THE SMART GRID
Introduction
The American Society of Civil Engineers suggests that the United States will need to invest $1.5 trillion into the current electric grid by 2030. This same group also gave the US a “D” rating for the current grids infrastructure. The US received this rating because the current grid is outdated and inefficient compared to what is available. The US desperately needs to upgrade the grid to become compatible with the new technologies and maximize efficient transportation of electricity. Many deem this upgrade critical; the question however, has been, when? Many have supported this upgrade because it enables the addition of more technological advances and the mass incorporation of renewable energy resources into the grid. Others oppose the smart grid upgrade because of its estimated cost. It will not be a cheap project and will be a major strain on an already struggling economy. They all agree though, that this technology will need to be implemented at some point in time.
Explanation
The electricity grid is the term for the network of power lines, transformers, and any other tool required for the transportation of electricity to the consumer’s house. The current grid relies upon the workers to collect the data needed and report back to the engineers and overseers who then instruct how to maintain the grid. Now, in the computer age, the smart grid has been made possible. The smart grid is similar in concept to a smartphone. Smartphones are run by powerful computers that provide the maximum efficiency possible to give the phone more features and run faster. This is what the smart grid can do; it maximizes grid efficiency and makes it compatible with newer technologies. The smart grid incorporates two-way comm...
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...o enact these upgrades are as dramatically high as the benefits. The question still remains whether the US economy can fiscally support this upgrade. If so, there should be no reason to stall the upgrade, it will need to be done eventually and might be even more expensive in the future.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABB Inc. “Energy Efficiency in the Power Grid.” ABB Inc., 2007. http://www04.abb.com/global/seitp/seitp202.nsf/c71c66c1f02e6575c125711f004660e6/64cee3203250d1b7c12572c8003b2b48/$FILE/Energy+efficiency+in+the+power+grid.pdf.
American Society of Civil Engineers, “2009 Report Card for Americas Infrastructure,” March 25, 2009, 4.
Palmer, Roxanne. “Solar Power’s Growing Pains In Sunny Hawaii, Cloudy Germany.” International Business Times, December 23, 2013. http://www.ibtimes.com/solar-power-growing-pains-how-will-hawaii-germany-cope-boom-alternative-energy-1518702.
While DST’s conserves energy used to power businesses and industries, it is offset by an increased use of electricity from residential areas.
University, J. K. (2013). Case 2 The Solar Feeder. In Business Policies and Strategies (pp. 331-341). McGraw Hill .
Greater shift towards smart grids, smart metering and building automation: Smart grids helps in intelligent distribution resulting in minimal losses whereas measurement and reporting of consumption in real time is achieved by smart meters.
Automation is a step beyond mechanization, Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in production of goods and services. Where mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly decreases the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily life. Automatic systems are being preferred over manual system. Through this project we have tried to show automatic control of a house as a result of which power is saved to some extent. The Global System for Mobile Communications
Instilling this new way of energy usage into off-grid communities will inevitably increase the state of living for those in cities and other well-populated areas. The change to renewable energy sources could drastically lower the pollutants currently being dispersed into the atmosphere by coal mines and other harmful power options, increasing the supply of renewable energy would allow us to replace carbon-intensive energy sources and significantly reduce U.S. global warming emissions. a 25 percent by 2025 national renewable electricity standard would lower power plant CO2 emissions 277 million metric tons annually by 2025—the equivalent of the annual output from 70 typical (600 MW) new coal plants (“Benefits of Renewable Energy Use”). Electricity production accounts for more than one-third of U.S. global warming emissions, with the majority generated by coal-fired power plants.
"Changing Sun, Changing Climate." Changing Sun, Changing Climate. N.p., Feb. 2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
The challenges that will be faced are the fact that many countries are already producing their own solar energy and storing it as well using it within the grid system that is already established. It’s called harnessing the energy. The main grid systems are aware of the energy that can be produced and in large countries are encouraging solar power for homes and businesses, solar energy is definitely the way of the future. In Burnaby for example if a home owner installs solar panels on their home and does not use all the power produced, the left over energy will go to BC Hydro the home owner will then receive a cheque for the extra energy Hydro is still hooked up to your home and monitors your consumption.
Palmieri, Nancy. “Off the Grid or on, Solar and Wind Power Gain.” USA Today 12 April 2006. Print.
Jones,J. (2013). Alberta Losing No Sleep over Wind Power. Globe and Mail. Available online: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/breakthrough/albertans-losing-no-sleep-over-wind-power/article14743121/
The future of the United States solar energy industry will be shaped not only by economic growth, but also by the rate of declining oil resources and the global realization of the consequences of human induced climate change. Political responses to this realization in the United States include; new policies, legislature, and tax incentives to both businesses and private households to promote growth and investment in the solar power industry.
At present we are facing many problems in our cities such as structural health of buildings, waste management, air and noise pollution, energy consumption and traffic congestion. Our goal is to monitor these problems and provide a solution. By using an IOT, monitoring becomes quite easy as from anywhere we can monitor it. In our project, we will work on problems of waste management, air and noise pollution, street lighting and make a city “The Smart City”. The Internet of Things (IOT) is a system of interconnected computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
Analogous to the way humans use the Internet, devices will be the main users in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Therefore, device-to-device (D2D) communication is expected to be an intrinsic part of the IoT. Devices will communicate with each other autonomously without any centralized control and collaborate to gather, share, and forward information in a multihop manner. (Bello and Zeadally, 2014). The word Smart is used in conjunction with various words such as Living, Cities, Metering, Grids, Water Levy and Lighting to describe a variety of applications t...
Neubacher, Alexander, and Catalina Schröder. "The Move to Renewables: German'ys Nuclear Phase-Out Brings Unexpected Costs." Der Spiegel, June 06, 2012. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-nuclear-phase-out-brings-unexpected-costs-to-consumers-a-837007.html (accessed March 27, 2014).
Restoring and Improving Urban Infrastructure - Engineering Challenges. " EngineeringChallenges.org -. National Academy of Science, 2012. Web. The Web.
The world that we live into today affords us the expectation that the flip a switch will turn the lights on. As populations increase and developing nations undergo dramatic economic growth, this energy demand will only continue to grow. The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that “the world’s energy needs could be 50% higher in 2030 than they are today” (ElBaradei). Given this projected growth, it is necessary for world leaders must take action to secure the energy supply. Meaning that world leaders need to start seriously considering an alternative to non-renewable energy sources. “In 2012, the United States generated about 4,054 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. About 68% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuel (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), with 37% attributed from coal” (U.S. Energy Information Administration). The fossil fuels that are used to supply over half of our country’s energy are in finite supply and are increasing in price to astronomical heights.