Aging Substations Put Grid Reliability at Risk
The energy landscape is clearly evolving, but most of the country’s aging substations have remained relatively unchanged. This is a problem because substations serve as hubs that connect supply with demand. With increasing pressure from such forces as the introduction of renewable energy sources into the grid, the expansion of electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure, and the proliferation of always-connected smart devices, our country’s subs are less effective hubs than they once were.
How to Modernize Substations
Most substations currently in operation use “high-latency, low-speed links” that are high on maintenance costs and low on cybersecurity effectiveness. According to my friends at Power Grid International, virtualization is the key to modernizing substations and reducing outages because this model utilizes artificial intelligence to enable remote, real time, centralized monitoring and maintenance.
The good news is that a 2-year collaboration between Crystal Group, SoCal Edison and Intel has developed a new substation virtualization platform that features faster data processing, enhanced remote operating ability, and increased resilience, security and redundancy.
This virtual concept uses a centralized management system as the hardware, and leverages software for all other functionality. The ‘software-heavy’ model can be expected to reduce both capital and operational costs, and in fact the collaborators have documented a whopping 70% reduction in O&M expenses in certain situations.
Unfortunately, while this new solution has the potential to improve performance while reducing costs, it may take a very long time to get to this point within the industry. Many (if not most) substations currently in operation were brought online decades ago, and human nature is such that we tend to be resistant to change. In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I think it will happen, but it will require a lot of time and money, not to mention a change in perceptions and attitudes. In fact, I think a widespread effort to modernize our nation’s substations is inevitable, but it certainly won’t be easy, and it definitely won’t happen as quickly as we’d like.
