| | DEC 2018 - JAN 20198The promise of the "Smart Grid" to realize a sustainable, reliable and a modern 21st electricity grid has been underway for over a decade. The utility industry has made significant investments with over $ 3Bn spent annually which is likely to continue and grow. Most companies began their smart grid journey with deployments in smart metering infrastructure, so it in the early days the term smart grid was synonymous with smart metering. Today, smart metering is quite matured with a penetration level of over 50 percent in the US. However, the smart grid realization has moved beyond smart meters to building intelligence in the transmission and distribution network. While the adoption for intelligence and automated control in the transmission system predates the emergence of smart grid in the 2000s, it is the distribution system where the new value pools are realized. A significant number of utilities are already leveraging the benefits of advanced distribution management systems that allow not just monitoring of feeders and the "last mile" - but also can control devices to isolate faults, restore systems automatically, conduct voltage optimization and a variety of energy efficiency functions either through applications like conservation voltage reduction or through a combination of technology and policy driven demand response programs. While the penetration levels are still modest, many utilities have active programs that will become operational over the next two to three years. As we look into the future, the promise of the smart grid is far from over. Over the next five to ten years, a whole host of new possibilities are emerging. The macro trends centered on decentralization of resources, digitization, and decarbonization are driving the need. The sector's supply shift towards renewables and the need to incorporate distributed energy resources (DERs) are introducing new operational challenges. Coupled with the changes in demand side with the emergence of smart cities, efficient buildings, smart and connected factories, and electric vehicles, the sector is facing extraordinary levels of complexities that make smart grids a necessity. Increased penetration of intermittent renewable resources at the distribution level will require smart grids to counter new issues created by reverse flow in transformers, dynamic protection and system configuration settings, and voltage and system excursions. As behind the meter resources grow, real-time monitoring will become a requirement for better forecasting, inform revenue planning and real-time system balancing. So going forward, smart grid deployments will include an increasing presence of advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as emerging technologies such as, drones, and blockchain. But more importantly, the deployments will have a greater transformative impact resulting from increased demand and supply side integration focus. Specifically smart grid will impact in three areas:1. Real-time market integration: Smart grid will be the platform or the foundation that will enable aggregation of real-time information on electricity consumption and usage with the supply side--which includes generation, transmission and distribution. For instance, the gap that exist today in obtaining real-time information to make intra-day trading decisions creates inefficiencies and forecast errors due limited observability of production and delivery cost (e.g., fuel cost, energy costs, labor costs, outages, local generation, T&D system conditions). With a proliferation of DERs there is already THE FUTURE OF SMART GRID By Jagoron Mukherjee, Director, Strategy, Part of the PwC networkIN MY OPINION
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