Andres Carvallo Speaks at UTC Telecom 2010

http://www.utctelecom2010.utc.org/content/utc-telecom-2010

10:30 – 11:45 a.m.

The Future of Utility ICT: The View from the Executive Suite
Symposia: Enterprise IT Symposium
ROOM: 108

Utility information communications technology (ICT), the integration of traditional telecommunications networks with enterprise IT and data management function, is becoming increasingly essential to utilities’ core business objectives. Addressing everything from expansion of core control networks to managing massively increased amounts of data, this session will feature a discussion among utility chief information officers on how they see the this critical function evolving over the next five years.

Troy West, General Manager - Technology & Corporate Services, Cleco
Andres Carvallo, Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, Grid Net

4:30 – 5:45 p.m.

Networks of Networks: What Is Needed to Get Smart Grids to Work—Get the Big Picture on Efficiency
Symposia: Smart Grid Symposium
ROOM: 109-110

Developments like decentralized and micro generation, along with wind farms, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and other renewable energy sources, are causing utilities to design and manage delivery in innovative ways. One is to create a Smart Utility Networks of Networks: an industry-wide, interconnected IP communications network. It will enable faster deployment of smart energy networks by supporting multiple applications, such as sharing of customer usage data, energy generation, and energy distribution. This is big!

Chistoph Inauen, Director, Business Development, Nokia Siemens Networks, LLC
Andres Carvallo, Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, Grid Net

http://www.utctelecom2010.utc.org/content/program-glance

FERC, DOE and FCC Chairmen Push Broadband for Smart Grid at FCC Clean Energy Showcase

This was published by the UTC. It is such a break throught that I am re-posting it. The Governement experts are leading and saying to us to build the smart grid with broadband networks. In other words, stop using RF Mesh.

Did you hear that utilities? Regulators? Legislators? Citizens?

And take a look at the video below.

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At the FCC's "Clean Energy Showcase" this week, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, DOE Secretary Steven Chu and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski all emphasized a common message that broadband will promote smart grid. As reported in last week's UTC Intelligence, the showcase featured demonstrations by over 20 different technology providers and was hosted over three hours at the FCC's open commission meeting room. After the tour, FCC Chairman Genachowski commended the companies on their products and services and explained that the purpose of the showcase was to "shine a light on communications, broadband and smart grid" consistent with the FCC's National Broadband Plan. FERC Chairman Wellingholff emphasized the importance of customer access to smart grid data, and the need to promote consumer trust in the privacy of that information so companies can use it for their benefit. Finally, DOE Secretary Chu echoed Chairman Genachowski's call to promote smart grid through broadband and agreed with DOE Chairman Wellinghoff that the showcase is all about giving consumers the information they need to manage their electric consumption. The FCC has posted a You-Tube video of the showcase and excerpts from the remarks on its broadband web-blog at http://blog.broadband.gov/.

Andres Carvallo Speaks at the Networked Grid 2010

The electric power industry is rapidly moving beyond the smart meter to that of an information-rich networked grid. Information technology and advanced communication networks are enabling an intelligent grid infrastructure that is spawning the development and deployment of transformative applications for next-generation utility networks.

Between 2010 and 2020, power grids around the globe will be transformed through a series of stages driven by the availability of infrastructure technology and application market demand. Everything from improved power quality and reduction in peak demand to the integration of distributed renewable energy resources and PHEVs will influence the portfolio of smart grid technologies and applications to come.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/the-networked-grid-2010/

Power Forward: Grid Optimization and Distribution Automation

Overall grid optimization and, specifically, Distribution Automation is the highest priority application among North American utility smart grid decision makers, with 77% ranking it number one, according to a recent survey from GTM Research. Optimizing the power layer infrastructure for real-time distribution automation applications may not be as sexy an application as networked electric vehicles or snazzy home energy management systems, but it's a major issue for utilities and can provide a significant amount of efficiency from an internal operations perspective on the utility end of the spectrum. Embedding sensors that interact with the communications layer of smart grids is an important topic and providing an infrastructure that can support very low latency is critical for its success. This session explores grid optimization and distribution automation technologies and architectures in depth.

Witold Bik, Vice President, Automation Systems Division, S&C Electric

Stewart Kantor, CEO, Full Spectrum

Sanket Amberkar, Senior Manager, Smart Grid Marketing, Cisco

Andres Carvallo, Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, GridNet

Ken Geisler, Business Development Manager, Smart Grid, Siemens

Moderator: David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

Andres Carvallo Speaks at UCLA Smart Grid Conference

Join UCLA Smart Grid Energy Research Center or SMERC (http://smartgrid.ucla.edu/) and UCLA WINMEC (http://winmec.ucla.edu/) for its fourth Smart Grid Leadership Forum. On May 17, 2010, this thought leadership forum will focus on Transmission and Distribution Electrical Power Grid in the United States and its modernization opportunity and accompanying innovations over the next 5 to 25 years into what is being now called the Smart Grid.

OPPORTUNITY - The Electric Utility Grid is approximately a hundred years old. The grid architecture is generally hierarchical with a smaller number of energy generation sources and a larger number of energy sinks or consumers. The electric grid was not primarily meant to incorporate stochastic and small renewable energy sources such solar energy from residential rooftops, nor was it meant to integrate demand response or to integrate smart devices or smart electric cars into the grid. Today, however, with the Obama administration having provided one of the largest grants totaling $3.4 billion earlier this year for modernization of the US electric grid, we have an unprecedented opportunity to define, architect and build this Smart Grid. This investment, coupled with industry match which is expected to be approximately $4.7 billion, will go into research, technology development, innovation, infrastructure, modernization, training, customer education, etc.

ARCHITECTURE AND MODEL - As a nation before we start to implement the Smart Grid, we need to define our vision of the Future Smart Grid. As part of this vision, we need to define an architecture for the Smart Grid. The "Smart" in "Smart Grid" needs to be understood and modeled as well. Is the "Smart" model like that of a Smart Phone, or the Internet, or even like a human being? For starters, we know that a Smart System is a closed loop system, incorporating concepts such as sensing, control, communications, information gathering and analysis. We also know that smart systems have the ability make decisions, to store information, to learn by experience, and, to self-adapt and self-heal. Moreover since we are dealing with energy as the essential entity that is being manipulated, its generation, movement, storage, control, consumption, reuse, routing, etc., are important considerations.

INNOVATION - The overwhelming excitement today in the energy transmission and distribution sectors is the innovation that can result from the investment and modernization of the grid creating a fundamentally new cyber-infrastructure. Other industries such as the mobile phone industry, telecommunications industry, computer industry and the music industry, have gone through a considerable and often unexpected technological and consumer change in the last 25 years. Twenty five years from now, the Electrical Power grid is expected to look very different, and a key question that is being raised is what type of innovative evolution will it follow - the iPhone from the mobile industry, or, Google from the Internet, or, perhaps an entirely new model? Also, what other entirely new innovations will it create or will it absorb some of the innovations from emerging sectors such as ZIgbee or RF-sensors from the wireless industry?

Registration
To register to attend - http://winmec.ucla.edu/smartgrid/2010-05/registration.asp

Austin Energy: First off the mark

First off the mark
By Stacey Sheppard

US Infrastructure speaks to Andres Carvallo about how Austin Energy’s aggressive pursuit of new smart grid technologies has put it at the forefront of the utility revolution.

“Consumers will see the data on their energy consumption the day after, or even on an hourly basis, rather than simply when they receive their monthly bill”
-Andres Carvallo

Modernizing the country's electrical grid has become an urgent national priority. Population growth and increased energy demand, growing concerns over energy security, an aging transmission infrastructure and the need to integrate new sources of renewable energy into the already overburdened national grid are all problems that demand an innovative new solution. Implementing new smart grid technologies will help to revolutionize the production, transmission, and consumption of energy in the United States, and increase the reliability, efficiency, and security of the country's electrical system.

While many utilities around the country have announced plans to deploy smart grid technology and are working towards this aim, Austin Energy has had its very own fully operational smart grid deployed since October 2009. The landmark project comprises the seamless integration of the electric grid; communications networks; and the hardware and software needed to monitor, control and manage the creation, delivery and energy consumption of all Austin Energy's customers. It took five years to deploy the full solution set at a cost of approximately $150 million.

As its competitors try to play catch up, the Texan energy giant is already forging ahead with a newer more aggressive phase of its smart grid plan. Named after its namesake Web 2.0, which is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the Internet, development of Smart Grid 2.0 is already in full swing.

For Carvallo, there is no doubt in his mind why Austin Energy is so far ahead of the pack. "We started in 2003 before anybody knew what it was. I would say that our closest competitors would be Oncore and Centerpoint in Texas, and they're supposed to be finished sometime in 2012 to 2014, and then in California the closest companies will be PG&E, Southern Cal Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, and I think their timeframe is pretty similar, 2012 to 2014. So you could argue that we are 2-3 years ahead to 5 years ahead."

Back in 2003 when Austin Energy embarked on their smart grid development project, they started by deploying smart meters to one third of their service territory. This led on to a replacement and transformation of the infrastructure behind the utility and as Carvallo puts it, one thing led to another.

"We found ourselves basically working on intelligence on the grid at all levels. The company had a vision back then that the creative utility needed to go beyond the utility itself. Our vision of the Smart Grid has always been farther ahead than most in terms of the fact that it encompasses not just the utility infrastructure itself, but the buildings and the transportation sector," explains Carvallo.

"Aggressive" is how Carvallo describes Austin Energy's approach to their smart grid activities and he believes that what they are trying to do is much broader than the idea that most people have of what an intelligent grid is. "The Smart Grid is a combination of an electric network, a communications network plus a lot of hardware and software configured and deployed in a way that allows you uniquely to monitor, control and manage how you create, distribute, and consume energy," he says.

Traditionally the grid has been intelligent from the central power plant to the substation he says, but the grid has been blind from the substation to the premise (e.g. home, office, factory). The main focus is now about putting the intelligence from the substation to the premise, which essentially means putting sensors and actuators in the distribution infrastructure, around transformers, feeders, switches, capacitors, relays of all kinds and then installing a smart meter at the site of the premise. Inside the premise there will be smart appliances/devices, energy storage, electric vehicles, and distributed generation (e.g solar panels for your house).

"So the grid needs to become self-healing," he says. "Meaning no human interaction, lots of rules engines and correlation engines deployed on a hierarchical nested network infrastructure." Due to the increase in the magnitude of data and the amount of devices that the smart grid will necessitate it is no longer possible for a human to manage the grid.

"When we move towards smart grid we're adding half a million devices on top of the 5000 elements already in the grid. In order to manage half a million devices it is just not possible for a human being to sit in a control room and look at a screen and alarms coming from the 500,000 devices non-stop and be able to discern and make choices."

But this self-healing smart grid of the future will offer many advantages to utility customers. Like Web 2.0, the smart grid will be far more interactive and user-centered and will allow a two-way communication between the utility and the consumer. "For the first time it would be a platform that allows for the sharing of the information with the consumer at different timeframes," he says.

This means that the consumer can see the data on their energy consumption the day after, or even on an hourly basis, rather than simply when they receive their monthly bill. Smart grid will also provide the consumer with a variety of ways to access their data such as having the information pushed toward a messaging system on their iPhone or their Blackberry, or an in-home display of some sort either through the web or some hardware device. This should give the consumer a better understanding of how they are consuming energy and also how their infrastructure may be causing a waste of energy.

Carvallo explains how the smart grid should also foster stronger relationships between the utilities and both the consumers and their business customers, particularly in the realms of conservation and energy efficiency. Many schemes are already offering rebates enabling consumers and companies to upgrade their equipment, such as air conditioning units or pool pumps, in favour of more energy efficient alternatives. In the past, he says, there were no real ways to gage if such an investment had achieved the expected gains, but with smart grid and intelligent metering there is now a baseline of what occurs in your property which enables what Carvallo calls "a true verification of your investment".

However, the smart grid will; also provide benefits for the utilities themselves particularly in terms of operational efficiency, which should in turn translate to increased customer satisfaction. "Instead of waiting for customers to call us and tell us their power is out, we know the moment it is out. Even if customers are out and about, we can send an SMS message to their smart phone alerting them of outages and also letting them know once it had been fixed so it never actually has to impact them," he says.

"So the technology is going to move from being very reactive to being very proactive and it would change the whole customer experience. It would really make customers far more trusting of the utility and far more relaxed about the service they get from the utility. That in itself will be a huge benefit."

Another advantage for the utility is the fact that smart grid will allow a streamlining of operations because of its ability to be more prescriptive and precise about any system failures. As the utility will know immediately what is wrong, they will also know how to fix it and what equipment is required to do the job and who they should send to make the necessary repairs. "So the utility will be more efficient and more effective in how it uses resources and how it manages inventory and how it does maintenance of its equipment," explains Carvallo.

The benefits for both businesses and consumers are clear but smart grid also plays an important role in helping to meet our renewable energy targets. "The Smart Grid is an enabler. Without it there's no way that you can reach any significant energy efficiency and any significant penetration of renewable energy," says Carvallo.

"The smart grid is a conduit to enabling and accelerating more energy efficiency and accelerating renewable energy at the central power plant level, but also more importantly at the distribution level, meaning distributed generation, solar rooftops and micro wind turbines in homes. You need the smart grid for all that to come together."

Smart grid, it would appear, will revolutionize not only the way we consume energy but also the way that utilities interact with their customers. The industry is making good progress and in the next few years we should expect to see smart grid technology being deployed throughout the country. And if Austin Energy's vision of the smart grid of the future is fully realized we will see the impacts not only affecting our homes and our businesses by also our means of transport. And if the other utilities are to keep up, Carvallo suggests that they may need to look beyond the parameters of smart grid 1.0.

"The thing that is really going to drive the point home about the need for this market will be the proliferation of electric vehicles and solar rooftops," he says. "As electric vehicles become a reality ­- and they seem to be coming at us fast and furious - the electric utilities across the globe are going to have to make an investment in smart grid technology, because if these vehicles show up in their service territory and they don't have the intelligence to deal with it, they will have some serious reliability problems."


Streets ahead

In December 2008, Austin Energy embarked on an initiative called the Pecan Street Project. In anticipation of completing its smart grid 1.0 in 2009, Austin Energy reached out to the city of Austin, the University of Texas, the Chamber of Commerce, and teamed up to create Austin's next generation smart grid implementation.

Other companies also partnered Austin Energy in this ambitious project to explore smart grid 2.0, including Applied Materials, Cisco, Comverge, Dell, Freescale Semiconductor, GE, Heliovolt, IBM, Intel, Landis+Gyr, Microsoft, Oracle, the SEMATECH consortium and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Austin Energy's goal in creating the Pecan Street Project is to transform into the urban power system of the future while making the City of Austin and its local partners a model clean energy laboratory and hub for the world's emerging clean tech sector. In doing so, Austin Energy is seeking to prove that it is possible to transform the way we traditionally produce, use, store and trade energy.

For the project, Austin Energy has targeted a specific neighborhood, some 700 acres in the east side of town where 1000 homes and 75 businesses are being built. The area will be turned into a state of the art Smart Grid 2.0 where every property will have solar rooftop, energy storage, smart appliances, and electric vehicles all connected on to the Smart Grid.

The project has a timeframe of five years and will be used to explore a lot of things that haven't yet been achieved or tested with smart grid 1.0; real time pricing, time of use pricing, demand response programs and energy rebates. As the results of these different pilots and programs come to bear success, they will then be translated into the rest of the service territory. Basically if a project is successful then it could be rolled out within 90 days to six months of finishing the pilot.

http://www.americainfra.com/article/First-off-the-mark/