TXpert™ Ecosystem – Transforming performance
Electrical power landscape is, however, changing and will continue to change at an accelerated rate with more change in the next 10 years than in the last 100.
byAndrew Collier
Introduction
The key change in benefits from digitalization and trending of transformer parameters relate to the changing nature of the grid. However, the historical elements should not be forgotten. Monitoring was and remains an essential tool to catch any developing faults at the earliest possible stage and prevent potentially catastrophic consequences. While less common than in the past, there can still be some infant mortality, as illustrated in Fig. 1, and identifying a problem at an early stage can mean the difference between dealing with the problem during a planned outage vs. fire-fighting following a failure.
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The electrical power landscape is, however, changing and will continue to change at an accelerated rate, with a recent World Economic Forum study [1] indicating the “Energy landscape” will experience more change in the next 10 years than in the last 100. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is the drive towards lower carbon emissions and mega-trends related to it. Often referred to as the 4D’s of Deregulation, Decentralization, Decarbonization, and Digitalization.
The electrical power landscape is, however, changing and will continue to change at an accelerated rate with more change in the next 10 years than in the last 100
Generation
Starting with the generation, the uptake of Renewable power generation has gained significant momentum in recent years [2], and while traditional technologies such as Hydro still have their place, Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as wind and solar are seeing the highest growth rates.
The impact of Distributed Energy Resources is both technical and commercial. From a commercial perspective, the cost of equipment has reduced dramatically over the last 5 years, while scale and experience have grown. This, combined with what could be much shorter approval times than “traditional” generation sources and fast construction / installation times, make even Utility-scale installations increasingly attractive and more common.
The technical impact of Distributed Energy Resources relates firstly to the intermittent nature of the generation levels and secondly to the ever-increasing volume of semiconductor devices connected to the grid and the potential for harmonics. For the purpose of this paper, we will focus on the variable (or volatile) nature of the generation levels, but we recommend those involved at the distribution level also to consider the harmonic impact [3].
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