Did you call your electrical utility supplier?

There are three overarching technical goals that engineers use to design and maintain the power grid. The first one is power quality. Our electrical devices and equipment are designed assuming that the power coming from the grid has certain parameters, mainly that the voltage and frequency are correct and stable. Some devices count the oscillations in the AC grid power to keep track of time, so it’s critical that the grid frequency doesn’t deviate. 

Changes in the voltage can lead to brownouts or surges that damage connected equipment. One of the benefits of a large power grid is electrical inertia. All of the huge spinning generators when connected together, provides momentum which smooths out the ripples and spikes that can occur from equipment faults or quickly changing electrical loads. 

The next technical goal of the grid is reliability. If like most people, you take that constant availability of power for granted, that’s by design. Much of the grid’s complexity comes from how we manage faults and provide redundancy so that you are rarely faced with blackout conditions. It’s another inherent benefit of a grid, that electricity can be re-routed when a piece of equipment is out-of-service, whether it was planned or otherwise. 

The final goal of the power grid is to simply ensure that supply meets demand. Power production and consumption happen on a real-time basis. If it's plugged in, the energy needed to produce the light on the screen which you are reading this article on right now, was previously a drop of water in a turbine or a breeze across a windmill microseconds ago. By the way, did you call your utility company and let them know that you were going to turn on your computer or phone? I am willing to bet you didn’t, which means not only did they have to adjust their production to match the extra load, but they had to do it immediately without any warning whatsoever! 

In today’s society we are seeing an increased complexity of supply and demand. Instead of guesstimating the security of supply, we can utilise clever models that predicts in advance how the power grid will perform. European Energy regulations clearly states that in 2027 there should be a method to continuously predict the status of the power grid. ( ref. Microsoft Word - BoR83-04.2_20190528 ACER Decision on CSAM - Annex I (europa.eu)) 

Our Promaps Technology (Grid Reliability - Promaps | Vysus Group) has over a decade of experience in developing solutions to solve the challenges we are facing. The user of the application can monitor and predict disruption in electricity grid systems with advanced real-time risk calculations.  

If you would like to find out more please contact Robert Nyiredy, VP Risk Management Consulting.