Given the fact that the roots of power system issues are typically found in the electrical distribution system, the point of departure for grid overhaul is firmly placed at the bottom of the chain. In the short term, this involves consumers while in the long term, this may potentially involve consumers and their intelligent appliances.
By contrast, smart grid empowers all those who are involved in energy transactions across its network to play a role in improving the service, boosting its efficiency, and reducing its load. The existing grid delivers power to a termination point and as such has no interactions with what lies beyond that termination point. In other words, smart grid has a much more diverse generation portfolio than the existing grid. By contrast, smart grid facilitates cogeneration and integration of often localized renewable sources of energy into its network. The existing grid is characterized by large power plants, often placed far away from load centers. It therefore protects the rest of the system from inevitable interruptions, which may happen due to component failures, system malfunctions, and/or environmental conditions. Smart grid, in contrast, boosts its system reliability by quickly isolating and islanding faults, and recovering from them automatically. −įailures in the existing grid normally create a domino effect, causing major blackouts. Such pervasive control allows smart grid to detect failures much faster and take immediate and appropriate actions to “heal” the situation without the need for operator intervention. Smart grid, on the other hand, is characterized by the flow of extensive sensory data from across its network, supplemented with two-way communication, and command and control of its major assets and subsystems. −įor the most part, the existing grid relies on limited communication with its field components, capturing few sensory data, status, and alarms from the field, and applying limited remote control over most of its gear. The existing grid traditionally uses electromechanical switchgear, while smart grid requires the replacement of such components with equivalent digital components. Comparison of legacy grid and smart grid.
And last but not least, smart grid focuses on empowering its stakeholders to define and realize new ways of engagement with each other, and be proactive in various forms of energy transactions across the system.įig. 1. Smart grid is aspires to be self-healing and resilient to system anomalies.
SMART GRIDS FULL
In essence, the smart grid attempts to provide the utility companies with full visibility and pervasive control over their assets and services.
The next generation electricity grid, known as smart grid (or intelligent grid), is expected to address the major shortcoming of the existing grid. In addition to that, due to hierarchical topology of its assets, the existing electricity grid suffers from domino effect failures ( Farhangi, 2010). Almost 8% of its output is lost along its transmission lines, while 20% of its generation capacity exists merely to meet peak demand only (i.e., 5% of time). Nevertheless, the conventional fossil-fuel powered electricity system at best converts only one-third of primary fuel energy into electricity without recovering the waste heat, which is mainly a by-product of the combustion process. This large pipe assumes different forms and uses a variety of complex technologies to ensure the highest level of efficiency in the process of converting the power contained in the primary sources of energy into electricity, and subsequently minimal losses in the process of transporting and distributing that energy to the consumers. In other words, the existing grid is essentially a large pipe which connects electricity generators (or power plants) with electrical loads. It is practically built as the required plumbing to transport and distribute power from where it is generated (typically far from load centers) to where it is needed by consumers (load centers). The existing electricity grid is unidirectional in nature. Farhangi, in Encyclopedia of Sustainable Technologies, 2017 Legacy Grid