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The POWER Interview: Exelon Discusses Digitalization

February 11, 2020

The post The POWER Interview: Exelon Discusses Digitalization appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Digitization in the power generation sector continues to expand. Its goal in simple terms—providing easy access to data for power plant operators and engineers, enabling the use of advanced analytics to improve equipment performance and efficiency—has resulted in reduced operating costs for utilities, and also has enhanced plant safety.

POWER’s upcoming Connected Plant Conference, set for Feb. 25-27 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia, is the only event covering the digital transformation of the power and chemical process industries. From the power generation perspective, Connected Plant focuses on technology designed for the sector, from predictive maintenance to cybersecurity and risk mitigation, looking at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning on power plant operations.

Utilities have been embracing digitalization in a variety of ways. Exelon, the Chicago, Illinois-based parent company of several utilities including Constellation, Atlantic City Electric, Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E), Commonwealth Edison, Delmarva Power, PECO (formerly Philadelphia Electric Co.),…

Public Safety Power Shutoffs: How Utilities Could Partner

February 3, 2020

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Catastrophic wildfires have devastated California in recent years. This article seeks to outline a plan wherein neighboring utilities can send energy to support a utility that has shut down critical paths during wildfire mitigation efforts.

On the morning of Nov. 8, 2018, the Camp Fire erupted 90 miles north of Sacramento, California (Figure 1). This fire was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, ultimately causing 85 fatalities.

1. The Camp Fire as seen from the Landsat 8satellite. Source: NASA/Joshua Stevens

The fire started under Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E’s) 115-kV transmission line near Pulga in Butte County, and resulted in the January 2019 bankruptcy of PG&E—once the U.S.’s largest utility with annual revenues of $ 16 billion. While PG&E is the first utility to face financial ruin over its wildfire exposure, climate change could make this a cogent problem for many utilities across the nation.…

The POWER Interview: Benefits of a Smarter Grid

February 1, 2020

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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.…

Mixed Reactions to FERC’s Recent MOPR Order from Power Generators

December 28, 2019

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The post Mixed Reactions to FERC’s Recent MOPR Order from Power Generators appeared first on POWER Magazine.

On Dec. 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directed PJM Interconnection to dramatically expand its Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) to nearly all state-subsidized capacity resources. It’s the latest of a series of dramatic revisions to the grid operator’s rule, which essentially functions to provide a minimum offer screening process to bar new market entrants from artificially depressing capacity auction clearing prices.

See why the recent order is significant here, “The Significance of FERC’s Recent PJM MOPR Order Explained.”

The barrage of news reports about the order that followed its release focused heavily on the divided vote, noting it fell along the commissioners’ political affiliations: Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Bernard McNamee are Republicans, and Richard Glick is a Democrat. As Cheryl LaFleur, a commissioner who left FERC in August, told POWER, FERC—an independent regulatory government agency that is officially organized as part of the Department of Energy—has increasingly been mired in partisanship and politicization.…

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.…