sources
to wherever the [power] loads are, even
if they're far away.
" If you have technologies like HVDC,
it enables all these integrations to happen
easily. If one has the will to retire
conventional energy sources in the next
couple of decades, one can make that
decision and go for it. It's more political
will than a technology constraint. The
market is there. The infrastructure for
power is a huge market going forward,
to come out of traditional energy sources,
to have electricity be one of the main
drivers of things. The next two to three
decades are going to be revolutionary for
the energy sector. " ■
-Darrell Proctor is a POWER
associate editor.
POWER | January 2020

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POWER January 2020

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