Is smart grid technology the next appropriate future we have?

There is a brand new "next nice thing" idea currently moving through the land, undergoing promotion within the common press and doubtless destined to be a future concern (and value burden) to the voters of that term is "Smart Grid." And it is a term that will be abundant easier to contend with if, in fact, it had a firm, well-understood definition. However it does not, however, and it most likely will not for a few time!

In a general sense, the term "Smart Grid Technology" looks to denote a public-service corporation transmission and distribution network (it's nearly always electrical) that a] Contains associate degree expanded variety of distributed and automatic observation and management nodes, b] Is capable of fast communication between nodes, resulting in the discovery of (developing and existing) issues and automatic implementation of network action to repair and to correct the issues, and c] Extends utility observation and management directly into its customers' premises.

Who may quibble with such an inspiration, that offers bigger service responsibility and probably lower service prices than that that is obtainable currently on the manually-operated utility networks? Never the old person! However, he will have an oversized caveat regarding it: "The devil, Young Grasshopper, is within the details!"

It ought to be noted that the old person has received exposure to the utility business, having worked throughout his long career for 2 completely different utility in operation firms as staff smart grid organizations. His service within the business overlapped in a fundamental measure the start of the good Grid movement. It ought to even be stipulated that this can be a really massive and increasing technological field, solely the surface of which might be touched during a weblog post.

The good Grid initiative involves a minimum of 2 separate major areas, with maybe a lot of however to be defined: utility-centric transmission/distribution network automation and customer-centric automation with the key activity presently delineated because of the Advanced Metering Initiative (AMI).

Within the electrical utility world, network, smart grid technology automation basically involves a lot of refined observation and management of major fastened assets still an extension of latest automatic observation and management capabilities to smaller, remotely settled fastened assets.

Currently electrical sub-stations (large, fastened locations wherever high voltage transmission lines from power generation sources terminate and power are remodeled to lower voltages for distribution to finish users via alternative networks) square measure typically well instrumented. Typically, however, sub-station observation and management knowledge square measure sent over low-bandwidth communications channels (often hired phone lines) to a central management purpose, wherever they're reviewed and acted upon by humans.

Grid automation would increase the number of sub-station observation (and most likely conjointly their communications channel bandwidths) and would introduce computer-based deciding for speedy downside rejection and backbone. In most cases, communications channel bandwidths into sub-stations might be expanded while not nice problem and/or value.