Smart grid is where power, IT, and communications meet. In this blog, IT and communications technologies are grouped as ICT. These days, most industry areas have become so complex that we cannot cope with problems without applying ICT.

When smart grid was first introduced, Cisco declared that the power grid would be much bigger than the Internet. From the data point of view alone, the amount of data produced and processed on the power grid is on a scale that none of us has experienced before. And with more-sophisticated monitoring technologies, the volume of data will even increase. The data collected may include equipment health, power flow, and quantity of power consumption. Simply collecting data does not do much good. We need to process what we collect—make heads and tails of it—to produce useful information for better operation and maintenance. This is the Big Data problem that is getting a lot of attention these days in ICT and other segments.

Usually, Big Data problems are due to the proliferation of SNSs, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But with the advent of low-power and low-priced, yet very sophisticated, end devices and sensors, different kinds of Big Data problems are emerging, such as the one I just mentioned.

There are several companies that apply their software systems and tools to solve Big Data problems in a particular vertical market, such as the power industry. When I was covering data centers and their energy efficiency, I visited OSIsoft at its San Leandro, CA, headquarters in 2009. They collect data sent by end devices like sensors and their equivalents and store, analyze, and visualize the collected data to take appropriate actions for improving operations. Since that visit, my focus has expanded to include the power industry, which is only one of the markets OSIsoft addresses (see the other markets here).

Recently, I had an opportunity to attend their users conference in San Francisco.

I listened to several representatives of utilities and others in the power industry talk about their use of OSIsoft's PI system. I also talked to Dave Roberts, Fellow and market Principal – Smart Cities, who is an expert in the power industry.

Dave Roberts

The following is my summary of our discussion, with my comments.

Some power grid basics

I am targeting this blog to very, very IT people and not to power people. So I think very simple, basic information is useful. The power grid is a big connected network of power lines. The power grid consists of two types of grids: transmission and distribution. Generated power is transmitted at a very high voltage via transmission lines to neighborhoods of consumers. Then the high voltage is transformed to much lower voltage, and power is delivered to consumers like you and me via the distribution grid. Because power must be consumed as it is produced, demand and supply need to be balanced all the time. Power on transmission lines is managed by each utility or by organizations called ISOs/RTOs (independent of utility companies) to make sure the balance of demand and supply is maintained—to keep the lights on. Also, as with computer networks, it is important to know the health and status of each device and all the equipment hanging from the grid. As in computer networks, such information is collected from multiple places in the grid. The number of collection points grows as more technologies are developed.

What OSIsoft does

Architecture

Although from my conversations with other OSIsoft people, I knew what business they were in, I just wanted to make sure who they are and what they do. They provide a software infrastructure system called PI to connect remote devices, gather/collect/aggregate data from them, and store and retrieve the collected data for further analysis, such as data analytics and visualization. They do not provide end devices like sensors or analytics engines. In other words, PI is one of the important components of the Internet of Things, M2M, or intelligent systems. Different people define the Internet of Things, M2M, and intelligent systems slightly differently, and the terms are often used interchangeably.

Here's an oversimplified view of PI architecture.

My view on the conceptual view of PI architecture

PI is not an operating system but there is some analogy between PI and Windows. Windows provides a base operating environment for applications to run in. Microsoft in general does not provide any applications packages but provides this base plus some tools/utilities and libraries via APIs. Third parties exploit this platform to write applications. PI is similar and does not provide applications, including data analytics packages. So PI can be said to be a general platform and applications area agnostic.

This will continue to Part 2.

Following the Smart Energy Enterprise Development Zone’s first workshop on power quality two weeks ago, a second was held recently. Like the first, the second was full of tutorial-like presentations, with a proposal to the attendees to share their power quality information with others.

EPRI’s presentations covered the subject matter comprehensively. In this blog, I discuss those; I’ll cover the other presentations in part 2.

Equipment sensitivity

Mark Stephens of EPRI gave presentations on this subject as well as on power quality (PQ) standards, embedded solutions, and multilevel approaches.

Mark Stephens of EPRI

Equipment consists of many smaller components, and each component may behave completely differently during a power quality disturbance. Mark listed the equipment components in the following.

Types of components that typically constitute equipment

Frankly, Mark covered a subject that was over the head of many attendees, and I do not want to go into too much detail. I’ll keep it at the layman’s level. We want to know how each component tolerates power quality events like voltage sag. If a component tolerance level is too low, a slight voltage sag may fail or trip that component. Of course it is important to trip the component to protect the rest of the equipment. But if it is oversensitive, all the equipment may halt unnecessarily in a slight voltage sag, causing a long shutdown time.

Mark used an Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturing Association (CBEMA) curve to describe equipment sensitivity. I just want to show one such diagram so that I can make it a reference point for the remainder of the blog.

In this graph, the y-axis denotes the tolerance level in terms of voltage sag rate in comparison with nominal (standard) voltage. For example, 80% means that if 20% of the standard voltage sags, the component fails. The x-axis indicates the duration of the power quality event. The failure or trip rate goes up as the power event continues. In the graph above, a relay called ice cube relay failed almost instantly when voltage went down to less than 75% of the nominal voltage level. By simply replacing an ice cube relay, many power quality events can be tolerated without damaging equipment. Equipment too sensitive to PQ events tends to shut down unnecessarily and may require a multimillion dollar recovery effort.

Mark covered characteristics of PC power supplies, lighting relays, contactors, starters, semiconductor tools, DC power supplies, PLCs, motor drives, and chillers in some detail. But all that is a little beyond the scope of this blog.

Power quality standards

Mark continued the presentation on power quality standards. Voltage sag is the most common power quality event, so it is a good idea to make sure that your equipment is certified with standards for voltage sag.

He cited the following voltage sag standards.

Voltage sag standards

Mark elaborated on each standard by comparing them. The details are too much to recap here, but it is clearly a good thing to have a set of standards. At the same time, different organizations define their own versions, which have both similarities and differences. They do, however, have something in common: none address three-phase voltage sag. I suppose that is why we need a consultant like EPRI.

Embedded solutions

Power quality can be addressed at several different levels, as shown in the following figure.

Solutions at utility, whole plant, panel feeder, machine, control, and embedded levels

Because it is usually prohibitively expensive to implement solutions at the larger scale, it makes sense to mitigate the power quality event at the embedded level.

Mark showed several methods for the embedded solutions (again, the content was too rich to be summarized here):

• Method 1: design with DC power.
• Method 2: use voltage sag–tolerant components.
• Method　3: apply custom programming techniques—use delay filters, state machine programming, phase/voltage sensing relay.
• Method 4: examine configuration settings.
• Method 5: select appropriate trip curves for circuit breakers.

Multilevel approaches

Mark’s final presentation was on multilevel approaches. Again, the power event problem can be addressed at different levels with different costs.

His point was that voltage sag can be mitigated at various points, including service entrance, panel feeder, panel, machine, and control levels. Each has its cost and advantage and disadvantage.

In concluding all his presentations, Mark said the following.

Recently the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network (JVSVN) kicked off its Smart Energy Enterprise Development Zone (SEEDZ) initiative with the first two workshops on power quality (PQ). PQ is very important for the consumers in the zone because it impacts manufacturing and operations of sophisticated high tech products and equipment there.

Don Bray, JVSVN Executive Director of SEEDZ, opened the workshop and explained its objectives.

Don Bray

Workshop objectives

There were six speakers:

• Bill Howe: Because PQ may not be well known, he gave three very informative talks on different aspects of it, including what the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is working on in this area.

• Jerry Hutchinson and Frank Arroyo: From PG&E, they gave the power supplier’s view of PQ.

• Ralph Renee: He presented what NetApp, a consumer, has been doing in terms of PQ from a user’s perspective.

• Andy Taylor: As a consultant from Applied Power Technologies, he emphasized the importance of metering power.

EPRI:

After brief remarks from Marek Samotyj, Bill dived into three topics: PQ basics, EPRI's research on PQ, and PQ economics.

PQ basics

Three elements are associated with PQ:

1. Voltage amplitude

2. Voltage frequency

3. Voltage/current phase

An even more detailed classification was given in the following table.

PQ classification (Source: EPRI)

Bill Howe

Bill also talked about relevant standards for PQ: IEEE 100, 1100, and 1159. (ZK: One of PG&E’s pages has a comprehensive list of standards for PQ). Voltage sag and swell are by far the most common (48%) PQ events, with harmonics a distant second (22%), as indicated in the following.

PQ phenomena

EPRI's research

Their research in PQ is summarized in their web page. Briefly, it covers:

• Improvement of PQ in transmission and distribution

• PQ monitoring and intelligent applications

• System compatibility

• Knowledge transfer

PQ economics

It is certainly important to include the economic side when PQ is considered. Bill discussed several methods and practices to assess the economic impact of PQ events, but I will not go over them here. You can find out more about what EPRI is doing in the area of PQ here. I just want to show the following to consider how we can improve PQ.

Cost resulting from PQ events must balance with the cost to prevent them.

PG&E:

Jerry Hutchinson and Frank Arroyo talked about the transmission and distribution substation for the zone. They also defined two terms, sustained outage (more than five minutes) and momentary outage (less than five minutes). PG&E has invested $100M in the transmission facility in the South Bay (where the zone is) for the past 10 years and plans to invest another $200M over the next 10 years.

They classify PQ events as:

• Power outage

• Voltage sag

• Voltage swell

• Voltage transients

• Harmonic distortion

• Electrical noise

Voltage sag is the most common. These interesting statistics are associated with it:

• Voltage sag happens 7 to 8 times as often as outages or momentary interruptions.

• 80% of sag is less than 10 cycles.

• The magnitude is greater than 60% of nominal voltage.

PG&E provides consulting for power quality, as described here. I also found their pages (here and here) helpful.

NetApp:

PG&E gave the supplier's view of PQ, and EPRI gave the consultant's view. NetApp's Ralph Renee gave the consumer’s point of view.

Ralph Renne

NetApp's Sunnyvale campus:

• Consists of 13 buildings with a total floor space of close to 1.6M square feet.

• Has three data centers and labs.

• Requires more than 10 MW at peak.

They are keen on energy efficiency. Nine of their buildings are certified with EPA's Energy Star and two are certified with LEED. They monitor their power use throughout the campus to:

• Validate utility billing

• Estimate monthly invoices

• Plan for power capacity

• Track PQ

• Prepare for Energy and Demand reports

They use very sophisticated meters (ION 8600 and ION 6200) from Schneider Electric. Ralph's proposal was to make volunteer companies' measured power information available to each other so that everyone can compare notes for their PQ. If two companies get power from the same substation, they can further tell if a PQ event resulted from internal problems or was caused by a disturbance by the supplier.

Applied Power Technologies

Andy Taylor seconded Ralph's proposal for sharing power quality information among volunteer companies. Both PG&E and Silicon Valley Power (part of the City of Santa Clara) issue PQ problem event alerts. Consumers' information can be incorporated to make these even more useful. He did not think that sharing PQ data from volunteer companies would be hard to do, but the organizational problems will need to be resolved.

A lot to learn but I am looking forward to the second workshop on January 23.

John V. Roos, appointed US Ambassador to Japan by President Obama about three and a half years ago, has been a very effective ambassador. He was recently in town as part of his western US tour to celebrate the strong ties between the US and Japan. Direct flights between the two countries link Tokyo and five US cities—Boston, Seattle, San Diego, Denver, and San Jose. San Jose was the last to be connected with All Nippon Airways as of January 11, 2013. Actually, there was a direct flight between San Jose and Tokyo/Narita by American Airlines, which stopped the service in 2006.

Ambassador John Roos at the podium with Mayor Chuck Reed

Ambassador Roos is no stranger to the Bay Area. He grew up in here and graduated from Stanford Law School. Incidentally, Mayor Reed revealed that he was his classmate at the law school. Ambassador Roos was CEO of Silicon Valley–based law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati before he was appointed ambassador.

Mayor Chuck Reed

Mayor Reed has been in many clean tech meetings and emphasized the growth of business with entrepreneurship in San Jose. For more details, check with San Jose Green Vision.

Also, Carl Guardino, President and CEO of Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), gave a speech, as did the Japanese Consul General in San Francisco, US embassy staff, and others.

 I have been involved in several of SVLG's activities. SVLG deals with many issues to make Silicon Valley a better place to live and work in. Certainly, the new direct flight from San Jose to Tokyo welcomes an even closer tie with Japan, the third largest economy in the world.

Carl Guardino of SVLG

The following is a summary of Ambassador Roos's speech, with my comments (indicated by ZK).

The ambassador began by saying how closely the US and Japan have aligned in the area of security and economy. After all, with the US the number 1 economy and Japan number 3, the close collaboration between the two countries is good for the entire world. The close collaboration is in effect at the government-to-government level, as in the smart grid experiments in New Mexico and Hawaii. On the way is laboratory-to-laboratory collaboration, as with National Renewable Energy Laboratories.

Ambassador Roos then talked about Japan's nuclear disaster. I have reported on this disaster in several previous blogs. Roos said that Japan had decided to increase its dependence on nuclear power from 30% to 50% before the disaster. But after the disaster, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the ruling party then but the loser of a general election last December and no longer in power, decided to phase out reliance on nuclear power by 2030 and increase the generation of power by renewable energies to as much as 30% of the total. Renewables now generate 10% of Japan’s power, and hydro produces 80% of that; other sources, like solar and wind, account for less than 2%. With this policy change, the DPJ projected the renewables field may grow to be a $600B market by 2020.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), returned to power with DPJ’s defeat, may reconsider this policy. However, the FIT program is on for 20 years, regardless of who the administration is, and the ambassador thinks the renewables market will grow in such areas as solar and smart grid.

(ZK: Jeff Miller, Energy Attaché of the US Embassy in Tokyo, said that the new administration probably would not release its policy on energy until summer. He did not say why. The reason is that the LDP now has a majority in the Lower House of the Diet, which is similar to the US Congress, but does not have a majority in the Upper House. And they probably would like to avoid any controversial issues until an upcoming Upper House election in July.)

The ambassador then said that it was important to plan and conduct business with Japan for the long haul. He also said that he saw a strong new trend in entrepreneurship in Japan since the disaster of March 11, 2011. At the time of the disaster, the US deployed 24,000 soldiers to give a hand to disaster-stricken areas and people. The operation, known as Operation Tomodachi, was a success, and people in the disaster area really appreciated the help. Now Operation Tomodachi has become the Tomodachi Initiative, which attempts to more closely link young people in both countries in the areas of education, culture, and entrepreneurship.

One of the people who spoke after the ambassador was Hiroshi Inomata, Japan’s General Consul in San Francisco.

Hiroshi Inomata, General Consul of Japan in San Francisco

He echoed the ambassador's message of the close collaboration between the two countries beyond clean tech issues. He said that Japan is uniquely positioned in the APAC region and can be a launching pad into the rest of the Asian markets because

Japan provides:

• an innovation hub of new research and R&D

• solid business platforms consisting of favorite business environments, a safe society, and good transportation

• a rich domestic market

In the rest of this blog, I only report some of the things I heard from other speakers. I am sure that I missed some other worthy comments.

The US embassy attaché listed some promising areas of clean tech that Japan may want to adopt:

1. Tidal power generation. (ZK: Because Japan is an island nation surrounded by oceans, there is good potential for this type of generation. However, it is still many years before it can be put into production, and it will cost a lot of money to implement. I am skeptical about whether this is suitable for a private company to tackle with without the backing of large companies and/or the US government.)

2. Bridging two frequency areas. (ZK: As the attaché pointed out, there are two major power grids serving the eastern (Tokyo and Yokohama) and western (Osaka and Nagoya) parts of Japan. The AC power in the eastern part is 50 Hz (as in most of Europe), whereas the western part uses 60 Hz (as does the US). Because of this separation, excess power in one grid cannot be utilized for another. See my old blog for the Japanese power grid infrastructure. One such solution can be the application of the technology used at Tres Amigas to unite three major power grids in the US. The three grids all run AC power in 60 Hz but are not synchronized and cannot be connected directly. So at Tres Amigas, each AC is first converted to DC then reconverted to AC and connected to the other grids with synchronization.

A vendor in the smart meter segment asked for advice about what they can do to grow their software sales in Japan. He was saying that utilities like TEPCO tend to purchase software from Japanese vendors over foreign vendors. Wearing my second hat, I assist US companies to enter the Japanese market, and I encounter this problem constantly. Think of it this way. If you were a US utility company and needed to purchase software, would you prefer to buy it from a US vendor or a foreign one? The answer is very straightforward. In order to sell in Japan, you need to overcome name recognition, marketing and technology documents in Japanese, technical support in Japanese, contracts and other agreements in Japanese, in addition to the Japanese language, business etiquette, and other things. Even in the world of IT, it is often hard to penetrate into the market. As in the US, utilities are very conservative in Japan and do not want to run the risk of adopting a technology from a foreign no-name vendor. There is a solution for that, but it is beyond the scope of this blog.

I read Elisabeth Jeffries' article on the Nuclear Energy Insider website with interest. The title of the article was USA: are natural gas and liberalised energy markets challenging nuclear’s future? This is my summary of her points:

Nuclear energy cannot compete in price with gas. The only element that might make nuclear shine is its lack of GHG emissions. It is still too early to dismiss any energy source at this time, because it is hard to predict so far in the future.

Although the article is well researched and interesting by itself, it is not earth shattering; other media and researchers have reported similar stories. But it was interesting enough to inspire me to write a blog to compare the US and Japan in terms of their future energy mix. The US is often compared with European and other countries like Japan, and it is said that the US is behind the curve in many areas, like education and sustainability. Because I understand what's going on in both the US and Japan at the native level, an ironic grin comes to me when I read such comparisons. It is so funny to see that people in both countries blame their own country by saying how advanced the other country is. If you read both sides of the story, you would wonder which of the two is better than the other. You know far more about your own country's problems than another’s.

(Well, Japan is not mentioned much when the future energy mix is discussed, partly because not enough information is published in ENGLISH. Wait. Even if you read Japanese. I often get confused about what is really going on.)

When we discuss the future energy mix in the US, we talk as though we were facing a unique problem with energy sources and were the only country suffering so. Nuclear power is a wonder of energy and there is no question about it. Until the Fukushima-Daiichi reactors accident, we did not pay much attention to potential safety problems but enjoyed the power the reactors produced. Although there are many angles to nuclear power in the US, I think these are the main drawbacks:

1. Ever-increasing construction and operating costs

2. Lack of nuclear waste disposal sites

Yes, safety is also mentioned often, especially in surrounding communities and by activists. But I do not see much discussion of it in the media now. Don't get me wrong. I do not intend to marginalize the Three Mile Island accident and the suffering it caused people. Construction cost is increasing because of more regulatory pressure and more safety feature checking procedures and oversight with explanations and opinions of the people in surrounding communities. As a new nuclear power plant needs to go through several phases, it may take as long as ten years to complete construction. On top of that, there is no guarantee the construction will ever reach the final stage, because at each phase, more fixes and modifications may be ordered, with no guarantee of passing each check.

In addition to this, cheap gas, thanks to shale gas, is becoming a more and more attractive alternative to other energy sources. Although gas is gas and does not eliminate GHG emissions completely, as nuclear power does, it is cheap and cleaner than oil or coal. Unless GHG emissions control becomes very strict, this trend will continue.

The second element is the lack of permanent disposal sites. Yucca Mountain was to be the federal nuclear waste deposit site, but no longer is. Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, two nuclear power plants in California, are being operated with a special provision. California does not allow the operation of nuclear reactors without permanent nuclear waste deposit sites. The two are being operated as exceptions because without them, a severe power shortage would become a reality, especially in southern California. There was speculation about a California-wide referendum to negate that exception in the upcoming election. When I received an election packet, I looked for it but could not find it. The referendum was not officially entered because it missed the filing deadline.

Ironically, San Onofre is currently not in operation and will not be restarted until 2013 at the earliest, according to NBCDFW.com. It was feared that southern California could face blackouts if the referendum passed. The power supply seems to be fine without San Onofre for now. What if we stop Diablo Canyon, too?

I’ve written a lot about what's going on in Japan and do not want to repeat it here. Those who are interested in what I said before can take a look at old posts.

Is Japan Really Getting Out of Nukes?(January 20, 2012)

What’s Next with Japan's Nuclear Power? (March 25, 2012)

Should Japan Restart Any of Its Nuclear Reactors? (April 09, 2012 )

More on Japan's Nuclear Reactors (April 25, 2012)

How to Fight Peak Power Demand in Japan (May 15, 2012)

Japan Restarts Two Nuclear Reactors (May 31, 2012)

Japan, which imports about 96% of its energy, found nuclear power to be suitable. It does not emit GHG and its fuel can be recycled. Before March 11, 2011, Japan was one of the biggest proponents of controlling GHG emissions and declared that it would cut them by 25%. But since the disaster, GHG emissions are seldom discussed. These are the current major points about nuclear power facing Japan:

1. Safety

2. Power availability without it

Rather emotional arguments against nuclear power in Japan are subsiding a little compared with the year 2011, but they are still pretty loud and powerful in public opinion. Those who oppose nuclear power claim that power based on renewable energies, such as solar and wind, could easily replace existing nuclear power overnight. But as in the US, that may not happen for quite some time. If I talk to people in Japan who are in business and technical industries like ICT, they say it is not possible to get rid of nuclear power altogether without securing an alternative energy source. It is interesting that their voice, coming from a technical and operational understanding of energy, is far less powerful than that of the anti-nuke crowds.

The current, very unpopular administration flip-flopped its stance. It was initially going to restart all of the stalled nukes, but after strong public opinion it tried to change to a stance of shutting down all nukes by 2030. It then tried to make it official but changed its position again to neutral after the business community's opposition and speculated pressure (not confirmed, though) by the US for security reasons. So it is not clear what the Japanese government’s position is. The big difference between Japan and the US is that the US will be fine without nukes because it has ample and cheap natural gas, while Japan needs to import more energy without nukes. We cannot just look at this as if it were a fire on the other side of the ocean, though.