Between the Poles: Microgrid technology might have prevented the Fukushima Daiichi disaster

Geoff Zeiss

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Gene Roe's laser scanning industry news
Open Source Geospatial Foundation OSGEO
OSGeo was created to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software and promote its widespread use
Proven guidelines for reducing underground infrastructure damage at airports, university, industrial, and commercial campuses, and towns
There are proven measures that an administration, owner, or municipal government responsible for an airport, university, industrial or commercial campus, or town can undertake to reduce the risk of underground utility damage, the associated disruptions to operations and business and the danger for workers and the public.
Sharing information about the location of underground utilities
The U.S. devotes an estimated $10 billion annually to locating underground infrastructure. Every construction project requiring excavation involves significant efforts in locating underground utilities prior to and during construction to reduce the risk of injuries and unexpected project delays. But this information is rarely shared and the location of underground infrastructure is recaptured over and over again. There are successful examples around the world where municipal and regional governments have helped enable a shared underground utility network database.
Growing evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction
Building information modeling (BIM) has been applied to design-build construction projects for many years. A growing number of countries are mandating BIM for public projects. While the UK government has said that "...we know that the largest prize for BIM lies in the operational stages of the project life-cycle", until recently there has not been hard data to support this conjecture. Similarly there has been only anecdotal support for an integrated BIM and geospatial approach for design, build, operate and maintain projects. Now we are beginning to see data from real world projects that offer evidence for the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.
Progress in geospatial, civil, and BIM interoperability promises efficient workflows for infrastructure
The BIM and geospatial interoperability challenge is the latest symptom of the broader problem of integrating AEC and geospatial workflows, that has contributed to low productivity in the construction sector. After the announcement about a year ago by Jack Dangermond and Andrew Anagnost of a new relationship to build a bridge between Autodesk and ESRI technologies, I thought it a good time to review progress toward interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds.
Geography2050: Accurate location information about underground infrastructure is essential for powering our future planet
I thought it would be worth while to include here a talk I gave at GEOGRAPHY 2050 Powering Our Future Planet at Columbia University in New York about the importance of accurate location information about underground infrastructure for the future development of the energy grid. With some notable exceptions accurately recording the location of subsurface infrastructure including oil, gas, electric power and other energy infrastructure is ignored - perhaps this is a case of out-of-sight is indeed out-of-mind. The reality is that knowing the location of underground energy infrastructure is critical for national security, for disaster planning and management, for public safety and for economic efficiency. Everyone is aware of at least one disaster resulting from or exacerbated by not knowing where our energy infrastructure is - the explosions in San Bruno in California (2010) and Belgium (2004) immediately come to mind.
Deep learning enables automated extraction of building footprints and road networks from satellite imagery
Automated feature extraction from satellite imagery has made major progress in the last year. Accurate building footprints extracted from high resolution satellite imagery are becoming available from companies such as Ecopia, which has just announced a partnership with DigitalGlobe, whose satellites are capable of 30 cm (approximately one foot) resolution. Also NVIDIA has demonstrated the ability to automate detection of many road networks using sophisticated algorithms and multi-spectral high resolution imagery.
BIM + geospatial interoperability would avoid another CAD + GIS quagmire
A specific challenge currently facing the AEC and geospatial industries is integrating building information models (BIM) and geospatial infrastructure and building models. There are parallels between what happened in the 1990s in unsuccessfully addressing CAD+GIS interoperability and the current challenge of BIM+geospatial interoperability. But there are also important differences which provide grounds for optimism that the availability of both BIM and geospatial standards, a vibrant open source geospatial community, and a new willingness on the part of major software players in the BIM and geospatial industries will make it possible to successfully address the latest interoperability challenge facing the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) and geospatial industries.
BVLOS drones improve power line inspections amid increasing fire and storm risks for utilities | Utility Dive
Transmission line inspections for vegetation management and other purposes are essential in ensuring grid reliability and resilience. We saw the devastating effect of vegetation encroachment in the recent California fires, which in part have been blamed on failure to maintain properly cleared transmission lines. With drones that can cover great distances in a single flight and provide detailed and accurate aerial imagery of transmission lines and other infrastructure, it is now possible to almost completely automate this expensive process. Automating transmission line inspections for vegetation management using BVLOS drones not only saves money, but also could improve the resiliency and reliability of the transmission grid.

« EPRI's Smart Grid Demonstration Project reveals value of volt-var control | Main | Building optimization market expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2024 »

March 30, 2015

Microgrid technology might have prevented the Fukushima Daiichi disaster

As readers of this blog might remember, I began following the Fukushima Daiichi and Daiini events as they unfolded starting on March 11, 2011. The disaster at Fukushima Daiichi occurred because of the lack of external power to the plant to keep cooling processes operating. While external power was restored to Fukushima Daiini within hours preventing a major disaster at that plant, it took weeks to restore external power to Fukushima Daiichi.

Microgrids might be a way to help prevent this kind of disaster in the future. Navigant Research has just released a report on what it calls Community Resilience Microgrids (CRMs) which Navigant defines as microgrids that provide emergency power services to communities rather than private sector end users, national security critical infrastructure assets such as military bases, or for overall grid reliability. The focus in the Navigant report is on microgrids for resilence and community. Another differentiator is that the CRM segment is being stimulated by specific government programs that are providing funding and regulatory support. The Navigant research is centered on recent programs and projects specifically linked to resilience in communities in light of recent natural and man-made disasters such as Hurricane Sandy in the United States and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan.

CRMs are an interesting segment of the microgrid market. Navigant's perspective is that CRMs represents an emerging market opportunity, but that there are important challenges including regulatory inhibitors and an uncertain business model. Communities are interested in CRMs because for energy resilience they represent an alternative to their local utility. Utilities may perceive CRMs as a threat because they potentially could mean losing customers and revenue.

Navigant forecasts that the CRM "implementation revenue", which will amount to about $160 million in 2015, will reach $1.4 billion by 2024. The United States currently leads in terms of policy and technology innovation, but Navigant projects that the Asia Pacific region will become the largest market share due to government programs in place in Japan and China. By 2024 Asia Pacific is projected to be roughly half of the total CRM market.

Posted at 11:30 AM in Electric Power, Fukushima Nuclear Incidents, Microgrid | Permalink

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Between the Poles

Geoff Zeiss

July 2023

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March 30, 2015

Microgrid technology might have prevented the Fukushima Daiichi disaster

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