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The POWER Interview: Benefits of a Smarter Grid

February 1, 2020

The post The POWER Interview: Benefits of a Smarter Grid appeared first on POWER Magazine.

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

The smart grid enables electricity producers to enhance reliability, availability, and efficiency. It can provide cost savings—both for utilities and consumers—and even environmental benefits. It will allow for faster restoration of power after outages, and supports better integration of distributed generation resources, including renewable energy, to the larger grid. It also supports grid integration of large-scale renewable energy resources.

It also is designed to improve the security of the grid, enabling power generators, along with transmission and distribution operators, to recognize and respond more quickly to grid anomalies.

The smart grid will be a focus of POWER’s upcoming Connected Plant Conference, set for February 25-27 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia.…

The POWER Interview: What Is Big Data?

December 22, 2019

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The post The POWER Interview: What Is Big Data? appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The term “Big Data” is used frequently by tech-savvy power industry professionals, but what does it really mean. To get an insider’s perspective, POWER posed the question to Akshay Patwal, strategic business manager with Siemens Energy. Patwal leads the development and commercialization of digital business transformation projects, using big data platforms and analytics to create data-driven services, so he has a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

Akshay Patwal is strategic business manager with Siemens Energy. Courtesy: Siemens

POWER: What does Big Data mean to you?

Patwal: Big data in power generation refers to the large amounts of data being obtained from various sources in the power plant. The magnitude we are looking at here would be in terabytes of data or even more. The big data has the following characteristics:

A huge volume of data is expected and so would be the storage space needed for it.

…

The POWER Interview: New Directions for GE Digital

December 16, 2019

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The post The POWER Interview: New Directions for GE Digital appeared first on POWER Magazine.

In a recent conversation with POWER, GE Digital CEO Pat Byrne discussed why GE made key changes to the lucrative business, streamlining it to focus on four key markets, including electric utilities and power generation.

(To learn more about how digitalization is transforming the power industry, register now to attend POWER and Chemical Engineering’s upcoming Connected Plant Conference, which will be held Feb. 25–27, in Atlanta, Georgia.)

GE has been at the forefront of the innovation in the energy sector since Thomas Edison formulated the essential requirements for an electrical distribution system and formed the Electric Light Co. in 1878. Leveraging foundational technology changes that have characterized modern history, and driven by material value creation and a sustained competitive advantage, the company has shaped some of the basic machines and components that power plants house today.

That’s why it is no surprise that by the start of 2010s, the company was already contemplating how the age of industrial internet of things (IIOT) would reshape key markets.…

The POWER Interview: SEPA’s Julia Hamm Talks Solar Pathways

September 24, 2019

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The post The POWER Interview: SEPA’s Julia Hamm Talks Solar Pathways appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) is meeting this week in Salt Lake City, Utah, joining with the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) to present North America Smart Energy Week, which this year includes both the long-running Solar Power International gathering along with Energy Storage International.

A big theme this week is the integration of solar with storage. Climate change also is a topic of discussion, as solar and storage advocates tout the benefits of carbon-free power generation and their roles in crafting legislation and regulations designed to help meet clean energy targets.

Julia Hamm, CEO of the Smart Electric Power Alliance. Courtesy: Smart Electric Power Alliance

Julia Hamm, president and CEO of SEPA, sat down with POWER on Sept. 23 at the show to discuss how her group has evolved, and to talk about the changing power generation landscape. Hamm has been with the group for 20 years, starting in 1999 when it was known as the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group (UPVG) before becoming the Solar Electric Power Association (version 1.0 of the SEPA acronym) in 2000.…

The POWER Interview: CleanCapital Drives Investments in Clean Energy

July 17, 2019

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Investments in clean energy projects have hummed along in the past few years, with the growth of renewables worldwide continuing to increase levels of solar, wind, and other resources in the global energy mix.

Thomas Byrne has been in the middle of this energy transformation. Byrne, co-founder and CEO of CleanCapital and a graduate of the University of California-Berkeley and the UCLA School of Law, leads the company’s strategy and operations. Before CleanCapital, he served as partner and general counsel at True Green Capital, a private equity firm focused on distributed solar investments. He led the financing of landmark clean energy projects including NRG’s California Valley Solar Ranch, Caithness’ Shephards Flat Wind Project, and Terra Gen’s Alta Wind Energy Center.

Thom Byrne of CleanCapital

In his role as an attorney specializing in clean energy financing, Byrne saw first-hand how inefficiency was hampering the growth of clean energy investment. He envisioned a technology-based solution, and founded CleanCapital, which looks to connect investors with opportunities in the clean energy space, with an eye toward “reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and generating attractive returns to boot.”…

The POWER Interview: Technology Helps Integrate Renewables to the Grid

June 17, 2019

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Patrick Lee, who founded and leads PXiSE Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of San Diego, California-based Sempra Energy, is a proponent of energy sharing. His company builds enhanced grid management systems, using data, insights, and algorithms “to maximize efficiency and reliability of all DERs [distributed energy resources] as one system.” In other words, a PXiSE-supported microgrid is designed to interact with the grid, balancing the supply and demand of power, in an energy-sharing mode, rather than just managing an islanded microgrid.

The company’s Active Control Technology (ACT) platform is used at Sempra’s headquarters in San Diego as well as at other sites, including Con Edison’s 200-MW Great Valley Solar project near Fresno, California; the 110-MW Pima Solar facility in Mexico; and in distribution grids in Australia operated by Horizon Power.

Patrick Lee

Lee has said PSiXE’s technology provides a cost-effective way for users to move from fossil-fueled power generation to renewables. Lee recently talked with POWER about how PSiXE approaches the challenge of integrating renewable power generation to the grid.…