Intelligent agents to enhance open communication and self-healing

Interview with Dr. Maher Chebbo, VP Utilities EMEA, SAP

smartelectricnews.com Special

An emerging technology area facilitating the development of smart-grid infrastructure is the use of intelligent agents, which are increasingly being used to participate in electrical utilities' demand response programmes.

These devices combine components for sensing, computing, device control, and communication in order to optimise energy usage.

It is said that these intelligent agents interact with each other in a more localised fashion before they interact with the centralised utility grid. When agents in a group interact, they can analyse the predetermined reduction programmes for each customer and react accordingly. This autonomy provides greater efficiency and is more cost-effective than a purely centralised system.

Going forward, Dr. Maher Chebbo, Vice President Utilities for Europe ,Middle East and Africa (EMEA), SAP AG, who presented during Intelligent Demand Response for Electricity Summit 2009 held in Amsterdam recently, says the intelligent agents will include more ICT and Electronics and a result they will further help in open communication and self-healing processes.

A fundamental capability of a self-healing grid is its ability to prevent or contain major disturbances. The vision of a "self-healing" smart grid is feasible using a distributed infrastructure for monitoring and control.

Utilities now acknowledged that today's distribution grid is more than an interconnected system of generating units, power lines, substations and transformers that deliver electricity to customers. Smart Grid refers to a modern, intelligent electricity transmission and distribution system that incorporates traditional and advanced power engineering to enhance grid performance and support a wide array of functionality for customers and the economy.

And technologies that help save energy at households include:

· Time of use Pricing Information
· Dynamic Pricing signals
· Smart Thermostat
· Home Energy management Systems like devices.

"These technologies help peak demand reduction up to 40 percent plus in some cases," says Dr. Chebbo.

Two-way communication

For a utility to monitor the power used by its customers, then to transmit demand-response commands to a customer's automated energy management system, there must be a two-way communication.

The utility receives the usage information from the customer's meter, and can then send messages, via email or telephone, informing them of the need to reduce power. During demand response events, the utility can activate automatic controls to reduce air conditioning, lower lighting levels, or momentarily turn off appliances – usually with an override option by the consumer.

On the two-way communication process, Dr. Chebbo said utilities companies send tariffs and contract information + price signals to the consumers through Smart Meters and Internet.

"Consumers will change their options (if their contract allows) on the Smart meters and through the Internert Self Services (also SMS or mobile transactions could be used). Demand Response is one of the scnearios that are enabled by Smart Metering Infrastructure," said Dr. Chebbo.

One of the critical components of communication systems for demand response includes software, which is used to perform the various tasks required to run smart grid networks and demand-response applications.

"There are different kind of software required for the smart grids and demand response : the technical software like SCADA (they have to evolve to become smart grids compliance), the management software (like SAP ERP, Customer Information system, Asset Management, Smart Metering Application scenarios), the technical software for management the Smart metering Infrastructure (Meter Data Unification System) and they have to talk to each other in real time and interoperability is key," said Dr. Chebbo.

The industry has already witnessed the development of turnkey "energy intelligence" software to electric utilities for use in residential applications. These offerings include software, hardware, and "smart
meters" that help control energy load. For instance, hardware products include meters with Internet capabilities, which make it possible for clients to access their usage records on demand, and software offerings include programmes, which allows customers to monitor their meters, automate usage reduction, and receive alerts and grid demand status.

On procuring such solutions, Dr. Chebbo recommended: "The ones who should be providing a platform for smart grids and demand response should be system integrators with a good knowledge of the industry, rather than a single software vendor."

Enabling consumers to know how their behaviour affects energy consumption

Energate has introduced a new solution in Consumer Connected Demand Response (CCDR).

This solution, according to the company, will enable utilities to engage their customers and deploy technology which will integrate seamlessly with AMI and the smart grid as it is built.

It builds from advanced in-home consumer options and supports multiple communication technologies from the home to utility load management software.

CCDR offers a variety of options for utilities and their customers, including ZigBee Smart Energy profile certified smart thermostats, load control switches, energy display, and web portal; communication options (broadband connectivity, FM digital radio, and support for AMI interoperability); utility application options (load management systems including one-way direct load control or two-way DR).

Commenting on the CCDR solution, Niraj Bhargava, CEO, Energate said: "It is an ideal offering to let utilities deploy Demand Response today, while building their smart grid infrastructure for tomorrow."

"Energate's strength in AMI interoperability and in-home devices gives the utility peace of mind that short term DR benefits are supportive of long term smart grid strategies."

Utilities are responding to smart grid strategies: survey

A research study has indicated that global utility executives have embraced smart grid strategy as a platform for fundamental business process transformation initiatives that span the entire energy value chain across generation, T&D and customer service operations.

The study, designed to analyse the smartgrid strategies of leading utilities around the world, has been sponsored by Ventyx and conducted by The McDonnell Group.

Of those interviewed, 87 percent indicated the formal establishment of a smart grid initiative at their company, with the majority indicating that these efforts had been formalised in the past year and roughly one third indicating formalisation in the past two to three years.

"The utility industry is responding to regulatory and business improvement opportunities from smart grid strategies," said Ventyx VP of marketing, Andy Bane.

The executives in this study see an opportunity to fundamentally realign the relationship between supply, demand, efficiency and environmental objectives in support of intelligent utility enterprises, said Bane.

The study sample included five of the top 15 utilities in North America by residential revenue, two of the top five US public power utilities, three of the six largest global utilities by total end consumer count, as well as utilities that serve customers in more than half of the states in the US, three Canadian provinces and several European countries.

An initiative to create a unified AMI and HAN solution

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is collaborating with the ZigBee Alliance and the HomePlug Powerline Alliance to develop a common language for home area network (HAN) devices to utilise advanced metering infrastructure (AMI).

The groups will work in cooperation with the many utilities already supporting ZigBee Smart Energy and will look for ways to further expand the smart grid by creating a standard communication approach between AMI systems and HANs, as well as a common set of certification procedures.

Development efforts of the initiative will center on expanding the ZigBee Smart Energy public application profile.

The initiative will enhance the capabilities of Smart Energy to incorporate new features, support ZigBee wireless and HomePlug wired devices, and accelerate the development and certification of HAN devices capable of plugging into the Smart Grid such as thermostats, pool pumps, water heaters, appliances and plug-in vehicles.

"EPRI's involvement in this effort will focus resources and bring together a strong coalition whose work to establish the standard for Smart Energy HAN devices will accelerate the deployment of the Smart Grid," said Bob Heile, chairman, ZigBee Alliance.

"Smart Grid is not a fad; smart is the future of the electric grid"

A survey featuring utilities in North America has indicated that there is clearly an increasing regulatory acceptance of AMI and a need to ascertain how a smarter grid will improve utility services for consumers.

The North American utility industry is now facing growing political, societal and regulatory pressure to produce energy with less environmental impact and to help consumers use energy more efficiently. To meet this challenge, industry regulators are beginning to consider the role of a Smarter Grid, stated Capgemini, as it released the results from the first Smart Grid and Renewable Energy opinion survey of energy regulators across North America.

The findings were as follows: 38 percent of respondents already have regulations that require an AMI deployment, an additional seven percent reported that they are allowing deployments without regulations, while 22 percent report additional analysis is either underway or required; 48 percent of respondents favor the recent formation of the NARUC-Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Smart Grid Collaborative, while an additional 31 percent felt more time is needed before they can judge. Eighteen states have already joined the Collaborative.

The Capgemini survey was conducted in conjunction with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and Canadian Association of Members of Public Utility Tribunals (CAMPUT) in an effort to develop a comprehensive perspective on Smart Grid and renewable energy policy in North America.

"Smart Grid is not a fad; smart is the future of the electric grid," said Frederick Butler, president of NARUC.

Even as regulators are clearly intererested in Smart Grid and increased energy efficiency, they are not certain that the benefits outweigh the cost for customers at this point: Commissioners have not yet formed a consensus about the values of AMI (the cost of AMI may exceed direct operational savings causing regulators to rely on case-specific filings not general industry valuations); Most regulators are not ready to share the real-time costs of energy with all classes of customers: More than half (51 percent) of the respondents do not support real-time pricing for all customer classes and only nine percent do.

"Utility regulators are in the very early stages of an education and valuation process," said Roy Ellis, energy, utilities and chemicals regulatory relations leader at Capgemini.

Ellis added,"In most cases, this process is a complicated effort to view a cleaner more efficient grid through a prism of existing laws, regulations and market dynamics that were designed to promote the rapid expansion of a least-cost, highly-dependable grid using carbon-based fuels. Interestingly, the speed with which both renewables and the smarter grid take hold may be the result of a growing political belief that a rapid move to clean energy is necessary, and the only way to make the move quickly is with an equally rapid enablement of a Smart Grid."

Enhanced TREE platform to scale DSM for utilities and energy providers

Tendril has released the latest version of its Tendril Residential Energy Ecosystem (TREE) platform.

The new version, according to the company, will further engage consumers in smart energy programmes and provide an extensive Demand Response (DR) platform for utilities and energy retailers.

According to the company, Tendril's "scalable, unified and integrated enterprise-class energy management solution brings together the smart energy ecosystem and allows utilities and energy providers to connect and personalise tools and programs for their customers like never before."

New benefits for utilities include: Extended value through enhanced DR and dynamic pricing programmes; Improvements to utility and back-office system user interfaces; Ability to push out updates "Over-the-Air" or "Over-the-Internet" seamlessly.

The company also referred to: Additional DR and load control reporting and monitoring, leading to improvements in predictive modeling for utilities to better forecast scenarios and avoid brownouts or other emergency grid preservation tactics; Increased interoperability with third-party thermostats, backhaul environments such as Itron and SSN and ERT integration; Enhanced support for backhaul environments and legacy metering systems.

For consumers, there is going to be significant increase in amount of information and visualisation for consumers through Tendril Vantage, the consumer web portal and Tendril Insight, the interactive in-home display, including up-to-the minute demand response (DR) data and ambient conditions such as weather.

Also, there is one-touch demand response opt-out function, allowing consumers to easily and hassle-free override a DR event, and a multi-coloured screen with interactive backlights that prompt consumers of changes in consumption and DR events, and other features such as "compare to yesterday."

Plus, there will be addition of consumer-controlled and pre-packaged rules (such as home/away settings) to automate and regulate thermostats and other devices remotely via the web and mobile devices.