Are
Utilities Ready for the Smart Grid?
Utilities must
change current cultural behaviors to embrace the technology and
learn from mistakes to deliver a smart grid that is viable to its
investors. |
Nirosha
Munasinghe
MBusIT BSc BE (Hons) (Melb)
Contributing Editor
|
The smart grid is
evolving at a rapid pace around the world. From
advance metering infrastructure deployments to sub station automation
the concept of the “Smart Grid” is becoming a reality. The underline
technology behind the smart grid is evolving such as cellular based
communication as the industry is learning from early deployments of the
technology. However are the utilities ready for such rapid
changes? This article examines the key change management
challenges the utilities face as they enter into the smart grid maze
and makes comparison with the challenges building management systems
faced as it transformed from analog systems to fully networked,
integrated, web-based systems.
Figure 1: Changing paradigm of the utilities industry
The utility industry has been a old slow growth industry since Thomas
Edison invented the electric bulb. A vertical hierarchy governs the
industry, with high resistance to change. The primary aim is to
maintain power on the grid and prevent outages. As long as this
objective is achieved it is business as usual. This culture has
instilled a resistance to change behavior in the industry. “We know
power, don’t tell us what to do”. With such attitude, utilities
are facing a major challenge of adapting to the concept of the smart grid
due to its dynamic nature and ever shifting environment. The concept of
information technology communication (ICT) managing the grid is
becoming cultural shock for people who have been in the industry for
long period.
Let’s rewind a decade and examine the transformation of the BAS
industry from a stand lone proprietary system to fully networked open
systems. The prime aim of the BAS was maintain the temperature of a
facility at a desired level to prevent complaints from its
stakeholders. As long as the users are satisfied with the temperature,
the facility manager completed key maintenance activities and it was
business as usual. Enter the world of open systems; integration
with networks, IT systems, web base systems and new open protocols. As
with the current utilities, for the typical facility, the changes
pushed away from their comfort zone. The resistance to change was
evident from the start, “It's too complicated” “Why do we need all this
technology, we only want to control temperature” “We don’t want to
integrate BAS with corporate IT”. These were common symptoms of
resistance to change.
How did BAS overcome these roadblocks? Time was a critical
factor. As the industry evolved continual knowledge empowerment on the
technology was instilled on the stakeholders injecting more confidence.
Continual means of educating and transferring knowledge became a common
agenda with conferences around the world. The process for
screening for staff also changed with BAS employing personel with IT
backgrounds rather than just purely on control systems. BAS has now begun to
share the benefits of an open and integrated system with its
stakeholders by exposing key data of a facility to its stakeholders.
Dashboards vendors have sprouted into the market over the last two years
with significant impact on the ultimate goal.
What can utilities learn from BAS to ride the wave of the smart grid
and implement a change management process to adjust to the dynamic
industry?
- Time: As with any major technological change, time
is a key for stakeholders to learn from, make mistakes, and enlighten
with the benefits. A clear example is in the BAS industry and how it has
endorsed the open protocol evolution. Over a decade we have seen open
protocols mature to the stage where almost every specification for BAS
clearly states the communication medium must the open.
- Education: Educating the stakeholders is a key for
them to embracing new technology. In the power industry it's not poles
and wires any more, as it integrates with information technology and
telecommunication industries. Continual education of stakeholders with
training programs, exposure to the technology to make them aware of
benefits of the technology is a key to changing the industry behavior.
The 9 am start 5 pm knock off culture of the utility industry must be
changed as the grid evolves. It has transformed from managing wires and
poles to managing a large complex 24/7 network that needs to be
operational 99.9% of time.
- Requirements: As with any new technology defining
clear requirements is a difficult task. The functional specification of
the technology is not clear to decision makers and ever evolving. The
smart grid fits into this category with ever changing products.
Therefore management of requirements is critical to prevent over blown
budgets. The smart grid vendor implement its product to theory,
the decision makers define a theoretical requirement but in reality the
requirement and feature are some where from the reality. Then
the vendors implement the feature again to fit to the reality, becoming
a cyclic process. This is great but the costs increase rapidly.
For example turning electricity supply on or off to household to a
vendor is a simple implementation where when the ‘on’ command is
received the relay contactor is closed or when the ‘off’ command is
received the relay contactor is opened. Simple! Not quite. What happens
if there is a person in the house who has a heart condition and has a
heart monitor which requires 24/7 electricity supply? What happens if
someone is in the middle of cooking? What happens if the remote off
command does not on turn off the supply? Therefore life safety factors,
convenience to the consumer and fault case scenario need to be
developed to facilitate all stakeholders of the technology.
- Fastest not the best: As utilities around the world
gear up to the smart grid evolution, it is always tempting to the
business to use the latest technology in rapid deployment time as a
showcase. However it is critical that utilities choose the
correct technology to its requirement and build a stable underlying
infrastructure before any rapid mass deployment. It is important with
any major issues that root causes are identified and resolved, rather than
bandaging the issue, before moving to the next phase. There will be immense
time pressures from investors of the smart grid project but
methodological troubleshooting mechanisms will save immense money in the
long term.
- Vendor verification: Don’t assume what the vendor
says is correct; verify and validate. The smart grid products are
in early stages and most of the developers are from an information
technology or telecommunication background. The functional
specifications to the products are developed from theory of the power
industry; hence in reality the functions do not align with what is required
in the real world. Therefore the utilities must validate the
functionality of the product before deployment. A clear
example in the BAS industry is where every vendor claims it has an OPEN
protocol based product. But what is OPEN? It needs to be validated and
verified to uncover the truth.
- Plan for the future: A goal of any smart grid
deployment is to clearly plan for the future. In the worst case,
in the BAS industry it is possible to remove a system from a building
and install a new system with bearable costs. However in the utility
industry where it is serving millions of homes, planning the future is key
its success. Once the underlying infrastructure is in place, there
is no going back. Therefore decision makers need to choose the
technology that will server for the next 100 years. For example when
choosing a platform for advance metering infrastructure, there are two
major communication mediums available in the market today; mesh or
cellular. Is a mesh network with a million nodes a viable solution in
another 25 years? Can it with stand the demands? The mesh technology
might seem visible today compared to cellular but a power of the cellular
communication must be highly considered for the future. The utilities
must leverage existing infrastructure with current expansion in the
telecommunication market with 3G, 4G, LTE etc… technology. Why
reinvent the wheel?
The utilities are inundated with various technology choices. It must
change the current cultural behaviors to embrace the technology and
learn from mistakes to deliver a smart grid that is viable to its
investors.
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