The Need of the Hour: Modernization of Grids

Equipping and modernizing grids with both software and hardware is monumental to keeping pace with the changing global market. International Energy Outlook reports the energy consumption of the world will increase by 28 percent before 2040. Also, what can raise more concerns is the fact that the prevailing electrical grids across the globe are incompatible with such a drastic change. Thus the only way to keep things going is to modernize the grids in use with technological innovations.

The key tech advancements that will be crucial are as follows:

Grid resiliency can be improved extensively with the help of microgrids. It empowers utilities to manage energy from diverse power sources, increases efficiency and lowers costs of operation.

Advanced Distribution Management System helps utilities manage the elevating challenges encircling the distributed generation such as open circuit overvoltage.

IoT devices and cloud-based data management platforms will be paramount to building grids in the future. Proper gathering of real-time data and its analysis will boost the balance of supply and demand efficiency, productivity and optimization of the grid. This will help grid operators identify and manage operational and non-operational data.

Grid resiliency is trending but utilities are not being able to implement it largely due to lack of financial and skill resources. But leveraging feeder automation models can provide significant benefits to the utility companies.