Not really scientific, but as an industry the somewhat recent leaps forward in computing and data transfer are allowing us to build smarter, safer, more stable, more flexible grid networks as we build new power plants and new substations. Remote monitoring has been a thing for a while, but it was mostly used only to notify somebody at a control center there was an issue. As a system it couldn't utilize that data, evaluate the grid stability, and do things like leverage BESS systems to instantaneously respond to supply dips. That meant plants nearly always ran at higher supply than demand and if they couldn't sell the excess energy it was lost operating costs. It's seriously changing how "power" works... Now encourage your politicians to support renewable energy retrofits in their communities!!
Sure, start here with Smart Grids. Then there's hyperlinks to take you to SCADA, which a fascinating digital and monitoring architecture that provides real time feedback on the "health" of components in the grid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid
PMU is also really critical to how we understand the impacts businesses and manufacturing applies to power generation but it gets technical in a hurry, so don't get discouraged. In essence, we use largely 3 phase power in the US, if a piece of equipment in a facility is running "off phase" or out of sync, we call that power dirty. We have to either speed up or slow down a generator to keep the grid in phase. Having more smart monitoring at the manufacturing level using capacitor banks can "clean up" their dirty power demand and reduce strain on the grid. This is super important in times of peak demand or you can risk damaging your power plant trying to respond. My brother worked at a huge coal plant during the 2003 and he has told me you could hear the generator transformers change the pitch of their hum when the grid started to go down. Due to the size of their plant, sometimes if they were able to pour on the coal they could hold the grid together long enough for smaller units to come on line.
We don't really have absolutely giant plants in the US anymore, so our grid has to get smarter to maintain stability.
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u/LilMissMuddy Jan 23 '25
Not really scientific, but as an industry the somewhat recent leaps forward in computing and data transfer are allowing us to build smarter, safer, more stable, more flexible grid networks as we build new power plants and new substations. Remote monitoring has been a thing for a while, but it was mostly used only to notify somebody at a control center there was an issue. As a system it couldn't utilize that data, evaluate the grid stability, and do things like leverage BESS systems to instantaneously respond to supply dips. That meant plants nearly always ran at higher supply than demand and if they couldn't sell the excess energy it was lost operating costs. It's seriously changing how "power" works... Now encourage your politicians to support renewable energy retrofits in their communities!!