Characteristic of Smart Grid

Characteristics of smart grids

Characteristic Description

Enables informed participation  by customers

Consumers help balance supply and demand, and ensure reliability by modifying

the way they use and purchase electricity. These modifications come as a result of

consumers having choices that motivate different purchasing patterns and behaviour.

These choices involve new technologies, new information about their electricity use, and

new forms of electricity pricing and incentives.

Accommodates all generation and storage options

A smart grid accommodates not only large, centralised power plants, but also the

growing array of customer-sited distributed energy resources. Integration of these

resources – including renewables, small-scale combined heat and power, and energy

storage – will increase rapidly all along the value chain, from suppliers to marketers to

customers.

Enables new products, services and markets

Correctly designed and operated markets efficiently create an opportunity for

consumers to choose among competing services. Some of the independent grid

variables that must be explicitly managed are energy, capacity, location, time, rate of

change and quality. Markets can play a major role in the management of these variables.

Regulators, owners/operators and consumers need the flexibility to modify the rules of

business to suit operating and market conditions.

Provides the power quality for the range of needs

Not all commercial enterprises, and certainly not all residential customers, need the

same quality of power. A smart grid supplies varying grades (and prices) of power.

The cost of premium power-quality features can be included in the electrical service

contract. Advanced control methods monitor essential components, enabling rapid

diagnosis and solutions to events that impact power quality, such as lightning,

switching surges, line faults and harmonic sources.

Optimises asset utilisation and operating efficiency

A smart grid applies the latest technologies to optimise the use of its assets. For

example, optimised capacity can be attainable with dynamic ratings, which allow

assets to be used at greater loads by continuously sensing and rating their capacities.

Maintenance efficiency can be optimised with condition-based maintenance, which

signals the need for equipment maintenance at precisely the right time. System-control

devices can be adjusted to reduce losses and eliminate congestion. Operating efficiency

increases when selecting the least-cost energy-delivery system available through these

types of system-control devices.

Provides resiliency to disturbances, attacks and natural disasters

Resiliency refers to the ability of a system to react to unexpected events by isolating

problematic elements while the rest of the system is restored to normal operation. These

self-healing actions result in reduced interruption of service to consumers and help

service providers better manage the delivery infrastructure.

Source: Adapted from DOE, 2009.