Many people assume the Smart Grid is a revolutionary change to the operation of the electric grid. In reality, it is an incremental step in the long evolution of adding automation to the electric grid ...

Many U.S. utilities have completed, or are nearing completion of, their Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Meter Data Management System (MDMS) rollouts. With these implementations completing, ...

“Energy efficiency” is the latest buzz phrase since the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT) was signed in August. Both short- and long-term projections indicate the era of "cheap energy" is gone in ...

Successfully implementing Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) capabilities and related Meter Data Management Systems (MDMS) is even more challenging than a typical utility project. While AMI systems ...

To improve emergency response operations, utilities across the United States and Canada are increasingly adopting the Incident Command System (ICS). Given what appears to be the increasing severity of ...

For decades, asset decommissioning has been relegated to afterthought status in many industries, including utilities. Instead, businesses have focused their attention on bringing new projects online ...

Integrating components for substation automation at a handful of substations can be achieved with custom fit solutions for each integration effort. Automation of dozens of substations, on the other ...

Ever wondered how much electric energy the world consumes or how much energy is lost on its way from power plants to end user customers? Have you wondered how much energy could be saved or greenhouse ...

Loading capability of power transformers is limited mainly by winding temperature. As part of acceptance tests on new units, the temperature rise test is intended to demonstrate that, at full load and ...

An Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system is comprised of a large volume of assets which include meters, modules, network communications infrastructure, and may also include remote ...

A system can only ever be as ‘smart’ as its design. Achieving a ‘smart grid,’ therefore, depends on system designers having access to tools capable of assessing system reliability under an evolving ...

In recent years the number of cyberattacks directed at energy installations, including power utilities has increased dramatically. I discussed this in my article ‘Securing Utilities from Cyberattacks ...