Wiring everyone up to a single power grid is all well and good—until there’s an outage. But what if we could mitigate outages by supplementing the one big grid with lots of smaller ones powered by renewable energy? The Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project aims to find out. The five-year, $178 million Pacific Northwest Continue reading →
ChargeIQ demonstration in Australia allowed participants to respond to peak and off-peak costs with the result at cut their charging costs in half, while reducing the strain on the power grid. via Smart Grid Tech Can Cut Electric Car Charging Cost in Half – EVWORLD.COM.
Recent storms and record high temperatures have put a lot of stress on the power grid. Load shifting, smart meters, and integrating alternative energy sources are all part of the solution. But how do you measure and control what’s happening at all points on a widely distributed power grid, and then how do you coordinate Continue reading →
Cyber security has emerged as something that almost all power grid companies worry about and invest in, and entrepreneurs and startups are innovating to deliver new types of security solutions for the power grid. For example, an under the radar company called GridCOM Technologies tells us it’s developing a new tool based on quantum physics Continue reading →
Smart grids have been widely discussed for about a decade now, but most of the US is still years away from seeing a real smart grid. However, a successful large-scale rollout of a smart grid in Florida might just be what the rest of the country needs to get motivated. Installing and networking sensors all Continue reading →
If engineers at Clemson University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have their way, the power grid of tomorrow will be governed by a network of living neurons, grown in a Petri dish, and attached to a computer. For now, the researchers have successfully used a simulation of the power grid to “teach” the living Continue reading →
When Sandy battered the Northeast – the super storm knocked out power to as many as 10 million people in 21 states. It was by far the biggest utility disruption in U.S. history. And it got the attention of those trying to upgrade the power grid. Smart switch at S&C Electric On Chicago’s North Side, Continue reading →
The final leg of the Central American Electrical Interconnection System in Costa Rica is slated for completion next month. The entire system reportedly comprises over 4,600 high-voltage towers and 15 substations, via Smart Grid: Central America’s first regional power grid.
The nation’s power grid isn’t something that is easily changed. Millions of miles of infrastructure can’t just be swapped out overnight or even for the GDP of a small country. Increasing power supply and demand puts more stress on the aging power grid, and storm damage even more so. Repair and replacement can help, but Continue reading →
A new study showed home water heaters can help integrate wind energy into the region’s power system. The newly released study by Ecofys energy consultants demonstrates that residential electric water heaters and furnaces, refrigerated warehouses, and commercial heating and cooling loads can help the power grid accommodate variable wind energy. via Ecofys Study: Water Heaters Continue reading →
As more electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids hit the streets, one of the challenges will be managing the power grid requirements for these cars when they are having their batteries recharged at all hours. To help further understand exactly what kind of impact this might have, researchers at the University of Notre Dame recently announced Continue reading →
The renewable energy industry has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years. More wind and solar power is contributing to the electric grid than ever before. There is one drawback to renewable energy sources however, and that is their intermittent periods of production and disruption. After all, the weather does not always provide Continue reading →
Some damage to physical infrastructure is inevitable during severe weather and other disasters, but a smart grid with the ability to anticipate, respond to and isolate damage could mitigate the impact and speed recovery, said Massoud Amin, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Minnesota. Amin, a senior member of the Institute Continue reading →
Monday night as I was camped out in front of my Twitter feed — safe and dry in San Francisco — friends and family in New York started tweeting about power failures all over lower Manhattan. Their cell phones, running on batteries and tapping into their carrier’s high speed wireless networks — many that are Continue reading →
The public infrastructure is one of the most valuable assets of the United States and its citizens. Communications networks, roads, bridges, tunnels, rail lines, and electric power are the backbone of the nation; the very fabric that helps to ensure our way of life. Damage to any of these infrastructures would be devastating, but damage Continue reading →
On sizzling-hot summer afternoons in Texas, when cranked-up air-conditioners cause electricity demand to surge, hotels sometimes dim their lobby lights. Air-conditioners may briefly pause, and farmers may stop running their electric water pumps. Such adjustments reflect a simple truth: When electricity use spikes, power grid operators face a difficult choice if they want to avoid Continue reading →
Tropical Storms Irene and Lee, a Halloween snowstorm, the hottest summer on record. The region’s dramatic weather over the last year underscores the cost — in dollars, lives and livelihoods — of a changing climate. Today’s special report, “Irene: Then & Now,” (see LoHud.com) makes clear how much the region has suffered from unpredictable and Continue reading →
As plug-in hybrid electric vehicles continue to gain consumer acceptance and market share, automotive companies, utilities and charging equipment providers are collaborating on common standards to seamlessly align vehicles, charging stations and the power grid. Toyota Motor Corp.’s new pilot project in central Indiana will begin to answer the question of how best to manage Continue reading →
Say what you will about the smart grid, the strongest grid may be no grid at all. The electrical power grid is under pressure as capacity continually increases, and cascading outages or systemic collapse are problems that are increasingly likely. The solution: distributed generation.“By distributing smaller generating capacity at multiple locations, the pitfalls of relying Continue reading →
West Sacramento, Calif.-based GridSense has been quietly making sensors for the power grid since 1974, which is long enough to have a sense of the ‘smart grid’ as a work in progress. That’s to say that much of the world’s power grid today, from generation plants all the way down to big substations, is already pretty Continue reading →
