An Ignoble Experiment

2. Cybersecurity Act praised for coordination of critical infrastructure security

Oracle Utilities recently released research examining how North American electrical utilities are using increasing volumes of smart grid data. The research has revealed interesting results regarding how big data is affecting the utility workforce and their ability to effectively interpret smart grid data.

More utilities say they are completely prepared to deal with the big data influx, but most still grapple to manage, analyze and fully leverage the information, according to the research, in part because the necessary expertise is in short supply. Utilities report deficits in predictive analytics.

When asked if they believe their utility has a skills gap around smart grid data analytics or data science, 62 percent of utility executives surveyed said yes, while 7 percent were unsure. The research found that utilities in all phases of smart meter rollouts are equally as likely to experience a data analytics skills gap. Further, 58 percent of respondents who gave themselves a 9 or 10 in overall preparedness see a skills gap, revealing a real need for utilities to create an action plan for internal training, as well as collaborative models to derive immediate value.

"Most of the things they're doing around analytics today are the traditional types of things they've been doing all along, like looking at outage information, looking at asset management information, pretty much siloing the information that's generated from different operational areas," Guerry Waters, vice president of industry strategy, OracleUtilities, told Data Informed. "But the real value is from taking an enterprise point of view, looking at the data holistically. And then being able to make decisions, have better asset management, and look at how we can prevent failures of equipment by knowing when a piece of equipment is overloaded or operating above a specification."

To close the skills gap, utilities are combining training and hiring with packaged solutions and third parties. In fact, 90 percent say they are training their employees; 60 percent are hiring/building their internal capabilities; 45 percent are utilizing packaged solutions; and 30 percent are reaching out to third parties.

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Data dissection an issue for utilities

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By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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3. MISO creating smarter grid with PMUs

Yesterday, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the CyberSecurity Act of 2013 (S 1353), a bipartisan bill recognizing the importance of industry and government to secure cyberassets, and giving credence to the existing mandatory and enforceable cybersecurity standards that currently govern the electric and nuclear sectors. The bill builds on existing regulatory structures, leverages the progress being made under the Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Executive Order, and is another step toward fostering improved government-industry coordination to address the evolving cyberthreats to critical infrastructure.

"The bill covers several important policy elements of the cybersecurity ecosystem, specifically, the focus on public-private collaborations aimed at developing best practices, processes for protecting critical infrastructures from cyber threats and attacks and preparing our cyber warriors for their mission through education, training and certification," Elizabeth Hyman, CompTIA's vice president of public advocacy said. "S.1353 is an important step forward as it will create the solid framework that is necessary to address today's evolving and sophisticated cyberthreats. The bill directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as an authority in this area to 'protect individual privacy and civil liberties' as it develops best practices and processes for the critical infrastructure cybersecurity ecosystem."

The bill will also advance the education of stakeholders and awareness of the steps they can take in the cybersecurity ecosystem to protect against cyberthreats and attacks.

"Simple steps such as installing virus protection software and protecting passwords go a long way toward fostering a safe and protected cybersecurity ecosystem," Hyman said.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) praised the bill in a letter to its authors.

"Your bill recognizes that these important public-private partnerships already exist and provides further direction to enhancing critical infrastructure protection through voluntary practices, while ensuring no wasteful duplication or conflict," wrote Gerry Cauley, president and chief executive officer at NERC. "Finally, the bill recognizes the importance of working with international organizations and governments, which is helpful to the ERO's (Electric Reliability Organization) ongoing efforts as a North American organization working to secure an international, interconnected grid."

NERC admits that there is still a lot of work to be done, but says that the bill's recognition of current standards, ongoing information sharing efforts, and processes will allow it to work with public and private sector partners in a coordinated approach to advance critical infrastructure protection.

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- see the bill

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By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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4. Mexico's unprecedented smart grid opportunity

The Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) recently joined a small number of grid operators across the country, utilizing new synchrophasor technology. MISO is using the technology in its real-time system operations for grid monitoring and analysis, and furthering the U.S. Department of Energy's goal of revitalizing the nation's electric grid through the use of sophisticated, innovative monitoring devices.

In 2010, MISO received a $17.25 million as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Smart Grid Investment Grant awards to fund the development and deployment of phasor measurement units (PMU). MISO's synchrophasor technologies use PMUs to collect data from more than 344 installed devices, 30 times per second compared to traditional technology which records measurements every four seconds. The data is GPS time-stamped, enabling measurements from different locations to be time-synchronized and combined to create a detailed, comprehensive wide-area assessment of system conditions. With this data MISO can better detect, diagnose and prevent system disruptions, in effect, creating a smarter grid.

"Incorporating these new technologies into real-time operations greatly increases our situational awareness of grid activity, and is essential to our effort to modernize the grid. Synchrophasor technologies provide us with unprecedented data on situations that could radically affect reliability," said Richard Doying, MISO executive vice president of operations and corporate services. "With these devices, we've extended our ability to see ongoing system conditions, providing additional assurance that consumers are benefiting from improved reliability and predictability."

Synchrophasors provide immediate value by enhancing MISO's ability to simulate and troubleshoot the bulk power system, bringing a new level of situational awareness to grid operators. With synchrophasors, MISO's system operators now view vital voltage and current measurements at any one of hundreds of strategic points along the interconnected transmission network at a level that was previously impossible to reach.

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By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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5. China's smart grid driving SCADA systems

Mexico is poised to become a major smart grid market over the next decade. Zpryme's research indicates that Mexico's smart grid technology market will grow from $1.23 billion in 2012 to $7.42 billion in 2020, according to research from Zpryme, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 percent and representing an attractive regional opportunity in a large market poised for aggressive investment to modernize their power grid.

Credit: Zpryme

The 25 percent CAGR indicates that Mexico is poised for a long cycle of sustained growth. This is a healthy environment for centralized planning, and if the levers for investment and policy change can keep pace with the growing need for energy, Mexico will serve as a model for other countries to follow for rapid and environmentally responsible modernization efforts, according to Zpryme.

Currently, however, Mexico faces problems such as power outages, electrical theft, and poor energy infrastructure, not unlike many Latin American countries, providing an unprecedented opportunity for Mexico to improve both functionally and economically with smart grid technology.

Currently, Mexico's electricity market is federally owned, with the Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad or CFE) essentially controlling the whole sector. This level of control has stifled innovation to date, but Zpryme believes things will change with broader participation coming from the private sector.

Private power generation in Mexico is done on a self-supply basis, where players can only generate electricity for their own consumption, and can only sell excess electricity back to CFE. As modernization advances, private power producers will have new opportunities, thus bringing more secondary buyers into the market for smart grid technologies.

Zpryme concludes that these and other positive opportunities will drive overall growth for Mexico due to the confluence of several trends, including forward-thinking energy policies designed to raise the country's international competitiveness which entail the integration of renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainability goals into broader programs driven by smart grid initiatives.

Initially, smart grid investment will be led by AMI, and as these deployments create a foundation for modernization, new growth will be driven by distributed automation and grid scale energy storage. Similar patterns are likely to unfold across Latin America, Zpryme predicts.

For more:
- see this report

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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