From the boardroom to the bedroom (almost)

Automating the self-operating, self-healing grid

“Utilities have to be able to reverse the flow of information and inform customers of their usage and service-impacting events”
-Warren Westrup, AT&T

Automating the self-operating, self-healing grid
The smart grid will require sophisticated enterprise-wide digital communications to enable the rapid transfer of data between monitoring devices, smart meters and in-home gateways with utility back-office systems and to the boardrooms where critical decisions will be made. Utilities have embraced service-oriented architecture (SOA), as a means of linking their various enterprise systems. SOA-enabled systems are easily linked over IP, which is capable of operating over existing cellular wireless systems. Wireless communications are becoming more prevalent in linking disparate systems from the home, through the distribution systems, to substations, control rooms and beyond to the utility’s SOA decision systems. Utility communications of the future will interface even more so with a wide range of systems, some of them owned by the utilities and others owned and provided by carriers such as AT&T.

The following chart shows one view of how the Smart Grid is a subset of the entire utility enterprise and how it is linked to the boardroom by various increasingly intelligent systems.

Reading the chart above from the top down, utility leadership will need vital information to assess business performance and the utility’s communications network will play a critical role  in this process. This vital information\communications network must provide data in real time and must provide the necessary information to all of the utility’s “back office” decision systems and decision makers. For example, there must be information in a customer information system tracking what level of demand response a customer has agreed to, payments due to customers for curtailments, etc.

Utilities will also have to be able to reverse the flow of information and inform customers of their usage and service-impacting events, which means customers need to receive this real-time information on in-home displays which implies two-way communications to the home.
 
The distribution grid itself will have to become much more automated, self-healing, and self-operating through the use of artificial and learned intelligence. Traditional SCADA will become more capable, and the data collected will have to be pushed further into various utility departments that have not dealt with such massive amounts of real-time data.

Demands on utilities’ communications infrastructure
In the past, utilities typically owned most of their communications systems.  Field service was handled through proprietary wireless systems. Often these systems in their current form are obsolete and upgrading them is either difficult, expensive or not an option. Furthermore due to their proprietary nature interoperability, which is seemingly an important feature of a national smart grid, is at risk.

As the deployment of smart meters and other monitoring devices on the Smart Grid become more widespread, they will have to be controlled and managed. Bandwidth and latency factors will also have to be carefully considered especially if a utility intends to use proprietary networks with a limited amount of frequency spectrum.

Solutions
A paradigm shift toward national and international communications interoperability already has occurred – one example is with the GSM standard on which the AT&T network is based. GSM is a global communications technology that is deployed in over 200 countries and has over 3 billion users worldwide. The good news is this enabling technology already exists to help utilities communicate throughout their enterprise and service area – from the boardroom to the home. With the availability and scale of public networks like that of AT&T, it is  no longer practical for utilities to cobble together proprietary communications systems with varying standards or different functional purposes.

Warren Westrup has over 20 years experience working for or with electric and gas utilities. From 2004 until 2008, Warren was with Verizon Wireless as an Enterprise Data Solutions Manager. In his role he worked with electric and gas utilities on custom applications that operated over the Verizon Wireless network. Warren joined AT&T in November 2008 as an Industry Solutions Practice Manager for the utility industry covering primarily the western half of the country.