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Professor Massoud Amin on Understanding the Power of Smart Grids

 

The smart grid is converting the way utilities converse with their customers. Smart grid technology, including control systems and automation that assist new technologies work together, assists a power grid that can digitally respond to changing electricity demand quickly.

The smart grid allows electricity producers to improve availability, reliability, and efficiency. It can offer cost savings both for consumers and utilities and even environmental advantages. It will enable for faster restoration of power after outages, and assists better integration of distributed generation resources, including renewable energy, to the larger grid. It also supports grid integration of significant renewable energy resources. Professor Massoud Amin says it is designed to enhance the security of the grid, allowing power generators, along with distribution operators and transmission, to recognize and react more quickly to grid anomalies.

Smart grids include sensors that transmit and measure data to automatically adjust electricity flows as per the supply and demand. Energy managers can use this information to adjust the grid and reply to problems in real time, making managing the grid far more competent and improving fault detection without the necessity for technicians. The grid also enters people’s homes by communicating with smart power meters, which can switch on appliances during periods of surplus, when electricity is cheaper. This means smart grids can:

  • Reduce fuel costs
  • Reduce emissions
  • Offer instant feedback on energy production and consumption
  • Integrate different sources of renewable energy into a single grid
  • Offer energy as per the demand, making it more efficient
  • Make diagnosing faults flawless

A smart grid integrates several different technologies, including smart meters, communications systems, smart power generation devices, sensors and measurement devices, phasor measurement units and power system automation technologies, such as AI.

Massoud Amin says that with the focus increasingly turning to renewable energy, smart grids are an essential part of managing these usually less consistent sources of power. Since, for example, solar panels cannot generate energy during the night-time, smart grids can store power and let it go as per the demand a grid is facing.

This guarantees a steadfast power supply, which is excellent for the environment, as well. By storing surplus energy generated by renewable sources earlier considered unreliable, smart grids can help countries wean themselves off fossil fuels.

By evaluating energy supply, power can be offered exactly when and where it is required, making the smart grid a far less extravagant way of supplying energy. This in turn decreases fuel use and cost.

One of the primary concerns is security. Smart electrical grids offer enhanced optimisation of power networks, but this connectivity leaves them susceptible to cyberattacks. Cybercriminals have already infiltrated the US electrical grid on a number of occasions, and in 2015 hackers committed a large-scale cyberattack on the Ukrainian power grid, leaving 230 thousand people without electricity for up to six hours.

Massoud Amin says nonetheless, smart grids represent a noteworthy opportunity. Their continued adoption over the next few years will result in lesser prices and reduced carbon emissions – and as project demonstrates, a more dependable electricity supply where possible.

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About Professor Massoud Amin

  Massoud Amin, IEEE and ASME Fellow, https://massoud-amin.umn.edu, is a professor of electrical & computer engineering, and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor awardee at the Univ. of Minnesota. Dr. Massoud Amin directed the Technological Leadership Institute, during Mar. 2003- Oct. 2018, where he pioneered several initiatives, including founding of 2 new graduate degree programs in Security Technologies (MSST, 2009), and Medical Device Innovation (MDI, 2014). Previously, Professor  Massoud Amin was with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto. After 9/11, he directed all security-related R&D for U.S. utilities. In addition, Dr. Amin pioneered R&D in smart grids in 1998, led the development of 24 technologies that transferred to industry. He has led the deployment of smart grids, and the enhancement of critical infrastructures’ security during this period. He is considered the father of the smart grid (https://tli.umn.edu/tli-blog/...
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