Grid modernization is key to providing sustainable, economic and secure electricity supplies.
Smart grids enable advanced monitoring, automation and two-way communication between consumers and utility companies. They optimize energy distribution while accommodating decentralized energy sources like rooftop solar. Furthermore, smart grids facilitate dynamic pricing models as well as new options for consumers such as ToU tariffs, DR programs and net metering – providing greater resiliency against power outages than before.
Decentralized Energy Generation
Energy generated locally can be more reliable than power that must travel long distances, helping avoid electrical losses from electron collisions along transmission lines and cutting carbon emissions in half.
Wind turbines and solar panels installed within communities to generate their own electricity can save upfront and ongoing costs of connecting to a centralized grid; additionally, these systems help support 750 million people who lack access to electricity by making it easier for them to thrive within their local communities.
Decentralized energy generation also allows many suppliers to compete and offer consumers more choices, fostering competition while encouraging sustainability. If a solar plant fails, another local system can step in as an emergency backup, thus preventing blackouts caused by centralizing systems when one major power plant goes offline.
Distributed Energy Resources
Solar panels and electric vehicles have made power generation closer to where it’s used than ever, known as distributed energy resources (DER), revolutionizing how power is generated and consumed.
DERs typically incorporate digital technologies that enable them to connect and communicate with the grid, including smart meters and other forms of advanced metering infrastructure (AMR) that allows utilities to track generation, consumption and energy costs. Aggregation software assists utilities by grouping multiple DERs together into virtual power plants (VPP), acting like mini power plants.
These technologies can also be employed to strengthen power distribution networks’ resilience. For instance, National Renewable Energy Laboratory is currently creating a system which predicts when trees or other vegetation might fall onto power lines and cause blackouts, helping communities plan for wildfires or plant for potential vegetation near transmission lines that might hinder service restoration following natural disasters or terrorist attacks.
Smart Meters
Smart electrical meters differ from non-smart electrical meters by recording hourly or more detailed energy consumption data, enabling utility companies to offer time-based pricing plans while cutting labor costs associated with meter reading.
Computerized controls in your home can respond to signals from your energy provider and reduce usage during periods of high demand, or shift usage at less costly times of day – all made possible through Smart Grid technology.
Real-time energy monitoring from smart meters also assists multi-tenant dwellings such as apartment blocks in better managing energy use and expenses. Instead of splitting costs annually, tenants can pay as they go and avoid unfair or inaccurate billing distribution. Smart meters also enable end customers to participate in energy communities by selling back renewable electricity back onto the grid; as well as serving as emergency power for hospitals, police departments, fire stations, or phone systems during emergencies.
Energy Fraud
Smart grids offer great benefits to both energy providers and their consumers; however, they can also be exploited by dishonest individuals and scammers. Energy fraud is the main way these actors exploit customers unwittingly – often by impersonating representatives from utility companies or other energy suppliers, or using phone scams that spoof caller ID and make customers believe emergency calls from these energy suppliers have come through.
Traditional power utilities generally detect nontechnical losses through laborious site inspections and audits, or using data analytics to detect billing irregularities; these methods are expensive, time consuming and difficult to scale; in addition they do not provide complete visibility into consumption and generation patterns. A new method for discovering electricity fraud or theft involves net metering systems which supply homes with both consumption and generation meters – Badr et al [34] used real consumer net meters supplied by Ausgrid as data points to investigate potential fraud within such systems.