SMART GRID VISUALIZATION

Overview of Smart grid:

The present electric grids use the technology of 1970. But with the advancement in various concepts of
power generation, problems associated with power outages and thefts, and also due to increase in demand,
we require a modernized grid to avail all the needs of customers even in the situations of hype, which can be
called a smart grid.
The smart grid performs various functions such that it increases grid stability, reliability, efficiency and
ultimately reduces line losses. Also the smart grids are designed to allow the two-way processing of
electricity from consumers that have distributed generation. Various technologies like sensing and
measurement, usage of advanced components are to be used for successful functioning of the grid. In this
report, smart grid, its functions, technologies used in smart grids are discussed.

An Overview of Smart Grid
Introduction to Electric Grid:
The electric grid generally refers to all or the smart grid, in a nutshell, is a way to transmit and distribute
electricity by electronic means. The electric grid delivers electricity from points of generation to consumers.
The electricity delivery network functions via two primary networks: the transmission system and the
distribution system. The transmission systems deliver electricity from power plants to distribution
substations, while distribution systems deliver electricity from distribution substations to consumers.
The grid also encompasses myriads of local area networks that use distributed energy resources to several
loads and/or to meet specific application requirements for remote power, municipal or district power,
premium power, and critical loads protection.

Introduction to Smart Grid:
Smart grid lacks a standard definition, but enters on the use of advanced of technology to increase the
reliability and efficiency of the grid, from transmission to distribution. The Smart Grid is a vision of a better
electricity delivery infrastructure. In addition to being outdated, power plants and transmission lines are
aging, meaning they have difficulty handling current electricity needs, while demand may not be reduced
any time, but it can still be increasing continuously. One solution could be to add more power lines, but the
aging system would still be overwhelmed.
So instead of a quick fix, a more reliable, permanent solution is needed. Perhaps the most fundamental
aspect of transitioning to a smarter electricity system is the smart meter.
Why Modernization of Electric Grid is required?
The major driving forces to modernize current power grids can be divided in four, general categories:
Increasing reliability, efficiency and safety of the power grid.
Enabling decentralized power generation so homes can be both an energy client and supplier (provide
consumers with interactive tool to manage energy usage).
Flexibility of power consumption at the clients side to allow supplier selection (enables distributed
generation, solar, wind, and biomass).
Increase GDP by creating more new, green collar energy jobs related to renewable energy industry
manufacturing, plug-in electric vehicles, solar panel, and wind turbine generation, energy conservation and
construction.

Smart grid delivery

Smart Grid Functions:
The integrated system of the smart grid has two scopes.
One scope is transmission monitoring and reliability and includes the following capabilities:
Real time monitoring of grid conditions.
Improved automated diagnosis of grid disturbances, and better aids for the operators who must respond to
grid problems.
Automated responses to grid failure that will isolate disturbed zones and prevent or limit cascading
blackouts that can spread over a wide area.
Plug and play ability to connect new generating plants to the grid, reducing the need for the time
consuming interconnection studies and physical upgrades.
The automatic restoration of power would be accomplished by a combination of sensors, computer analysis
and advanced substation components, as well as by the ability to reroute power to outage locations.
Enhancing ability to manage large amounts of solar and wind power.
The second scope is consumer energy management:
At a minimum, the ability to signal homeowners and businesses that power is expensive and/or tight in
supply. This can be done, via special indicators or through web browsers or personal computer software.
The expectation is that the customer will respond by reducing its power demand.
The next level of implementation would allow the utility to automatically reduce the consumers electricity
consumption when power is expensive or scarce. This would be managed through the link between the smart
meters and customers equipment or appliances.
The smart grid system would automatically detect distribution line failures, identify the specific failed
equipment, and help determine the optimal plans for dispatching crews to restore service. The smart grid
would automatically attempt to isolate failures to prevent local blackouts to spread over that area.
The smart grid would make it easier to install distributed generation such as rooftop solar panels, and to
allow net metering, a rate making approach that allows operators of distributed generators to sell surplus
power to utilities. The smart grid would also manage the connection of millions of plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles into the power system.
Renewable Energy and the Smart Grid:








The smart grid can be seen as an alternative energy source, certainly a change from the current way of doing
things. In addition to rerouting electricity, the smart grid would be able to fill in the gaps of these alternative
energy power sources. One way this could be accomplished, surprisingly enough, is with another alternative
energy technology the electric car, specifically, the plug-in electric hybrid (PHEV).
This would work through the concept of energy storage, in the case of the PHEV, specifically referred to as
V2G or vehicle to grid. This use of alternative energy sources, like wind and solar reduces the nations
dependence on foreign oil and helps keep pollution from car exhaust and power plants to a minimum.
Smart Grid Power Management:
Smart Power Management System enables grid management and visualization to be very
effective as it incorporates real time monitoring data and historic engineering data into an
integrated system, analyzing scenarios based on various modules and making it possible to
collect, monitor and control real time data with accuracy. Smart Power Management System data
collections include real time information from:
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition system)
EMS (energy management system)
DMS (distribution management system)
GIS (geographic information system)
SER (sequence event record system)
DFR (digital fault recorder system)
Smart metering data
Operation event data
Power quality ( voltage, Frequency)
Protection system fault data (fault currents, voltages, phase anglesetc.)
Asset management data
Demand response
Power system operation
Operator training
Station maintenance data
Engineering data
The design of Smart Power Management System is based on the following aspects of system
interface:
Home Energy Management
Building Energy Management
Grid Interconnect

In recent years, we have seen several catastrophic power system blackout events throughout the
world and the usual cause is that the power system is in a stressed state, followed by faults on
critical facilities or old equipment. Every time when power system has a fault or an outage,
protection and control systems relays and related automation systems play an important role in
all those events. Every single circuit of power grid has numerous relays to control its behavior
(i.e., opening or closing the circuit, sending signals to control center, transferring trips to other
power grid transmission line, etc.). The estimated number of relays in service in North America
grid is more than 5 million. The major function of relays is to trip associated circuit breakers
which are connected to generators, transmission lines, distribution lines, transformers, buses,
etc., in response to faults or other conditions for which the protection and control system is
designed.
According to the thorough studies on many major captured power system fault events/blackouts,
the results of power system performance fell into four categories:
Correct and appropriate (System operated correctly and achieved desired results as
designed.)
Correct and inappropriate (System operated correctly as designed but the result was not
what was intended.)
Incorrect and appropriate (System operated incorrectly but this prevented another more
severe trip and avoided a major cascading failure.)
Incorrect and inappropriate (System operated incorrectly and this contributed to a
cascading outage this is also a serious mis-operation.)
Therefore, the first consideration is to check and ensure protection and control systems operate
as designed and function correctly. Smart Power Management System collects, sorts out and
compares real time data, to ensure there is no conflicting information which is quite common due
to the gaps among grid functioning bodies. For example, how many times does one breaker
tripped and what is the estimated replacement time? When there are two protection scheme have
conflicts, which one would be the best from the grid management perspective? We do not need
to wait until fault happens to evaluate any undesired outcomes; we can do it now so as to
minimize any unwanted outages and reduce the grid stresses for smart grid management. Figure
2 show fault demonstration.


The major power system fault types as follow:
One phase to Neutral
Phase to phase
Two phase to Neural
Three phase
One phase on the Ground
Two phase on the Ground
Three phase on the Ground
Features of Smart Grid:
The smart grid represents the full suite of current and proposed responses to the challenges of
electricity supply. Because of the diverse range of factors there are numerous competing taxonomies
and no agreement on a universal definition. Nevertheless, one possible categorization is given here.
Reliability:
The smart grid will make use of technologies, such as state estimation, that improve fault
detection and allow self-healing of the network without the intervention of technicians. This will
ensure more reliable supply of electricity, and reduced vulnerability to natural disasters or attack.
Although multiple routes are touted as a feature of the smart grid, the old grid also featured
multiple routes. Initial power lines in the grid were built using a radial model, later connectivity
was guaranteed via multiple routes, referred to as a network structure. However, this created a
new problem: if the current flow or related effects across the network exceed the limits of any
particular network element, it could fail, and the current would be shunted to other network
elements, which eventually may fail also, causing a domino effect. See power outage. A
technique to prevent this is load shedding by rolling blackout or voltage reduction (brownout).
Flexibility in network topology:
Next-generation transmission and distribution infrastructure will be better able to handle
possible bidirectional energy flows, allowing for distributed generation such as from
photovoltaic panels on building roofs, but also the use of fuel cells, charging to/from the batteries
of electric cars, wind turbines, pumped hydroelectric power, and other sources.
Classic grids were designed for one-way flow of electricity, but if a local sub-network generates
more power than it is consuming, the reverse flow can raise safety and reliability issues. A smart
grid aims to manage these situations.
Efficiency:
Numerous contributions to overall improvement of the efficiency of energy infrastructure are
anticipated from the deployment of smart grid technology, in particular including demand-side
management, for example turning off air conditioners during short-term spikes in electricity
price. The overall effect is less redundancy in transmission and distribution lines, and greater
utilisation of generators, leading to lower power prices.
Load adjustment/Load balancing:
The total load connected to the power grid can vary significantly over time. Although the total
load is the sum of many individual choices of the clients, the overall load is not a stable, slow
varying, increment of the load if a popular television program starts and millions of televisions
will draw current instantly. Traditionally, to respond to a rapid increase in power consumption,
faster than the start-up time of a large generator, some spare generators are put on a dissipative
standby mode. A smart grid may warn all individual television sets, or another larger customer,
to reduce the load temporarily (to allow time to start up a larger generator) or continuously (in
the case of limited resources). Using mathematical prediction algorithms it is possible to predict
how many standby generators need to be used, to reach a certain failure rate. In the traditional
grid, the failure rate can only be reduced at the cost of more standby generators. In a smart grid,
the load reduction by even a small portion of the clients may eliminate the problem.
Peak curtailment/leveling and time of use pricing:
To reduce demand during the high cost peak usage periods, communications and metering
technologies inform smart devices in the home and business when energy demand is high and
track how much electricity is used and when it is used. It also gives utility companies the ability
to reduce consumption by communicating to devices directly in order to prevent system
overloads. Examples would be a utility reducing the usage of a group of electric vehicle charging
stations or shifting temperature set points of air conditioners in a city. To motivate them to cut
back use and perform what is called peak curtailment or peak leveling, prices of electricity are
increased during high demand periods, and decreased during low demand periods. It is thought
that consumers and businesses will tend to consume less during high demand periods if it is
possible for consumers and consumer devices to be aware of the high price premium for using
electricity at peak periods. This could mean making trade-offs such as cycling on/off air
conditioners or running dishes at 9 pm instead of 5 pm. When businesses and consumers see a
direct economic benefit of using energy at off-peak times, the theory is that they will include
energy cost of operation into their consumer device and building construction decisions and
hence become more energy efficient.
According to proponents of smart grid plans, this will reduce the amount of spinning reserve that
electric utilities have to keep on stand-by, as the load curve will level itself through a
combination of "invisible hand" free-market capitalism and central control of a large number of
devices by power management services that pay consumers a portion of the peak power saved by
turning their device off.

Sustainability:
The improved flexibility of the smart grid permits greater penetration of highly variable
renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind power, even without the addition of
energy storage. Current network infrastructure is not built to allow for many distributed feed-in
points, and typically even if some feed-in is allowed at the local (distribution) level, the
transmission-level infrastructure cannot accommodate it. Rapid fluctuations in distributed
generation, such as due to cloudy or gusty weather, present significant challenges to power
engineers who need to ensure stable power levels through varying the output of the more
controllable generators such as gas turbines and hydroelectric generators. Smart grid technology
is a necessary condition for very large amounts of renewable electricity on the grid for this
reason.
Market-enabling:
The smart grid allows for systematic communication between suppliers (their energy price) and
consumers (their willingness-to-pay), and permits both the suppliers and the consumers to be
more flexible and sophisticated in their operational strategies. Only the critical loads will need to
pay the peak energy prices, and consumers will be able to be more strategic in when they use
energy. Generators with greater flexibility will be able to sell energy strategically for maximum
profit, whereas inflexible generators such as base-load steam turbines and wind turbines will
receive a varying tariff based on the level of demand and the status of the other generators
currently operating. The overall effect is a signal that awards energy efficiency, and energy
consumption that is sensitive to the time-varying limitations of the supply. At the domestic level,
appliances with a degree of energy storage or thermal mass (such as refrigerators, heat banks,
and heat pumps) will be well placed to 'play' the market and seek to minimize energy cost by
adapting demand to the lower-cost energy support periods. This is an extension of the dual-tariff
energy pricing mentioned above.
Demand response support:
Demand response support allows generators and loads to interact in an automated fashion in real
time, coordinating demand to flatten spikes. Eliminating the fraction of demand that occurs in
these spikes eliminates the cost of adding reserve generators, cuts wear and tear and extends the
life of equipment, and allows users to cut their energy bills by telling low priority devices to use
energy only when it is cheapest.
Currently, power grid systems have varying degrees of communication within control systems
for their high value assets, such as in generating plants, transmission lines, substations and major
energy users. In general information flows one way, from the users and the loads they control
back to the utilities. The utilities attempt to meet the demand and succeed or fail to varying
degrees (brownout, rolling blackout, uncontrolled blackout). The total amount of power demand
by the users can have a very wide probability distribution which requires spare generating plants
in standby mode to respond to the rapidly changing power usage. This one-way flow of
information is expensive; the last 10% of generating capacity may be required as little as 1% of
the time, and brownouts and outages can be costly to consumers.
Latency of the data flow is a major concern, with some early smart meter architectures allowing
actually as long as 24 hours delay in receiving the data, preventing any possible reaction by
either supplying or demanding devices.
Platform for advanced services:
As with other industries, use of robust two-way communications, advanced sensors, and
distributed computing technology will improve the efficiency, reliability and safety of power
delivery and use. It also opens up the potential for entirely new services or improvements on
existing ones, such as fire monitoring and alarms that can shut off power, make phone calls to
emergency services, etc.
Provision megabits,control power with kilobits:
The amount of data required to perform monitoring and switching one's appliances off
automatically is very small compared with that already reaching even remote homes to support
voice, security, and Internet and TV services. Many smart grid bandwidth upgrades are paid for
by over-provisioning to also support consumer services, and subsidizing the communications
with energy-related services or subsidizing the energy-related services, such as higher rates
during peak hours, with communications. This is particularly true where governments run both
sets of services as a public monopoly. Because power and communications companies are
generally separate commercial enterprises in North America and Europe, it has required
considerable government and large-vendor effort to encourage various enterprises to cooperate.
Some, like Cisco, see opportunity in providing devices to consumers very similar to those they
have long been providing to industry. Others, such as Silver Spring Networks or Google, are data
integrators rather than vendors of equipment. While the AC power control standards
suggest power line networking would be the primary means of communication among smart grid
and home devices, the bits may not reach the home via Broadband over Power Lines (BPL)
initially but by fixed wireless.
Conclusion:
A smart grid is an electrical grid with function of automation, communication and a system that
can monitor power flow from various sources to point of consumption. Smart grids are easily
modelled and have capabilities such as real time power monitoring, grid condition checking and
maintenance, power fault analysis. In Pakistan using smart grids power sector can be
transformed into a secure,adaptive,sustainable and digitally enabled system that provide clean
and quality energy.

































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