Smart(er) Grid: Powering a Reliant, Resilient and Renewable Mix

All over the world, we rely on electricity and energy to power our homes, our workplaces and the organizations that are cornerstones to everyday activities—from grocery stores and restaurants to schools and hospitals.

This essential service is the foundation of daily life, but it’s undergoing a massive transformation as the world works to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, increase use of renewables and integrate digital technologies. This evolution promises to bring about a world where power is more sustainable, but the road to get there isn’t short or easy.

Let’s break this down. The rapid pace of advanced digital technology adoption is adding a new level of complexity to the entire power life cycle—from generation to transmission, followed by distribution. At the same time, more and more utilities are integrating renewables with traditional power sources like coal, nuclear and natural gas to meet sustainability requirements. In fact, electricity generation from renewable sources increased almost 7% globally in 2020 and is expected to grow by more than 8% in 2021, the fastest year-on-year growth since the 1970s.

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As the industry continues to advance, automation software and technology will help drive consistent and meaningful change that will enable advancements in reliability, resiliency and use of renewables.

Renewables

While no one disagrees that a shift to more renewable energy is the right thing to do, it requires a closer look at the impact on uninterrupted electricity generation to meet demand and ensure reliable grid management. Keeping the lights on is the unquestioned priority—yet there are significant challenges when moving from a centralized to a decentralized grid with more renewable and distributed energy resources (DERs) from rooftop solar panels, small-scale wind turbines, battery storage systems, microgrids and cogeneration plants in the electricity mix. In particular, renewable power fueled by variable sources is in short supply when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.

To help fast-track the shift to renewable electricity, the power network needs to balance the evolution from traditional, large physical facilities producing electricity from a single source like natural gas or coal to more renewable and distributed energy resources that can band together to form a “virtual” power plant of the future.

In addition, the energy landscape needs to overcome next-generation challenges associated with integrating renewables and DERs on the power network which includes more interconnection points and bidirectional power flows, both of which can contribute to grid instability. Adding to the complexity, energy consumers are becoming energy providers—for example, consumers who buy electricity from their local utility are also selling power from their solar panels or electric vehicle charging stations and putting it on the grid. These complex energy flows require innovation and investment in grid infrastructure and analytics.

Reliable + Resilient

Technologies exist today that allow power plants to tackle some of these generation and grid management hurdles. One of the biggest challenges is the ability to switch seamlessly between larger and smaller energy sources to model, aggregate, optimize and dispatch energy into an interconnected, centralized system. This interconnectivity and seamless integration are critical to safely and smartly provide predictable and reliable power at scale to the grid in real-time.

Centralized operations aggregate local, at-the-source control, enabling collaborative management of geographically dispersed facilities—from traditional power plants to solar plants, wind farms and microgrids—to optimize efficiency, increase reliability and availability, and lower costs across the power network.

“With powerful software and automation solutions, we see a future where renewable, reliable and resilient power is not just doable, but realized at scale across the world,” says Bob Yeager, president of Emerson’s Power and Water Solutions business.

Managing and predicting grid behavior is another challenge. Emerson’s sustainable grid solutions, comprised of OSI digital grid solutions and Ovation software and technology, turn data generated across the power network into actionable insights through real-time demand forecasting, operational visibility and analytics for more accurate decision-making. Technologies like wireless solutions, digital twin simulation, advanced control applications and analytics software enable utilities to optimize energy efficiency, dynamically model electricity production and more easily integrate renewables into the mix.

Emerson’s digital grid solutions are helping TenneT, a leading European electricity transmission operator that serves nearly 42 million people across the Netherlands and Germany, to balance its electricity supply and demand while incorporating more environmentally responsible energy sources.

The Golden Valley Electric Association’s Eva Creek wind farm, the largest in Alaska, turned to Emerson’s end-to-end solutions for its digital transformation project that contributed to a 65% reduction in operations and maintenance costs. The Ovation automation platform and OSI monarch software provide more accurate equipment diagnostics and analytics for forecasting and dispatch, helping achieve a more resilient and smarter power grid.

As power producers increasingly pursue more aggressive sustainability goals and better business results, they need ever more powerful analytics, automation technology and network management software to create a more intelligent, reliable and resilient power enterprise.