LVXXU

Chapter III: Modernizing the Electric Grid
Emerging technologies on the distribution grid (whether digital communications, sensors, control systems,
digital “smart” meters, distributed energy resources, greater customer engagement, etc.) present both technical
and policy challenges and opportunities for the delivery of energy services. Power grids evolved organically in
a bottom-up manner, as opposed to a centrally coordinated master plan. This build-up has led to large-scale
legacy investments that require significant operating margins to maintain system stability, as opposed to more
refined margins enabled by the rapid and precise control offered by new and emerging technologies.
These changes have injected uncertainties into a utility business model that typically has relied on continued
load growth, steady economic returns, and long payback horizons. 41 While regulators, utilities, and the Federal
Government are all engaged in addressing these uncertainties, developing appropriate rate structures for
the benefits these technologies provide to the customer and the grid can be difficult, resulting in either overinvestment
or under-investment and higher costs to consumers.
Another key element in the development and use of information technologies on the grid relates to network
coordination. The grid of the future would benefit from overall network architectures that allow for specific
grid elements to be aligned in ways that allow them to contribute to solving problems that affect multiple grid
components. Whole-grid coordination, in which these distributed elements are made to cooperate to solve
a common problem (i.e., overall grid stability), is a key challenge and opportunity for new information and
network technologies and approaches.
There are many other opportunities to infuse advanced technology into key operating elements of the grid.
Some notable opportunities are shown in Table 3-1.
Table 3-1. Examples of Key Technologies for the Grid of the Future 42
Grid Component/Opportunity
AC/DC power flow controllers/converters
Advanced multi-mode optimizing controls
Bilaterally fast storage
Control frameworks
Management of meta-data, including network
models
Synchronized distribution sensing
Transactive buildings
“X”-to-grid interface and integration
Distribution System Operation
Description
Technologies that adjust power flow at a more detailed and granular level
than simple switching.
Controls capable of integrating multiple objectives and operating over longer
time horizons, to replace simple manual and tuning controls, or controls that
operate based only on conditions at single points in time.
Energy storage in which charge and discharge rates are equally fast and thus
more flexible.
New hybrid centralized/distributed control elements and approaches.
New tools for obtaining, managing, and distributing grid meta-data, including
electric network models.
Synchronization of measurements in order to provide more accurate snapshots
of what is happening on the grid.
Buildings with controls and interfaces that connect and coordinate with grid
operations in whole-grid coordination frameworks.
Interface technologies, tools, and standards for the general connection
of energy devices to power grids; includes integrated mechanisms for
coordinating those devices with grid operations in whole-grid coordination
frameworks.
Structure for clear responsibility for distributed reliability.
Innovation will introduce new grid components that are increasingly digitized, can provide new services for customers and grid operators, and
continue to produce and reliably deliver affordable electricity to customers.
3-14 QER Report: Energy Transmission, Storage, and Distribution Infrastructure | April 2015