{"id":16570,"date":"2019-10-10T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T19:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/10\/news-10309\/"},"modified":"2019-10-10T11:00:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T19:00:09","slug":"news-10309","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/10\/news-10309\/","title":{"rendered":"Making sense of the California power outage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Aamir Paul| Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 19:01:39 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Much of the world\u2019s cradle of innovation, the San Francisco Bay Area, is going dark this week.<\/p>\n

As strong, dry winds sweep through central California and create dangerous wildfire conditions, utilities are proactively shutting down the grid to minimize wildfire risk. That will leave hundreds of thousands of customers without power for hours, if not days.<\/p>\n

As climate change<\/a> accelerates extreme weather events, infrastructure ages<\/a>, and rising populations demand more energy,<\/a> the big question both utilities and their customers must face is this: How do we keep energy flowing reliably, safely, and sustainably?<\/p>\n

To answer this question, it helps to consider what\u2019s changed, and what hasn\u2019t, since 1977, the year I was born.<\/p>\n

Telecommunications technology is nearly unrecognizable and, more broadly, information technology has experienced breakthroughs in every field. But electrical infrastructure? Even Thomas Edison would recognize it.<\/p>\n

Now\u2019s the time to work together to transform the way we produce, transmit, and consume electricity. While there are a few magical, pie-in-the-sky answers, I want to share two pragmatic ways we can start.<\/p>\n

Two approaches: Smart grid solutions and microgrids<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first step: Harness IoT connectivity to monitor critical infrastructure assets like the smart grid.<\/p>\n

To do this, we can consider the spiritual insight, \u201ceverything is connected,\u201d as a strategic objective. The smart grid is already home to billions of smart devices. But just because we\u2019ve deployed these devices doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re getting the most out of them.<\/p>\n

Meters, relays, and sensors need to be connected to sophisticated analytics and management tools<\/a>. With these smart grid solutions<\/a>, you can do more than pinpoint outages. You can automate fault detection, streamline proactive maintenance, and thus enhance performance and reliability. The video below<\/a> shows how smart grid solutions bolster resilience during extreme weather.<\/p>\n