That means that utilities must maintain a reliable power supply as demand and use of renewables increases, provide greater transparency. The unprecedented pace of change calls for new, digital approaches to address the fundamental challenges utilities face today. Utilities must quickly integrate distributed energy resources and support surging data‑center growth. Discover how we’re bringing autonomous grids to life – leveraging real-time data, digital twin technologies, and AI.
To help unlock the potential of renewables and ensure a reliable, resilient grid, we consider a tri-phased scaling strategy. While challenges and disparities inherent in the energy transition and subsequent grid transformation are becoming clearer, addressing them requires a structured and strategic approach. These new sources change the flow of electricity on the grid and can introduce intermittency in the power flow as well, further challenging the grid planners and operators in their mandate to provide safe, secure, reliable, affordable, and increasingly sustainable energy.
From the survey results, IBM IBV identified four groups of modernization strategizers based on their progress in demand flexibility, grid optimization, smart assets, and energy exchange. In the IBM IBV survey, most utility executives surveyed reported having made efforts in modernization, spending, on average, about 9.8% of their annual revenue. Energy demands are increasing due to electrification, industrial growth, and artificial intelligence. He oversees and drives the development and execution of the overall ER&I strategy across all geographies and businesses, including more than 44,000 professionals and serving close to 75% of the Global Fortune 500 clients.
Without real-time insight into grid conditions, modernization investments risk https://pluginhighway.ca/blog/how-to-choose-the-best-battery-for-your-tesla-electric-vehicle-and-maximize-its-performance delivering limited value. Modernization also maximizes existing infrastructure while building a more flexible and resilient network for the future. Modernized grids improve efficiency, reduce outages, accelerate restoration, and support the integration of distributed energy resources, including solar, wind, and battery storage.
While utilities traditionally pass infrastructure costs to ratepayers, targeted government support and developer contributions—especially when upgrades enable specific projects—are also part of the solution. “This means splitting cost among various stakeholders including utility companies, developers, ratepayers, and government funding.” “Even worse, those incumbent utilities that own both transmission and thermal https://master-your-business.com/what-are-the-latest-trends-in-innovation/ generators actually benefit from the high prices caused by congestion,” said Rute, whose company is known for its AI-driven dynamic line rating technology that addresses grid bottlenecks. Who takes payment responsibility for grid upgrades is among the most-debated questions when it comes to getting more renewable energy onto the power grid. Georg Rute, CEO at Gridraven, a company founded in Estonia that has based its U.S. operations in Austin, Texas, said investment for grid upgrades should be rethought when it comes to who pays for improvements.
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“Meanwhile, distributed energy resource management systems DERMS give utilities the ability to control and aggregate small-scale resources like batteries and rooftop solar systems. “Platforms like advanced distribution management systems are critical for managing this data, providing operators with tools to monitor voltage, reroute power, and manage distributed generation,” said Schurko. Some of these DERs may be clustered, say at a university, as to island the campus in a microgrid, allowing the utility to shed them as a load in the moments when the generation is needed during peak conditions or lost generation.”
New substations, upgraded protection platforms, breaker replacements, and expanded transmission infrastructure are commonly viewed as the primary paths to improved performance. We have the technology and know-how to build an electricity grid that will reduce harmful pollution, keep the lights on when storms strike, and benefit customers, utilities, and electricity generators alike. It provides electricity to buildings, industrial facilities, schools, and homes. DERMS complements this by forecasting and orchestrating distributed energy resources, including solar, wind, and storage.
- By embracing a more data-driven approach to managing distributed solar impacts, utilities can accelerate safe and reliable integration of distributed solar systems – keeping their community, regulators, and operators happy.
- Drivers and trade-offs – Major drivers include concentrated high-density load growth from hyperscale data centers, concurrent electrification trends, and aging distribution infrastructure.
- The global power industry faces a 3.9 million workforce gap, exacerbated by a skills gap amid increasing competition for skilled employees from companies inside and outside the energy industry.25 At the same time, the sector faces career stagnation and rising retirements.
- We have the technology and know-how to build an electricity grid that will reduce harmful pollution, keep the lights on when storms strike, and benefit customers, utilities, and electricity generators alike.
- These are the systems that need to anticipate excess generation and charge the batteries at the most optimal time for them to be available to serve as their peak need.
- The unprecedented pace of change calls for new, digital approaches to address the fundamental challenges utilities face today.
- However, this transformation requires not just the decentralization of power sources but also a reimagining of the logic and controls, extending these to the grid edge.
- US utilities are planning a record $1.4 trillion in capital spending over the next five years to expand and reinforce the US electrical grid to serve growing data center demand.
- For example, the finance-technology nexus is foundational, with financial support enabling technological advancements, which can lead to cost reductions and increased investment attractiveness.
- The project demonstrates how visibility becomes the foundation for broader grid transformation
- “There’s not one silver bullet but a combined strategy that adopts several methods to provide power grid stability,” said Benson.
Several companies are using scalable automation software and technologies to monitor performance of renewable energy equipment—including wind turbines—and gain visibility into how it is being integrated to the power grid. At the core is enhanced visibility—if grid operators can’t see what’s happening in real time, they can’t manage it. “DERs integrate renewables by bringing capacity closer to where it’s needed—and faster than traditional infrastructure can,” said Ince-Cushman. “The most obvious is to add fast-acting energy storage systems to the grid to provide that instant support when a cloud moves over a solar farm or the wind dies down before traditional generation can ramp up. “There’s not one silver bullet but a combined strategy that adopts several methods to provide power grid stability,” said Benson.
B.C.’s grid-strengthening strategy mirrors initiatives in other provinces like Quebec. This pressure is elevated for firms supplying materials for clean technologies like electric vehicle batteries and solar panels. Mining companies, like everyone else, are increasingly focused on reducing their carbon pollution and seek to invest in locations with access to clean power. Because households need affordable, reliable power and access to clean technologies like electric vehicles and heat pumps that can provide financial savings and other benefits.
Embracing distributed solar
While DERs and utility-scale renewables are often planned separately, when they’re deployed as part of a coordinated strategy, they offer a powerful tool for decarbonization and system flexibility. When combined with digital platforms like DERMS or virtual power plants, DERs can be dispatched to support the larger grid—providing voltage support, frequency regulation, and even emergency backup. Kadoch said DERs such as rooftop solar, batteries, smart appliances, and even electric vehicles (EVs) “are decentralized assets … but they can have system-wide benefits when they are aggregated and coordinated properly.
One of the reasons why the grid struggles to integrate modern renewable energy sources efficiently is that much of the infrastructure in the U.S. dates back to the 1950s, including transmission lines and substations. Utilities and grid operators are utilizing energy storage, often at substations along the grid, to ensure reliable and efficient electricity delivery. Over the years, OE has continued investing in the research, development, and demonstration of advanced technologies while also developing new modeling and analytics capabilities that can evolve as technology and policy needs mature. These advanced technologies include advanced sensors known as Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) that allow operators to assess grid stability, advanced digital meters that give consumers better information and automatically report outages, relays that sense and recover from faults in the substation automatically, automated feeder switches that re-route power around problems, and batteries that store excess energy and make it available later to the grid to meet customer demand. In summary, Camus is developing the tools needed to embrace increasing amounts of distributed solar and storage as a portion of a utility’s power supply portfolio.
Utilities and grid operators face several challenges when it comes to integrating renewable energy on the power grid. Another issue is that renewable resources are often located in remote or rural areas where transmission infrastructure isn’t sufficient to move electricity to where it’s needed. Investing in new transmission lines and upgrading existing https://cognifyo.com/articles/solar-energy-storage-nighttime/ ones can help deliver power from renewable energy sources to areas with high demand for electricity.
