Between the Poles

Canada plans to allow BVLOS drone operations in remote areas without a waiver

Canada plans to introduce in 2021 certification that would allow pilots to undertake beyond visual line of site (BVLOS) flights in isolated areas without the need for a waiver. This opens the possibility of more frequent, low cost inspection possibilities for transmission utilities with large stretches of line running through vast open areas or forest corridors.

Background

Transmission line inspections for vegetation management and other purposes are essential in ensuring grid reliability and resilience.  They are generally performed by manned helicopters or by a ground crew.  Data is collected with cameras and analyzed to detect diseased trees that could fall and hit a powerline (fall ins) or trees that were encroaching on power lines (grow ins).  These inspections are mandated by NERC in North America and are not optional.  Beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drones (UAVs) and software analytics using machine learning has made it possible to approach completely automating this expensive process.  Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has estimated that the reduction in cost with using an automated UAS compared to a helicopter inspection is between 55% and 28%. 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.

There are other important use cases as well including precision agriculture, public safety for search and rescue missions and delivery services to remote and rural communities.

Currently, there are two levels of drone pilot certification in Canada – basic and advanced – which roughly correspond to the FAA’s Part 107 waivers in the US. New rules for commercially operating UAVs in the U.S. were published in 2017 by the FAA as Part 107 of the Federal Aviation Regulations.  For non-standard flights, such as BVLOS missions, Canada require operators to acquire a Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC) which requires operators to fly their drones beyond visual line-of-sight in isolated areas outside of concentrated population centres and not near restricted airspace such as airports.  In addition there are special provisions for drones with onboard detect-and-avoid (DAA) solution which allows them to fly safely without human intervention even in populated areas.  For example, in March 2020 first approval for BVLOS drone flights was granted in Canada for Iris Automation’s Onboard Detect-and-Avoid technology.

However, Canada plans to introduce in 2021 a tier of certification that would allow pilots to undertake BVLOS flights in low-risk conditions without need for a waiver. This opens possibilities for transmission utilities with large stretches of line running through vast open areas or forest corridors.

Proposed routine BVLOS flights without a waiver

In January 2019, Transport Canada (TC) published new RPAS regulations for operations within visual line of sight (VLOS), and these regulations permit BVLOS operations under low-risk conditions with the issuance of a Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC). In April 2020 Transport Canada posted a new Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) to update Canadian regulations to allow for routine beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations in “Low Risk” environments. The proposed regulatory amendments would be the first of a series of steps towards allowing more routine BVLOS operations. These amendments will not address more complex and higher-risk BVLOS operations in populated areas. Higher risk BVLOS operations will be subject to a separate regulatory process at a later date.

This proposal aims to begin to unlock the potential for beyond visual line-of-sight operations in Canada. Specifically Transport Canada is proposing the following amendments for isolated areas.

• 250 g to 25 kg BVLOS operations in isolated areas; within 1km of an area with a population of more than 25 people per square km; over an area with a population density of more than 25 people per square km; and, in controlled airspace;
• 25 kg to 150 kg BVLOS operations in Isolated Areas, and within 1km of an area with a population of more than 25 people per square km; and,
• 150 kg to 650 kg BVLOS operations in Isolated Areas with a max altitude of 400 feet above ground level.
  

Growing gap in electric power infrastructure investment in the U.S. will decrease reliability and resilience of the grid

Last week the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released a new report in the Failure to Act series "Electric Infrastructure Investment Gaps in a Rapidly Changing Environment" that estimates the investment gap through 2039 for electric power infrastructure in the U.S. and assesses the impact of under investment in electric power infrastructure on the U.S. economy.  Modern economies are increasingly dependent on "chip technologies" powered by electricity. Recent projections suggest that ICT consumption of electricity could reach over 20% of total demand by 2030 with data centres consuming over a third of that.  It is estimated that the average cost of an outage at a data centre is about $8,851 for every minute the electricity grid is disrupted,

Background

Just about everything that we use daily from phones and the internet to water and wastewater rely on electric power. In addition as we reduce the carbon footprint of the economy, electric power becomes increasingly important because in most jurisdictions electric power has a low or decreasing carbon footprint compared to other sources of energy.

The U.S. electric power grid is composed of the bulk power system including large-scale generation facilities and the transmission network. 10,000 power plants comprise the generation capacity of the U.S., not including residential solar panels or small-scale wind farms.  More than 600,000 circuit miles of transmission lines, of which 240,000 are high-voltage, carry power from generation plants to the distribution nrtworks. An estimated 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines (including underground cables) carry the power to end users.

Increased ICT consumption of electricity

One of the sectors that is projected to consume an increasing share of the U.S. electricity supply is information and communications technology (ICT).  Currently it is estimated that the share of electric power consumption by ICT is between 5 and 9% of total power demand. Currently  ICT’s electricity consumption has plateaued.  Increasing load from growing Internet traffic and chip technologies has been balanced by increased efficiencies. But this may change in the next few years. Forecasts suggest that the total electricity demand by information and communications technology (ICT) will accelerate and that of the ICT pie data centres will take a larger slice. The chart shows an "expected case" projection which shows that ICT consumption of electricity could reach over 20% of total demand by 2030.  ICT requires a reliable and resilient power grid and will be one of the most important drivers to address the gap in investment in electric power.

A related aspect of the U.S. economy is a structural shift away from energy intensive industries such as heavy manufacturing. A measure of this is energy intensity which is the amount of energy that is required to produce one dollar of GDP.  In 1980 12,100 BTUs were required to create one dollar of GDP.  By 2014 this had declined to 6,100 BTUs per dollar. About 40 percent of the improvement in energy intensity was attributed to structural shifts, and the remainder to improved efficiency.

Gap in investment in electric power

Over the period 2011-2020 demand growth estimated at about 8% has been net with increased generation capacity. But for the period 2021-2040 the report projects increasing divergence between demand and capacity. If current trends are projected into the future the U.S. is facing a $208 billion (in 2019 dollars) shortfall by 2029 and a $338 billion shortfall by 2039 in what is needed to ensure a reliable energy system.  Most of this shortfall is attributed to under investment in generation and transmission. For transmission the largest challenge is not so much attracting investment in transmission, but that regulatory approval from all levels of government averages about 10 years for a new transmission line and can amount to 50% of the cost. Unlike Germany where the Bundesnetzagentur has national authority over long distance transmission lines, for bringing wind power from the North Sea to the south, for example, in the U.S. states are the top level regulatory authorities for transmission lines and a rule of thumb that has emerged is that to build a transmission line as rapidly as possible, don't cross state boundaries.  The demand for new transmission is exacerbated by the growing sources of renewable energy generation in the West that require new transmission lines to bring the power to the East and the Pacific Coast.

Impact on the economy

For consumers electricity system outages, voltage surges, and brownouts represent a direct cost to their households and businesses, and indirectly through impacts on the national economy. It is estimates that the cost to residential customers from each electric interruption event was $6.68 (2018 dollars).   This is about twice as high as it was five years earlier partly because or our increasing reliance on chip technologies in out daily lives.

When the grid fails businesses experience downtime, lost labour and productivity.  The report found that outages have the biggest impact in the manufacturing sector, costing almost $42,000 per event on average in 2008. As a result of the growing importance of ICT, data centres have become essential for many different industries. It is estimated that the average cost of an outage for a data centre increased from $505,000 in 2010 to $740,000 in 2016, or about $8,851 for every minute the electricity grid is disrupted.

Furthermore, disruptions to the grid add to costs and can result in U.S. manufactured products becoming less competitive in international markets. Between 2020 and 2039, it is estimated that the gap in investment in electric power will result in the loss of $271 billion in the value of U.S. exports.  In addition businesses and households will have to pay an additional $142 billion for foreign imports.

Chattanooga quantifies major benefits from smart grid investment

Chattanooga's power company Electric Power Board (EPB) is one of the most advanced with respect to adopting smart grid technology in North America. At HXGNLive in Las Vegas, Ken Jones reported quantified benefits that EPB has found from its investment in smart grid technology. These include 65% reduction in customer outages and 52% reduction in outage minutes and savings of $23 million in restoring outages after a recent severe storm.

About five years ago I first heard about the remarkable transformation of the power grid in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, a city with a population of about 180,000. With the help of the Department of Energy and other partners the local power company Electric Power Board (EPB) saw the smart grid as not only benefiting the utility and improving the quality of life of its cusomers, but also as a driver of economic development. Early on EPB decided to deploy one of the country’s highest capacity fiber-optic networks to improve power quality, reliability, customer service and energy efficiency. Chattanooga is one of the few municipalities anywhere with 10 Gbit/sec internet speeds for both urban and rural customers. Currently over 50% of EPB customers subscribe to the fiber service.  EPB has estimated that the incremental economic and social benefits of the high capacity backbone for Chattanooga lie between $865.3 million to $1.3 billion. Furthermore, somewhere between 2,832 and 5,228 jobs have been created linked to EPB's infrastructure investment.

In addition to the fiber backbone, EPB has installed 1400 automatic switches, an AMI management system, a distribution management system (DMS), and support for demand management (DM) and distributed energy (DRE).

At HxGNLive in Las Vegas Ken Jones of EPB presented some of the very impressive quantified benefits that EPB has realized as a result of these investments in fiber and smart grid technology.

Reliability

Reduction in customer outages	65%
Reduction in outage minutes	52%

Annual operating savings

Meter reading	$2.0 million
Field services	$0.7 million
Demand charges	$3.0 million

Environmental benefits (CO2 emissions reduction)

Reduced truck mileage	400 tons/year
Demand management kWh reduction	1000 tons/year
Power factor improvement	2000 tons/year

In addition EPB has developed a solar farm of 4,400 panels generating about 2 million kWh/year. Anyone can buy into this starting at just $5/month. Ken gave examples of local firms that completely offset their power usage with solar power.

One of the interesting steps that EPB has introduced to help customers monitor their power usage is a mobile app MyEPB. The app provides real-time energy usage and usage comparison by day, week, and month, real-time outage reporting for the EPB service territory, support for customers to report outages, and billing alerts, for example, notify me when my monthly bill reaches $50. To date there have been 30,000 downloads of MyEPB.

Progress of outage restoration after a recent storm showing areas automatically restored (violet) and manually restored (green)

An area where the investment in smart grid technology has realized a major savings is resilience. Ken presented a map showing the areas in the EPB service territory where power was automatically restored by the automated distribution switches after a recent severe summer storm. The outage and restoration statistics were equally impressive and showed that automation resulted in an estimated savings of $23 million for this storm.

	W/o automation	W/ automation	Difference	Improvement(%)
Customers with an outage	72,622	32,043	40,579	55.88%
Cost of all outages	$69.3 million	$46.1 million	$23.2 million	33.48 %
Outage minutes	16,986,240	12,059,524	4,926,716	29.00 %

One of the important steps that the EPB has taken with its partners is to implement a microgrid testbed at the Chattanooga airport comprising a solar farm, batteries and supporting infrastructure.  This is one of the few airports anywhere that is able function completely off the grid.

These quantified benefits provide tangible evidence of the benefits of smart grid technology deployment.  I would recommend that any power utility operating in a small to medium-sized city seriously consider the Chattanooga experience.

Automating vegetation management for electric power transmission lines using deep learning with LIDAR

With FAA rules permitting beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAVs available through Part 107 waivers the cost of capturing the data required for vegetation management for power lines, whether transmission or distribution, could drop dramatically.  However, manual post processing of the imagery to identify areas of vegetation encroachment, grow-ins and fall-ins, remains an error prone, tedious and time consuming process.  I have come across several firms (for example EPRI, SiteSee, Trimble RealWorks) over the years that have been working towards automating the process for identifying vegetation encroachments including grow-ins and fall-ins, but I have not encountered a utility that is using this technology operationally.  At Distributech 2019 in New Orleans I had a chance to chat with a startup Enview, based in San Francisco,  who described to me how their software has been implemented  over 7,000 miles of transmission lines last year to automate the identification of vegetation encroachment from LiDAR point clouds.  Furthermore, they expect the total distance covered to double this year.

Vegetation is a significant source of outages for many utilities. In some regions from one quarter to one half of all outages can be ascribed to vegetation.  Vegetation encroachment initiated the massive North American northeastern outage of 2003.  It is so critical for utility operations that utilities even have a vice president responsible for vegetation management.  It can be costly for utilities to identify areas of high risk vegetation encroachment which typically are carried out by manned helicopters.  Scheduling and routing crews to prune the trees that require attention is often sub-optimal adding to the cost of vegetation management.  Optimizing these processes can produce significant benefits in the form of fewer outages and reduced costs. I have blogged about Energisa in Brazil who used satellite stereo imagery to prioritize and optimize tree pruning and ComEd's pilot project in Chicago that uses LiDAR imagery to not only prioritize and optimize but also to change the pricing structure for procuring distribution tree trimming.

Enview applies machine learning, computer vision, and geospatial big data analytics to highly reliable feature extraction from LiDAR point clouds to identify the exact location, height and extent of trees and then to determine proximity to power lines and other utility equipment.  Utility GIS data can be integrated and results visualized using colour-coding to identify the level of risk for each tree.  This enables the utility to prioritize their tree trimming and optimize contractor routing.  In environmentally sensitive areas the visualization can be used to inform discussions with the various stakeholders responsible for different land uses.

At Distributech I had a chance to chat with Krassimir Piperkov, COO at Enview, who described how this technology has been deployed on more than 7,000 miles of infrastructure last year, and is on track to be deployed on over twice that much this year. He gave a very recent example of annual vegetation management analytics performed on 230kV transmission lines in California. These lines run through suburban and environmentally-sensitive, heavily forested areas.

3D visualization of a 230kV span (blue lines) with potential grow-in (yellow) and fall-in (red) vegetation that falls within client-determined clearance boundaries.

LIDAR data was acquired by a third party through a helicopter-mounted Teledyne Optech LiDAR sensor package. Four band imagery was co-collected during the LIDAR survey and registered into an orthomosaic of RGB and NIR bands. The data collection generated almost 2GB per linear mile. The Enview data analytics engine processed this data to (i) first classify the massive amounts of LiDAR data and (ii) then automatically calculate potential grow-in and fall-in vegetation points with high speed and accuracy. Insights and data were delivered to the operator not only via GIS-compatible file format for incorporation into existing workflows but also via an intuitive web portal accessible across silos. As a result of the superior accuracy and speed, the client was able to confidently prioritize vegetation prescription work to the areas that need it most and do so much sooner than otherwise possible with traditional methods.

The results being achieved with Enview's technology suggest that we are on the cusp of the widespread adoption and application of deep learning technology to automate specific tasks. The combination of UAVs for data collection and machine learning for feature extraction dramatically reduces the cost of inspections for utilities. This would permit them to be done more frequently than with manned aircraft and would lead to improvement in the reliability of above ground electric power and communications networks.

U.S. grid reliability has not changed 2013-2016

At Utility University at Distributech 2018 Joseph Nichols, a Project Manager at Burns and McDonnell, made the interesting case that over the period 2013 to 2016 there was a trend of increasing failure spend but decreasing performance in the U.S. electric power industry.

SAIDI is a statistic that regulators require utilities to provide that measures the average amount of time a customer is out of service during a year. It is used as a measure of  utilities' performance.  Usually extraordinary natural events like hurricanes, tornadoes, and major natural events are excluded from the statistics.  Joseph Nichols showed a graph of the SAIDI performance (excluding major natural events) for all U.S. utilities from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for 2013 to 2016.

What this graph reveals is that during a time of significant smart grid and distributed energy deployment, the average length of time that customers were without power has pretty much remained constant. (The statistics revealed a slight increase over the 2013-2016 period.) 

The good news revealed by the graph is that grid reliability has not dropped significantly with the transformation of the grid resulting from increasing distributed renewable energy, growing use of electric cars, the adoption of smart devices to monitor and manage voltage and other grid parameters, new consumer electronic devices, and the decentralization of the grid.  A paper written by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), entitled Energy Fact Check – The Impact of Renewables on Electricity Markets and Reliability, has argued that renewable energy sources have not eroded grid reliability.  Furthermore, the report argues that America’s biggest grid operators and reliability coordinators are reliably integrating large amounts of renewable energy today.  They have said that they are confident that they can integrate even more renewables without affecting grid reliability.

The not so good news is that the increased investment in smart devices such as self-healing networks, PMUs and reclosers, line voltage monitoring devices, smart meters and other smart grid technology has not improved grid reliability.

Revolution in the electric power industry: distributed energy and microgrids

Anne Pramaggiore, President and CEO of ComEd of Chicago, was the first at the Smart Gird Interoperability Panel 2016 Grid Modernization Summit in Washington DC to call the current business transformation that the electric power industry is experiencing a revolution.  But many other speakers agreed with this characterization.  Frequently mentioned were the regulatory and utility business transformations occurring in California and New York (REV).  Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was mentioned as an example of a utility that was aggressively driving change in the utility business model. 

Robert Wilhite of Navigant Research pointed out that their recent research had found that 90% of utilities recognize that utility business models have to change.  But there are different opinions about the urgency of this transformation.  Navigant found that about half believe that it has to happen immediately, while the remainder believe it can happen later. 

Of course none of this would be possible without the enabling technology of the smart grid.  Dave Velazguez, President and CEO of Pepco, now part of Exelon, recollected that the first smart grid development at Pepco, by no means a laggard in adopting new technology, occurred only a decade ago.

Distributed energy

Virtually every speaker singled out distributed energy (DER), especially solarPV, as the main motivating driver that is forcing the business transformation of the utility industry.   Originally seen as a response to a warming climate, solarPV has achieved grid parity in several parts of the country and is seen as a way of providing customers not only with a choice of a green energy source but increasingly as a less expensive alternative to the local utility.   The price drop has been so substantial that even at a time of unusually low natural gas prices that are responsible for closing many coal-fired generation plants solarPV is achieving grid parity in many parts of North America.  Another important contributor to the revolution is the electrification of transportation, not only EVs but also buses, rail and even trucks.  

But none of this could have happened without the enabling platform of the smart grid.   The conjunction of technological advances in packet switched wired and wireless communications networks, intelligent electronic devices underlies the DER advances that have created choice for customers.  As we have seen previously in other industries such as telecom consumers have grasped the opportunity and are now beginning to drive changes in the energy market.

Microgrids

Another topic that came up repeatedly was microgrids.  Duke Energy has been running microgrid pilot for several years from which emerged the OpenFMB standard with an OpenFMB working group to support the effort. ComEd has five microgrid pilots and is starting the country's first microgrid cluster.  Pepco has two microgrid projects underway.

At the Distributech 2016 and at this SGIP Summit an implementation of OpenFMB demonstrated live by Green Energy Corp.  It was also announced at the summit that the source code was now available for download from the openFMB.io site. 

In addition a number of vendors were offering solutions for managing microgrids including the KEPCO Consortium from Korea who has built a comprehensive microgrid solution.

Geospatial

Although this was not a geospatially-focussed conference, GIS and geospatial technology came up in several areas.

Chanda Visweswanah, an IBM fellow, outlined in three topics what the the challenge is in transforming the grid.  First, there are several trends that are behaving exponentially, the number of sensors, the volume of data, and renewable energy sources were among them.  Secondly, we are increasingly relying on intermittent energy sources like wind and solarPV.  Third, this is not you grandmother's software.  This is software that provides a platform that supports sophisticated mathematical algorithms.  One of the most important of these are algorithms that nowcast and forecast weather at a very high resolution so that it is possible to predict wind velocity not at ground level but at the elevation of the turbines and at the location of the wind farm.  Similarly for insolation for solarPV.  These wind and insolation maps are effectively are the generation forecast minutes and hours in advance.

The Kepco Consortium demonstrated the μ-Grid platform.  Kepco have already partnered with PowerStream in Ontario to provide a utility-scale microgrid.  Earlier this year PowerStream and Kepco officially launched a utility-scaled Microgrid, which has the capacity to provide several hours of backup power supply for approximately 400 customers residing or owning a business in Penetanguishene. The Microgrid is helping to reinforce the existing grid by increasing resiliency and operational flexibility.  The platform provides a GIS Studio which allows grid 35 types of power facilities such as transformers to be visulaized and edited on a map, either imagery form satellites or overflights or a topographic map.

Another application of geloocation is in the area of cybersecurity where location is used by advanced cybersecurity applications for verifying identity.

Distributed intelligence

Several speakers pointed out that the volume of data has simply become to large for a centralized IT system that collects all the data at a central control point where analysis and visualization is performed.  By pushing intelligence out into the field, it reduces the data volumes that have to be handled at the central station and reduces the data flow over the network. 

Standards

Orange Button

Based on the very successful Green Button program, an important standards initiative is Orange Button.  It was initiated by the Department of Energy (DOE) with the objective of making it easier for investment to flow into solar power by standardizing electronic reporting of solar installation performance.  Orange Button targets a reduction in soft costs by streamlining the collection, security, management, exchange, and monetizing of solar datasets across the value chain of solar. It is expected that creating an industry-driven standardized data landscape will facilitate the growth and expansion of distributed solar. As the solar market continues to expand, it is critical that the collection, management, and exchange of solar datasets – especially those that affect the bankability (ability to secure loans for solar installations) of solar assets – are coordinated and streamlined to protect consumers, increase efficient pricing, and support new and existing businesses entering the solar marketplace. In April of this year four awardees (kWh Analytics, National Renewable Energy Laboratory,  Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, and SunSpec Alliance) were announced by the Department of Energy that will collaborate on the overall goal to standardize the way solar data is collected and exchanged.  SGIP was chosen to lead the effort.

At SGIP the effort is being led and coordinated by Dixon Wright of Wells Fargo.  Dixon is the only person that I was aware of representing a financial institution at the SGIP event.  I think that the presence of a major financial player such as Wells Fargo is a strong indication that solar is moving into the big leagues of financing. Dixon is passionate about the Orange Button initiative and believes that once a draft standard and implementation becomes available and a few users champion it, it will catch on rapidly with the large financial institutions and the solar industry.

OpenFMB

In March 2015, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) formally kicked-off its OpenFMB effort to foster field interoperability drawing upon Duke Energy’s previous Coalition of the Willing I and Distributed Intelligence Platform work. By the 2015 SGIP Annual Conference in November, three microgrid use cases had been developed and demonstrated: optimization, unscheduled islanding, and grid reconnection.

In February 2016, the first OpenFMB reference implementation, utilizing SGIP’s microgrid use cases at Duke Energy’s Mount Holly microgrid test center, was demonstrated at the 2016 DistribuTECH Conference by Duke Energy’s Coalition of the Willing II (COW-II) vendor partners. For the annual SGIP Grid Modernization Summit in November 2016 the SGIP OpenFMB task force published a series of related foundational use cases that center on Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Circuit Segment Management for the active coordination of power systems equipment to DER, including a microgrid.  Green Energ Corp demonstrated an OpenFMB implementation connecting a solar PV installation with other equipment and applications.   This is an open source project and it was announced at the SGIP event that the source code is now available and can be downloaded from openfmb.io.  There is a free webinar replay "SGIP Grid Modernization Summit OpenFMB Demo Preview."  

Interoperability

Several speakers were on hand from the Department of Energy's Gris Modernization labs.  Since this was an SGIP event they focussed on the research underway at 13 Federal labs and 150 partner organizations that involves interoperability.  First of all research is underway to find a way to measure interoperability.  Secondly, there is an important initiative underwritten by several million dollars of financing to determine how to value interoperability.  If we can quantify the contribution it makes to business efficiencies by enhancing the opportunity for competitve products, by creating standards-based platforms that intelligent products from different vendors, whether smart meters, synchrophasors, reclosers, or substation components can plug and play with, that ultimately reduces prices for utilities, then it will be easier to justify and priorize greater investment  the standards and implementations that provide interoperability.

Next generation weather satellite will support nowcasting

As the electric power industry generates increasing amounts of renewable energy from intermittent sources such as wind and solar PV, the ability to nowcast radiance and wind velocity with km resolution up to 25 minutes in advance has become essential to balancing electricity demand and supply.  This is the newest area where geospatial technology (wind at different altitudes, radiance, and temperature mapping) November 4 of this year NOAA and NASA will launch the GOES-R geostationary weather satellite which will provide support for nowcasting across the continental U.S..

GOES-R's Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) will collect three times more data and provide four times better resolution and more than five times faster coverage than current GOES. The GOES-R series satellites will also carry the first lightning mapper flown from geostationary orbit. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper, or GLM, will map total lightning (in-cloud and cloud-to-ground) continuously over the Americas and adjacent ocean regions.  GOES-R will provide coverage over a 1000x1000km box with a temporal resolution of 30 seconds, and spatial resolution of 0.5 to 2 km. It will completely scan the continental U.S. every 5 minutes, providing coverage of the 5000km (E/W) and 3000km (N/S) rectangle over the United States.

The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) supports a wide range of capabilities relating to weather nowcasting and climate monitoring including aerosol detection and measurement, including smoke and dust, clear sky masks, properties of clouds and moisture, downward shortwave radiation,  fire/hot spot characterization, hurricane intensity estimation, land surface temperature, radiances, rainfall rate, reflected shortwave radiation, sea surface temperature, snow cover, total precipitable water, and volcanic ash properties.

GEOS-R enables “nowcasting” of severe storms across the continental United States. GOES-R will fly the first operational lightning mapper flown in geostationary orbit.  It will cover land and oceans. Total lightning (in-cloud, cloud-to-cloud, and cloud-to-ground) information from GOES-R will increase lead time for severe storm warnings because it will make it possible to observe areas of severe weather every 30-60 seconds. This will enable more reliable warnings and evacuations.

Smart energy for smart cities market to reach $20.9 billion by 2024

Urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon.  According to the World Bank, 54 percent of the world's population lives in urban areas today.  By 2045, the number of people living in cities will increase by 1.5 times to 6 billion, adding 2 billion more urban residents.  With more than 80 percent of global GDP generated in cities, urbanization can accelerate economic development, but it has to be managed in a way that decreases energy intensity (energy per unit of GDP).  

Smart city technology is becoming an essential element in the development of the world's megacities.  For example, the new Indian government's budget includes an allocation for initiating the development of 100 smart cities.  Songdo IDB in Korea and Fujisawa in Japan are two smart cities already under development. China has 36 smart cities in development and a low carbon model city in Tianjin.  Singapore plans to become a smart nation by 2015.  Iskandar is Malaysia's first smart city.  The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) incorporates smart city concepts. 

According to a recent report, the global smart cities market is forecasted to grow from $410 billion in 2014 to $1.1 trillion by 2019 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.5%.  This includes smart homes, intelligent building automation, energy management, smart health, smart education, smart water, smart transportation, smart security, and related services.  Most of this activity is expected to occur in Asia and the Middle East.

Technologies and trends such as smart cities, smart grids, sensor webs, the Internet of Things (IoT), facilities and asset management, indoor and outdoor navigation, energy performance modeling and real-time, “big data” analytics are important for urban planners.  In these technology domains, open standards encourage the sharing of information. The OGC Urban Planning Domain Working Group intends to discover requirements for open spatial standards in information systems involved in the planning, design, use, maintenance and governance of publicly accessible spaces.

According to the IPCC urban areas accounted for 67 – 76 % of energy use and 71 – 76 % of energy-related CO2 emissions in 2006.  Cities are going to have to adopt a leading role in transforming to efficient, non-carbon energy, if we are going to be able to achieve a sustainable level of economic development. 

In preparation for COP21 in Paris, all of the major developing nations have committed to decreases their energy intensity. For example, India has just released its commitments (INDC) to reducing emissions prior to the Paris COP meeting.  The challenge for India is tackling climate change while at the same time improving the standard of living of its third of a billion poor.

According to Navigant worldwide 96 cities that have committed to becoming 100% renewable.  These include Vancouver, Canada and San Francisco, California.  According to the annual ranking by the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) Vancouver is the world's fourth greenest city.  According to the GGEI the top three greenest cities are Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Stockholm.  The countries corresponding to these cities (Denmark, Netherlands, and Sweden) also rank high, in the top 5 country rankings.  Canada is 12th. The Nordic cities have achieved their high standing with the help of their respective national governments, whereas Vancouver has achieved its high green ranking on its own with little help from the federal government.  Two years ago the Dutch Ministry of the Interior initiated a joint project with the Municipal government of The Hague (Den Haag) to reduce and stabilize energy usage and costs in downtown Den Haag.  The study area is roughly about a square kilometer where the buildings are large and owned for the most part by the National and Municipal governments.

Most of the world's electric power utilities have adopted a smart grid strategy at some level.  This can involve distributed renewable energy (DER), reduced emissions from existing fossil fuel generation and various energy efficiency programs.   Navigant Research has just released a report that investigates the fundamental shift in the way cities manage energy and their relationship with electric power utilities.  It focusses on DER, demand management, EV vehicles and charging infrastructure and energy efficiency.   The major technology suppliers according to Navigant  are ABB, Accenture, AT&T, Cisco Systems, Hitachi, Huawei, Itron, Oracle, S&C Electric Company, SAP, Schneider Electric, Siemens, SSN, and Toshiba.

Navigant Research projects that the global smart energy for smart cities technology market will grow from $7.3 billion in annual revenue in 2015 to $20.9 billion by 2024.  That represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4%. 

It should be noted that this analysis does not include energy efficient buildings the market for which Navigant has estimated in a separate study to be $307.3 billion in 2014 growing to $623.0 billion in 2023.

Powering up the smart grid with geospatial technology

The electricity industry is undergoing a transformation. With utilities embracing geospatial technology and turning into data driven enterprises in the Smart Grid scenario, the sector is staring at an innovative future.

The National Academy of Engineering identifies the electric power grid as the first of 20 major engineering achievements that has had the greatest impact on the quality of life in the 20th Century. Modern society has reached a point where virtually every crucial economic and social function depends on the secure, reliable operation of electric power infrastructure.  But because it has become so crucial for modern life, it faces major challenges.
   
The major drivers for the fundamental change underway in the electric power industry are increasing demand, universal access, decarbonizing electric power, reducing revenue losses, and grid reliability and resilience.  Some of the  technologies that are contributing to this transformation are intelligent devices integrated with a communications network, distributed renewable power generation especially wind and solar PV, net zero energy buildings, microgrids, and the new remote sensing technologies of subsurface utility engineering.  

For an industry not known historically for rapid change, many utilities are in the midst of transforming themselves into data driven enterprises. Recently IDC published its future predictions for the development of the electric power industry over the period 2015-2018.  For many in the industry these are quite startling and clearly reflect an industry that is rapidly evolving.

The technology roadmap for the smart grid involves the deployment of increasing numbers of intelligent electronic devices for sensing and for control.  The challenge is federating the data from all of these devices, extracting information from it, and dispatching the information to the right control devices. 
 
With the changes that the electric power industry is undergoing now, analysts see geospatial technology poised to become a foundation technology for the smart grid.  The role of utility GIS is expected to touch every aspect of a utilities business, affecting customers, operations and management because geospatial is the logical technology that can provide  the basis for integrating data from intelligent electronic devices such as smart meters and the  information silos associated with proprietary applications.

You can read more about smart grid and relevance of geospatial data and technology, real-time big spatial data, standards for interoperability, the importance of data quality, open source geospatial technology,  spatial analytics and other aspects of the role of geospatial technology in the smart grid in Geospatial World.

The Integrated Grid: Integrating distributed power generation and new consumer devices into the grid

At the American Public Power Association (APPA) annual conference in Denver, Michael Howard, President and CEO at EPRI, gave an overview of the major challenged facing the electric power grid and a way forward based on what EPRI calls the integrated grid.

First of all we are going to see a lot of new devices.  Michael analyzed the rate of adoption of technologies such as electricity, refrigerators, telephone, radio, TV, the Internet, and mobile phones before and after 1977.   He found that the rate of adoption since 1977 is about 2x the rate prior to 1977.  (1977 is about 36 years ago about the same as 2050 is ahead of us.)

He also looked at the annual number of new patents a proxy for innovation.  He found that the rate of new patents in the US since 1977 is about 3.5 the rate prior to 1977.  Internationally it is even more dramatic, about 5x since 1977.

All of these devices will require electricity, and they are going to change electric power usage patterns just as air conditioning did in the past.  Digital devices require high quality power.  And as we depend on these devices more and more, we will require much higher level of reliability in our electric power system.

But things are going to change on the generation side too.  Currently the grid is comprised of large, central power plants interconnected via grids of transmission lines and distribution networks that feed power to customers.

But this is beginning to change with the rise of distributed energy resources (DER) such as small natural gas-fueled generators, combined heat and power plants, electricity storage, and solar photovoltaics (PV) on rooftops and in larger arrays connected to the distribution system.  DER already has had an impact on the operation of the electric power grid and its role is likely to become more important in the future.

Together the new consumer devices and increasing penetration of DER mean that in the future the grid is going to be less dispatchable, less forecastable, and more variable.

Looking forward, each new device will have its own demand profile.  For example, in the U.S. average household demand is about 5 kW, but after 6 pm it typically rises to 7 kW.  But the details are important.  When you turn on the air conditioning (AC), demand can rise to 25 kW for a part of a second.  How is the grid going to handle that kind of peak in the future ?  This means that we have to look not only at energy consumption (kWh), but also at demand (kW).  Some utilities are already looking at rate structures that are based on demand not just energy consumption.

Another issue is "hosting capacity" which refers to how much PV a feeder is able to accommodate without issues like overvoltage on the distribution system.  Last year something like 25% of power in Germany came from intermittent sources.  Smart inverters extend the hosting capacity.  Germany is currently replacing all of its inverters with advanced inverters for this reason.

The successful integration of DER depends on the existing electric power grid. The current grid, especially its distribution systems, was not designed to accommodate a high penetration of DER while sustaining high levels of electric quality and reliability. The technical characteristics of certain types of DER, such as variability and intermittency, are quite different from central power stations. To realize fully the value of distributed resources and to maintain standards of quality and reliability, is going to require that we think more holistically about the grid.  EPRI calls this the integrated grid.  Basically EPRI foresees a future grid architecture that will combine large central generation plants with distributed generation.

In EPRI's view to achieve this vision of the future of the grid will require

1. Grid modernization - intelligent devices and bidirectional communications
2. Communications standards and interconnection rules - interoperability, basically support for plug and play
3. Integrated planning and operations - we can't separate transmission and distribution, power consumer and power generator
4. Informed policies and regulations - we need to help legislators and regulators understand the issues and put in place reasonable legislation and regulations.

More details of EPRI's vision of the future grid can be found in the report The Integrated Grid: Realizing the Full Value of Central and Distributed Energy Resources.