Smart Electric Newsletter #3

Welcome to the 3rd edition of the Smart Electric Newsletter. Over 3400 people subscribe to this newsletter now and we want to continue make improvements so please let us know your thoughts - info@smartelectricnews.com. Scroll down to see the latest industry news.

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Featured articles this week:

SensorTran Joins Leading Smart Grid Energy Consortium

First DTS provider joins GridWise Alliance in helping to transform U.S. electric system

SensorTran, Inc., a provider of advanced distributed temperature sensing (DTS) systems, announced today that it has joined the GridWise Alliance, a leading consortium of public and private stakeholders focused on transforming the nation’s electric grid. SensorTran will join more than 50 companies, including Cisco, GE, IBM, and SAP, with the collective objective of leveraging innovative new technologies to make the electric grid more efficient, cost-effective, resilient, secure, and reliable.

A key difference between the Smart Grid and the traditional electric power system will be the injection of renewable energy and consumer-generated surplus power, making it critical to control variable, bi-directional flows of electricity. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), more than $16 trillion will be spent worldwide between 2003 and 2030 in pursuit of the Smart Grid vision.

SensorTran DTS technology enables real-time, dynamic temperature measurements across power cables and serves the critical role of dynamic load management for a Smart Grid infrastructure. Using DTS, utility companies will be able to accurately monitor electrical capacity – known as Ampacity – by using actual rather than estimated temperature data, enabling optimal circuit management.

“As collaboration and innovation are critical to any major industry transformation, we are pleased to have SensorTran as part of the Alliance," said Guido Bartels, chairman, GridWise Alliance. "With the new energy bill that passed in 2007, Congress has signalled a significant shift in our nation's energy policy. By having companies like SensorTran join the Alliance, we are advancing our strategy of building a broad national consensus for implementing these Smart Grid concepts."
“Smart Grid represents a significant upgrade for utilities, and DTS technology plays a critical role in this effort,” said Kent Kalar, CEO and president of SensorTran. “For both transmission and distribution systems, real-time temperature data can not only help extend the life of the existing infrastructure, but also improve the management of dynamic circuit and feeder loads. SensorTran is committed to helping realize the promise of the Smart Grid, and joining the GridWise Alliance is a key step in our efforts to make this vision a reality.”

Source: SensorTran

Austin Energy Signs Agreement with Cellnet+Hunt to Expand Two-Way Advanced Metering Deployment

Austin Energy, the 10th largest community-owned electric utility in the nation, has signed an agreement to expand the deployment of a two-way advanced metering system from Cellnet+Hunt.

The agreement calls for Austin Energy to deploy Cellnet+Hunt’s two-way mesh AMI system for up to 234,000 residential and C&I meters in 2008. The utility serves nearly 400,000 electricity customers in and around Austin, TX, and has utilized a Cellnet+Hunt fixed-network advanced metering solution for approximately a third of its customers since 2002.

Based on the Cellnet+Hunt RF mesh communications network, Austin Energy’s deployment will enable the utility to leverage its network for smart grid and demand response applications. These may include time-of-use pricing, distribution automation, load shedding, remote disconnect and in-home communication.

“This agreement continues our ongoing partnership with Austin Energy and will enable the utility to maximize return on its energy management strategy and achieve its Smart Grid goals,” said Tracy Moore, Senior Vice President of Services at Cellnet+Hunt. “The network infrastructure we are deploying for Austin enables the utility to add two-way metering endpoints anywhere in its service territory.”

Cellnet+Hunt RF mesh system is the leading two-way asynchronous RF mesh network combining AMI, DA, SCADA and multi-service utility meter operation functions into one Smart Grid network platform. The Cellnet+Hunt RF mesh system is currently operational at over 200 utilities worldwide.

SOURCE: Cellnet+Hunt

Institute for Energy releases report - “Distributed Power Generation in Europe: technical issues for further integration”

The electric power sector in Europe is currently facing different changes and evolutions mainly in response to the three issues at EU level - environmental sustainability, security of supply, and competitiveness. These challenges, against a background of growing electricity demand, may represent drivers for facilitating the further deployment of Distributed Power Generation technologies in Europe.

The Report focuses on the potential role of Distributed Power Generation (or simply Distributed Generation, DG) in a European perspective. More specifically, this work aims to assess the technical issues and developments related to DG technologies and their integration into the European power systems.

As a starting point the concept of Distributed Generation is characterised for the purpose of the study. Distributed Generation, defined as an electric power source connected to the distribution network, serving a customer on-site or providing network support, may offer various benefits to the European electric power systems. DG technologies may consist of small/medium size, modular energy conversion units, which are generally located close to end users and transform primary energy resources into electricity and eventually heat.

There are, however, major issues concerning the integration of DG technology into the distribution networks. In fact, the existing distribution networks were not generally designed to operate in presence of DG technologies. Consequently, a sustained increase in the deployment of DG resources may imply several changes in the electric power system architecture in the near future.

The Report on Distributed Generation in Europe, after an overview of the basic elements of electric power systems, introduces the proposed definition and main features of DG. Then, it reviews the state-of-the-art of DG technologies as well as focuses on current DG grid integration issues. Technical solutions towards DG integration in Europe and developments concerning the future distribution systems are also addressed in the study.

The Report is downloadable at http://ie.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ (under Scientific Publications 2008) and its complete Abstract is hereunder transcribed.

Source: Smart Electric News

Pepco Holdings Selects Itron System for Smart Meter Data Management

Pepco Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: POM) today announced that Itron Inc. has been selected to provide a meter data management system that will support both the company’s existing meter technology and a planned switch to smart meters, marking a major milestone in the transformation of PHI’s customer metering technology to the digital age.

The Itron Enterprise Edition Meter Data Management solution will collect, store and analyze data from existing meters and eventually the new, digital “smart meters.” The new meters are proposed for installation over the next five years in the residences and businesses of the nearly 2 million customers served by PHI’s three electric utilities, Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power and Pepco. The advanced metering technology will enable the utilities to provide energy usage and other information to enable customers to better manage their energy use and monthly bills.

“Itron’s system will help PHI consolidate its existing metering information and when implemented, will store and help analyze the massive amounts of data that will be available from the advanced metering system,” said Todd McGregor, PHI project manager. “Smart meters will not only give customers more information but will help us to make improvements in reliability, outage management and customer service.”

Source: Pepco Holdings

Siemens PTI Releases Largest Upgrade to Its Signature Software

PSS(TM)E Version 31 breaks new ground in transmission planning

Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution, Inc., Power Technologies International (Siemens PTI) announces the release of its largest upgrade to PSS(TM)E in history. Version 31 integrates all PSS(TM)E functionality -- power flow, short circuit and dynamics -- under one contiguous Microsoft Windows(R) shell. This process allows Siemens PTI to develop smart interfaces for seamless data exchange between PSS(TM) products including PSS(TM)ODMS and MOD(R).

The PSS(TM)E development team has incorporated a number of user-suggested features in Version 31. The introduction of "Scenario Manager," a revolutionary concept where files and data for steady state and dynamics studies are brought into one contiguous work space, eliminates the historical need to track large numbers of files.

Version 31 is now compatible with automation files developed on previous PSS(TM)E versions such as IDEV and IPLAN. The user can execute these files directly in PSS(TM)E Version 31 by simply adding a version number to the start of the IDEV or IPLAN files, thereby eliminating the re-work of automated files with each new PSS(TM)E release.

In addition to the common graphical user interface across all of PSS(TM)E and shared components, new optional algorithms are available in Version 31 including a Graphical Control Model Builder (GMB) and new small signal stability package, NEVA. Also introduced in the base product is the reliability analysis module integrated from TPLAN.

“In Version 31, you have a powerhouse of analytical capabilities required to meet the design challenges of both today's grid and tomorrow's smart grid," said Michael Edmonds, Siemens PTI vice president and general manager. "Siemens PTI shall continue its 'user-in-mind' strategy for
incorporating further enhancements into the PSS(TM)E software of the future."

Source: Siemens

Xcel Energy Launches Groundbreaking Wind-to-Battery Project

Xcel Energy soon will begin testing a cutting-edge technology to store wind energy in batteries. It will be the first use of the technology in the United States for direct wind energy storage.

Integrating variable wind and solar power production with the needs of the power grid is an ongoing issue for the utility industry. Xcel Energy will begin testing a one-megawatt battery-storage technology to demonstrate its ability to store wind energy and move it to the electricity grid when needed. Fully charged, the battery could power 500 homes for over 7 hours.

"Energy storage is key to expanding the use of renewable energy," said Dick Kelly, Xcel Energy Chairman, President and CEO. "This technology has the potential to reduce the impact caused by the variability and limited predictability of wind energy generation. As the nation's leader in distributing wind energy, this will be very important to both us and our customers."

Xcel Energy has signed a contract to purchase a battery from NGK Insulators Ltd. that will be an integral part of a project. The sodium-sulfur battery is commercially available and versions of this technology are already being used in Japan and in a few US applications, but this is the first U.S. application of the battery as a direct wind energy storage device.

The 20 50-kilowatt battery modules will be roughly the size of two semi trailers and weigh approximately 80 tons. They will be able to store about 7.2 megawatt-hours of electricity, with a charge/discharge capacity of one megawatt. When the wind blows, the batteries are charged. When the wind calms down, the batteries supplement the power flow.

The project will take place in Luverne, Minn., about 30 miles east of Sioux Falls, S.D., with the battery installation beginning this spring adjacent and connected to a nearby 11-megawatt wind farm owned by Minwind Energy, LLC. S&C Electric Company will install the battery and all associated interconnection components. The battery is expected to go on-line in October 2008.

Partners in the project with Xcel Energy include the University of Minnesota, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Great Plains Institute and Minwind Energy, LLC. Xcel Energy is testing emerging technology and energy storage devices as part of its overall Smart Grid strategy, which modernizes and upgrades the grid to allow for easier integration of renewable energy sources.

The project has been selected to receive a $1 million grant from Minnesota's Renewable Development Fund, pending Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approval this spring.

Source: Xcel Energy

National Grid to appeal Competition Act decision on Metering

The following posting was placed on the National Grid website.

National Grid plc (“National Grid”) is extremely disappointed with the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority’s (GEMA) decision that National Grid has infringed the Competition Act in relation to a number of metering contracts entered into with gas suppliers in 2004.

These contracts were negotiated over a two year period, were voluntarily entered into by gas suppliers and delivered immediate and substantial reductions in charges for meter services, saving customers around £120m over the four years of their operation.  Ofgem was consulted throughout this process of contract development and negotiation and has acknowledged that National Grid had no intention to breach the Competition Act.

We are convinced that the contracts do not infringe competition law and therefore believe that they should remain in full effect. We also believe that the £41.6m fine is wholly inappropriate.  We will be lodging an appeal with the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

National Grid’s Chief Executive, Steve Holliday, said: "National Grid has been instrumental in helping Ofgem to develop competition in the UK metering industry, and we strongly believe we have never acted anti-competitively in the development of our contracts.  Despite nearly three years of exhaustive analysis by Ofgem, we believe there is no evidence that National Grid has harmed consumers, competition or gas suppliers, and we are left with no option but to present our case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.”

Source: National Grid

Excess Energy - what to do

The first of our pieces from contributors we take a look at a view on Energy from New Zealand

If we continue to install wind turbines, solar panels, tidal generators and hydro dams, we will find ourselves more and more often in the beatific state of generating more power than we know what to do with. There will be times when a nor-wester is blowing, the sun is shining ( they occur together here in NZ), a spring tide is running and the reservoirs are bursting from recent rains. What should we do? We could feather the wind turbines, let the tidal generators free-wheel, and allow the excess water to flow over the spill-way without going through the turbines but it seems like such a waste. With the advent of excess power the possibility opens up to use demand balancing of our grid rather than supply balancing.

Line Signals
We've long had a system in New Zealand of heating our water at night. In the evening, at a given time, the generating company sends a signal down the lines. If you are set up for it, this turns on your water heater. Because you are using power when demand is low, you get a better rate. In the morning at a set time, a second signal turns off your water heater. This is the horse and buggy demand-balancing-system. We could have the space shuttle.

Instead of sending the signal at a given time, it could be sent when power generation exceeds demand. Even better there is nothing to stop the power company from sending a number of different "turn on" and "turn off" signals. The company could send Priority 1 when there is a little excess power, priority 2 when the take up by priority 1 isn't sufficient to balance the supply and Priority 3 when generation is really humming along. The customer chooses (dials) which priority they want for a given function. Of course, the lower the priority (priority 3 in this example) the cheaper the rate. The sort of loads that these power options would be useful for would be pumped storage, heating your water, charging your electric car, and generating Hydrogen for later power use.

The flip side of such a system is less demand in times of lower power production. If you already have a tank of hot water or if your electric car is already charged up, you won't be using power when it is in short supply. The vehicle charging points at your place of work could be on this system. You may have enough power in your batteries to get home after work but, given a choice, you would rather have your car fully charged. You select the most conservative, least expensive option on the dial on the office plug-in point and swipe in your credit card. During the day, if the lowest priority signal is sent, your car gets some extra charge at the best rate. If not you charge your car when you get home utilizing the night rate.

On the other hand, if you arrived at work without enough power to get home, you might choose the less conservative option or even the most expensive "charge now" option and pay a little more to have your car charged. You might even choose "charge now" for $10, which would be enough to get home where you could access a more favorable night rate. This is only one option for balancing demand against available generation.

Pumped storage
Another system which is used by some generation companies is pumped storage. When excess power is available, water is pumped into a reservoir to be used for "peak shaving" when power demand is high. This seems counter-intuitive, since, as everyone knows, no system is 100% efficient. You lose power at each stage. You are probably lucky to get back 60% of the power you used to pump the water. The reason the system is feasible is largely financial. To build a separate power plant that is on standby most of the time is expensive, especially when you factor costs such as the interest on the loan to build the plant. Such a plant is not generating most of the time so the return on the investment is poor. It turns out that in some cases, even with the inevitable power loss, it is financially more favourable to use pumped storage for peak shaving rather than building another power plant. With excess (cheap) power, pumped storage is likely to be even more attractive for some power companies.

Production of Hydrogen
Hydrogen has long been touted as the fuel of the future. It is of course not an energy source. There are no underground pools of Hydrogen we can tap as we do with oil. However it has some very attractive features as an energy-transfer mechanism. Firstly it can be used to fuel a special "battery" called a fuel cell. Hydrogen is particularly attractive in this regard since hydrogen fuel cells operate at room temperature. These fuel cells are pretty efficient and you get a large portion of the energy back that you used to split the water molecule. You also get very pure Oxygen as a by-product of the electrolysis process, which, in a commercial operation, has a market for medical purposes, for welding, and for steel production.

Besides powering fuel cells, hydrogen can be used in internal or external combustion engines and can be used to reduce metal ores in place of coke. It can also be combined with coal to make petrol and diesel. In this application, there is still a carbon footprint as some fossil fuel is being used but it is much reduced over the use of pure coal and it produces a liquid fuel which is useful for transport.

Arguably, though hydrogen is best use in static facilities rather than as a transportation fuel. This is because it takes a lot of energy to compress or liquefy hydrogen for use in a vehicle. In a static facility there is another way of storing hydrogen.

As a boy in Vancouver, I remember the huge tanks used to store producer-gas. For those of you too young to remember, producer gas is a nasty mix of hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide which is produced by passing a stream of steam through burning coke or coal. Have a gas leak in your home and the carbon monoxide in producer gas will kill you long before a similar gas leak of propane would have smothered you. The producer gas was piped from the storage tanks to businesses and domestic locations around Vancouver. So how did the tanks work?

The storage tanks resemble the tanks you see in petrol refineries but they are open-topped and contain water. A second open-bottomed tank, slightly smaller in diameter, is floated inside the main tank. The gas is let into the bottom of the tank and as it flows in, the inner tank floats higher and higher. Gas pressure is determined by how much the inner tank weighs and by how much extra weight is put on it. Such a system is only suitable for a static application but is perfectly amenable to small scale domestic use if electricity can be accessed at a suitable price to produce the hydrogen (priority 2 or 3in our example)

A problem with hydrogen is that the hydrogen molecule is very small. It will get through the smallest gap in a joint and hydrogen even soaks into some substances and actually leak out through the material itself. However technical fixes have been found for these problems.

This property of Hydrogen is leading to a new way of storing it. Hydrogen is adsorbed by certain metal alloys. It is absorbed so efficiently that in, say, a diving tank full of the alloy, you can store more hydrogen than would be the case if you compressed the hydrogen to 200 atmospheres into the same tank. Moreover, the storage takes place at very modest temperatures and pressures. Heat is given out when the hydrogen is absorbed and heat must be supplied to release the hydrogen, so there are some energy costs. See: www.csa.com/discoveryguides/hydrogen/overview.php

So hydrogen is an attractive option for using excess power when power is cheap. The hydrogen then represents an energy store which can be used when renewables are at an ebb. For some reason, possibly because of the Hindenburg, Hydrogen is considered a dangerous fuel. In actual fact it is far safer than any of the liquid fuels or any of the gaseous fuels with a vapour heavier than air. This includes all of the alkanes except methane. Ethane has a vapour of almost equal density to that of air and all the higher alkanes such as propane, butane etc. have vapours heavier than air. If there is a hydrogen leak, the hydrogen dissipates upwards and removes itself from the hydrogen source. The rest of the gaseous and liquid fuels flow down and across the ground looking for a spark. If Hydrogen ignites, you have a fire ball which rapidly rises upwards and is gone. Gaseous fuels spread their fire on the ground as far as they have dispersed and liquid fuels stay on the ground, igniting everything flammable in their path.

Domestic regeneration
A further possibility for balancing power is re-generation by the domestic consumer. If there is a high demand, the consumer with an electric car or a home hydrogen system could be putting power back into the grid when yet another signal is sent down the line. A family on vacation, for instance, could leave their electric car and their hydrogen system plugged in with the switch set to "supply". The unit would be programed to receive power when it is at the lowest rate and send it back at times of highest demand. Over their vacation, their house and/or electric car would generate a small income for them.

A main criticism of renewable energy is that it is pulsating and unpredictable. There is certainly some truth in this although not as much as it appears at first glance. For instance, as solar panels become common all over the country, places in the sun will balance places with cloud cover. The same applies to wind power. As fronts move from South to North along New Zealand, a pulse of wind generated electricity moves with it to be distributed by our power grid. Hydro is the ideal power source to instantly balance any shortfalls and New Zealand is rich in Hydro resources. On top of this any system which store excess energy in times of high generation, as mentioned above, and makes it available in times of low generation is of value.

Here in New Zealand in our present (2008) la Nina climate an interesting fact has come to light. Our wind generation is somewhat lower than average while our sun hours are greater. At present, solar electric is insignificant as a power source but as more solar comes on line, it appears that solar will help to balance wind. This would not necessarily be the case in all countries.

In the end, as our fossil energy runs out, we may even have to take a look at our tendency to be control freaks and accept that we can not always have energy exactly when we want it. Where I live we have now being living with solar water heating for half a year and while we almost always have hot water, three completely cloudy days leaves the tank cold. We find we are now much more aware of the weather and we never leave the hot water running while we do the dishes. Perhaps living with renewable energy will make us all a little more aware of our environment and our impact on it.

Hugh Williams