EPRI developed Ti, a robot capable of crawling over conductor shield wires and harvesting power from ambient energy sources to support autonomous, high-fidelity condition assessment.
Author Bio:
Dr. Andrew Phillips is director of Transmission and Substation Research at the Electric Power Research Institute. Phillips earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Managing Overhead Transmission Lines
The case for tighter coordination among transmission planners and protection engineers.
By Diwakar Tewari, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC)
Recent outages show the importance of proper transmission system design. As the grid becomes more complex, meeting NERC reliability standards and proper assessment of power grid reliability will require closer coordination between system planners and protection engineers.
Byline:
Ahmad Faruqui and Eric Shultz
It’s tempting to attribute the recent slowdown in electricity demand growth entirely to the Great Recession, but consumption growth rates have been declining for at least 50 years. The new normal rate of demand growth likely will be about half of its historic value, with demand rising by less than 1 percent per year. This market plateau calls for a new utility strategy.
Author Bio:
Ahmad Faruqui is a principal at The Brattle Group, and Eric Shultz is a research analyst. This article was revised from Faruqui’s presentation at the Goldman Sachs Power & Utility Conference on Aug. 14, 2012. The authors acknowledge research assistance by Jennifer Palmer.
Five forces are putting the squeeze on electricity consumption.
Byline:
Bruce W. Radford and Michael T. Burr
When Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led an attack on the federal Springfield Armory in January 1787—the spark that ignited the federalist movement—he scarcely could’ve guessed that now, 225 years later, his spiritual descendants would still be fighting that very same battle.
The jurisdictional battle rages on, with FERC and EPA squaring off against the states.
Byline:
David Hoppock and Sarah Adair
Ongoing litigation over EPA rules raises compliance risks and costs. North Carolina utilities, however, benefited from the state’s forward thinking.
Author Bio:
David Hoppock (david.hoppock@duke.edu) is a research analyst and Sarah Adair (sarah.adair@duke.edu) is an associate in research at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions in Durham, N.C.
Retrofitting early protected North Carolina ratepayers.
State commissions can select from a toolkit of regulatory approaches to promote desired utility cybersecurity behavior. One approach is to allow the industry to selfregulate, and another approach is to leave the job to the federal government. But sofar, neither the industry nor the federal government have developed and implemented adequate standards for securing the smart grid. States can play a constructive role—albeit perhaps not in the form of traditional regulation.
Author Bio:
Nancy Brockway is the principal of independent consultancy NBrockway & Associates. Previously she was a commissioner with the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, and served on commission staffs in Massachusetts and Maine before that. Brockway acknowledges the insightful help of Alison Silverstein, but retains sole responsibility for errors and opinions.
The regulator’s role in promoting cybersecurity for the smart grid.
Hardening SCADA Systems against Internet Threats
Chris Petersen, LogRhythm
The United States is the superpower of cyber warfare, but we aren’t alone in possessing these capabilities. Sophisticated attacks raise new concerns about utility vulnerabilities -- SCADA systems in particular.
Vegetation Management and FERC Compliance
Darin Sloan, DuPont Land Management
An integrated approach can trim the cost of keeping utility rights of way clean -- and green.
