I had the opportunity to attend the Grid-Interop 2009 conference in Denver last week. It was eye-opening to see the state of development of the Smart Grid. I was there for only one day, and attended the tracks on Data Communications Technology & Communications Interoperability.
The first presenter, Bruce Renz from Renz Consulting, gave a presentation on Broadband over Power Lines, where they connected two stations 4.4 miles apart using BPL. BPL is promising as a way to connect power substations using existing powering, saving the expense of an alternate data channel. It was an excellent presentation, and I came away with two things. First, I was under the impression that BPL was much more developed than it was – this seemed like a state-of-the-art presentation, and it was presentation a single link over 4.4 miles. Second, will it work during a major fault, which is when one needs data connectivity the most?
The next presenters were all excellent, ranging from using the cable infrastructure for transmitting data from the home to the utilities (good idea, leverage existing infrastructure); to using low-power wireless to implement the Home Area Network (good idea, leverage existing technology and expertise); to incompatibilities between the needs of real-time, deterministic bandwidth for power system control and Internet Protocol implementation (controversial – there are ways to implement IP over deterministic networking technologies); to using IPv6 in the Smart Grid (good idea, though I’ve heard IPv6 is coming Real Soon Now for the past ten years).
In all, the sessions indicated some healthy debate about the best way to implement the Smart Grid. I am of the opinion that there will not be a single implementation technology, rather a number of technologies that will be applied for particular purposes. This will bring lots of innovation, market acceptance, and, yes some amount of confusion.
I also came away with the impression that the Smart Grid is much further from reality than I had initially thought – and I was already aware we were in the early stages of the Smart Grid. Also running through my mind is the cynical engineer question of whether the Smart Grid is just a bunch of hype…
During the afternoon last week were meetings of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), the NIST-sponsored activities for defining standards for the Smart Grid. I will report on these in my next post.
You need think about it. Despite the emails, the overwhelming evidence showing global warming is happening hasn’t changed.
“The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity,” Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don’t cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.
My comment was more on the state of Smart Grid development than on Global Warming.
I believe that there are compelling economic and national security reasons why we need to invest alternative / renewable energy, independent of Global Warming. This allows me, at least mentally, to avoid that particular controversy and charge full speed ahead on the Smart Grid.
Here’s a link on my feelings about climate change…