Power Grid Int Dic 2013

POWER-GRID.
COM : DECEMBER 2013
T H E O F F I C I A L P U B L I CAT I O N O F
16
DistribuTECH Preview
20
Silicon Valley Power Wireless

Broadband Case Study
42
Networks vs. Platform
YOUR POWER DELIVERY MEDIA SOURCE

AUTOMATION
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12
CIO Roundtable:
Xcel, NV Energy, SCE
and PHI Talk Customer
Engagement
Editor in Chief Teresa Hansen interviews the
chief information officers of four large investorowned utilities about their customer engagement
programs, technologies and enhancements. The
foursome will go into a deeper discussion during
a DistribuTECH mega session in January.
From the Editor 2

Notes 4
DistribuTECH Preview 16
Thinking about attending North Americas No.

1 electricity transmission and distribution show,
DistribuTECH Conference & Exhibition, in January?
Find out whats planned in San Antonio.
Silicon Valley Power Case 20

Study: Wireless Broadband
Benefits Smart Grid, More
Larry Owens of Silicon Valley Power shares
how the California muni became the first
U.S. city to leverage its utility AMI network
to provide free outdoor Wi-Fi citywide.
AMI Operations Center Benefits 24

David Kreiss and Masoud Abael
of AMI Operations Consulting LLC
list the benefits of a centralized AMI
operations center, including: overall
lower staffing and resource costs;
superior system performance; higher
reliability; better security with respect
to identifying potential cyberattacks; and
superior risk management.
PowerGrid International: ISSN 1547-6723,
is published 12 times per year (January,
February, March, April, May, June, July, August,
September, October, November and December)
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DECEMBER 2013 VOLUME 18.12
30 The Reputation Imperative:

Why North American
Utilities Still Dont Get It
Reputation Institutes John Patterson shares

results from its annual syndicated quantitative research study across 34
countries in which it asks the public to rate organizations on the trust,
admirations, good feeling and esteem they have for the largest companies
in each market. Guess how electric utilities did?
32 Cleat Call
Author Tony Conroy of Ellis writes about the

frequently underestimated importance of cable cleats.
38 Interoperability Enables Innovation
Roberto Aiello of Itron compares how many devices have gone down the
path of interoperability, moving from proprietary to open standards. What
lessons can the utility industry learn from these devices?
42 Grid Automation & Control

Networks vs. Platform
Donald Pollock of Ambient Corp. writes that key factors distinguish

the traditional siloed approach to grid communications from a platform
approach: flexibility, scalability and security.
45 Smart Grid Interoperability

and Standards Update
Dick DeBlasio, chair of the IEEE Standards

Coordinating Committee (SCC) 21, explains why
the 2003 publication of IEEE 1547 Standard
for Interconnecting Distributed Resources with
Electric Power Systems was so monumentalit filled a void.
48 The Smarter Approach
Creating Reliability, Efficiency on the Grid
Scott Zajkowski of IUS Technologies writes that transforming a legacy

grid into a smart grid will lead to a steady stream of power with fewer
interruptions to more people using fewer resources while emitting fewer
carbon gases.
50 Products
51 Calendar/Ad Index
52 From the Pages of Electricity History
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December 2013 | 1
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FROM THE EDITOR
EDITOR IN CHIEF
TERESA HANSEN
POWERGRID International and

DistribuTECH Partnership Benefts You
POWERGRID International is the official publication and partner of
DistribuTECH Conference & Exhibition, and as the magazines editor in chief,
I serve as chairwoman of the DistribuTECH Conference Advisory Committee.
This job allows me to review the submitted abstracts and help the committee
create the conference sessions. In doing so, I learn about the industrys hottest
topics, greatest challenges and latest solutions. I also have an opportunity to
give readers a preview of some of the conference discussions that will take
place at DistribuTECH before those conference sessions occursomething
no other magazine can do.
Beginning on Page 12 is a roundtable interview with chief information
officers (CIOs) from four major investor-owned utilities that I conducted with
the help of Dave Elve, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at
PayGo. These utility CIOs will participate in one of DistribuTECHs five mega
sessions Wednesday, Jan. 29. Customers expectations are rising and their
tolerance for silence from their electricity providers is waning. In this interview, the CIOs talk about their customer engagement strategies, the channels
they use to communicate with customers and some of the biggest challenges
theyve encountered while implementing customer engagement strategies into
their smart grid programs. The information in this article, while enlightening,
is only a taste of what will be discussed during the hour and a half panel discussion during the mega session.
Another opportunity for you to hear from some of DistribuTECHs conference participants is available on POWERGRID Internationals website. On Dec.
3, I moderated a webcast on utility cybersecurity strategies that included
three presenters who will speak at DistribuTECH. The webcast, Practical
Approaches to Utility Cybersecurity, covers the latest DNP Users Group
cybersecurity updates, as well as accomplishments and activities of the Smart
Grid Interoperability Panels (SGIPs) Smart Grid Cybersecurity Committee
(SGCC). Some of you might have attended the live webcast, but if you didnt,
no worriesits available on demand on the magazines website at www.
power-grid.com/webcasts.html. The webcast is free and, like the roundtable
article, offers you a glimpse of what will be discussed in greater detail at
DistribuTECH.
The DistribuTECH preview article that begins on Page 16 provides more
information about all the activities and opportunities available at the largest
annual T&D show in North America. I hope this preview, the roundtable and
the cybersecurity webcast convince you that DistribuTECH is a must-attend
show. You may find registration information and a complete conference program and exhibitor listing at www.distributech.com.
For those of you who cannot attend the event Jan. 28-30, 2014, I hope you
enjoy this small taste of DistribuTECH. For those of you who plan to attend,
I look forward to seeing you in San Antonio.
2 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Teresa Hansen
918.831.9504 teresah@pennwell.com
SENIOR EDITOR
Kristen Wright
918.831.9177 kristenw@pennwell.com
ONLINE/ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Jeff Postelwait
918.831.9114 jeffp@pennwell.com
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Deanna Taylor
918.832.9378 deannat@pennwell.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
TransmissionHub Chief Analyst Rosy Lum

Senior Analyst Corina Rivera-Linares
Senior Editor Carl Dombek
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATOR
Angie ODea
918.831.9431 angieo@pennwell.com
VICE PRESIDENT-AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

& MARKETING
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POWER GENERATION GROUP
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POWERGRID International is the

offcial publication of
Connect your grid and your people to a more productive future

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NOTES
BY CORINA RIVERA-LINARES, TRANSMISSIONHUB
PEPCO EXEC: INDUSTRY DEALING WITH UNINTENDED

CONSEQUENCES FROM FERC ORDER 1000
No one knows how FERC Order 1000
will affect the electric industry because of
unintended consequences in how entities
work together, said Michael Maxwell, vice
president of asset management with Pepco
Holdings Inc.
Now theres this competitive streak that
Order 1000 has kind of laid out, Maxwell
said during a panel on extreme weather and T&D, part of TransmissionHubs
TransForum East in Washington, D.C.
In addition, it is not only the utilities identifying the projects and working
together, he said; PJM Interconnection also
must deal with evaluating those projects.
If you think about what you have to
do now in terms of presenting a project
to PJM, you end up having to build whole
organizations to support that level of effort
moving forward, Maxwell said. So were
having to adjust to this new world order.
Im not sure whats going to be (on) the
other side of this rainbow but were
going to have to work hard to figure it out
as we go along.
Because utilities cannot replace everything at one time, they must plan to
replace assets over a period, Maxwell said.
The electric system was built over
100 years, he said. Youre not going to
rebuild it within 10 or 12.
Fellow panelist Consolidated Edison
Co. of New York (Con Edison)
engineer Griffin
Reilly said that building its infrastructure

is business as usual for Con Edison.
Electric storm hardening, he said, is
essentially just accelerating our replacement program with these investments.
Panelist Ken Collison, vice president at
ICF International, said other factors such
as generation retirements involving coal
plants factor in transmission planning, as
does the gas-electric integration matter.
The panel also included Edison Electric
Institute (EEI) Manager of Federal
Regulatory Affairs Karen Onaran. On the
one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandys
landfall on the East Coast, the panel discussed storm restoration and grid reliability.
Each jurisdiction Pepco servesthe
District of Columbia and parts of Maryland,
Delaware and New Jerseyhas a different
view on what is considered reliability,
resiliency and hardening efforts, as well
as its response to recent weather events,
including Hurricane Sandy, Maxwell said.
Some of the bread-and-butter projects Pepco presents to state regulators
when asked how it is improving reliability
include vegetation management, he said.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie
reached out to Pepcos Atlantic City
Electric and all the
utilities in the state to develop a package of

resiliency projects, including micgrogrids,
to help ensure that the state will be better
prepared if another event like Hurricane
Sandy occurs.
In Maryland, the governor and state regulators reached out to Pepco and Delmarva
Power, as well as the other utilities to come
up with resiliency projects to improve the
system.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent Gray
has said the nations capital should not
have outages that last more than a couple
of days and requested a game-changer,
Maxwell said.
The mayor in August 2012 established
his Power Line Undergrounding Task
Force, which includes government officials, regulators, local utility executives,
public advocates and residents to address
power outages in the District of Columbia
as a result of the derecho thunderstorm
system that left extensive wind damage
across the region in June of that year.
An interim report accepted by Gray
in May calls for a multiyear
program estimated
4 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
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NOTES
at nearly $1
billion in a first
phase to selectively
underground up to 60
high-voltage lines that are
most affected by storms. The
task force recommended a financing arrangement through an approximately even split between the District of
Columbia and Pepco.
Reilly said five of the top 10 storms in
Con Edisons history in terms of electric
outages happened within the past four
years, including Hurricanes Sandy and
Irene and the October 2011 snowstorm.
We see a trend, whether or not you
want to call it climate change , he said.
Theres definitely something happening in
our region, and we need to address that.
Reilly described Sandys impact on Con
Edisons system, including the damage to
its East 13th Street substation from flooding and the wind damage to its overhead
system.
Con Edison has made numerous
improvements to its energy delivery systems as part of a $1 billion plan to
fortify critical infrastructure and protect
New Yorkers from major storms, including building more than a mile of concrete
flood walls around stations and critical
equipment, Reilly said.
After Sandy, state regulators launched
investigations into utilities responses, including the Connecticut Public
6 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Utility Regulatory
Authority, which found
that utilities performed in
a generally acceptable manner
regarding that storm.
Maxwell said it is regulators role to hold
utilities accountable, but regulators also
react to political and public pressures.
Despite what they had been doing
prior in terms of regulating us and looking at reliability and looking at how the
utilities operate, when the heat is turned
on, the behaviors of the commission
changes, and they will launch investigations, he said.
Regulators must balance understanding
their roles and determining the appropriate cost for measures and appropriate
things to be done, Maxwell said.
Similarly, Reilly said Con Edisons $1
billion plan to address flood risk and the
potential for wind damage likely would
have been met differently by regulators
three years ago.
The public is now seeing that there is
the risk (and) theyve all been impacted by
it, he said.
Collison agreed it is easier to get investments into the system after extreme
weather events.
Is there a way to show how those
investments have improved the system?
he said. If theres a way to show that,
it may be easier to build on that in the
future.
Some utilities have described how
installed smart grid equipment helped
them restore power faster. Another thing
that could help is looking at what other
utilities, regions and countries have done
to improve resiliency on their systems,
Collison said.
We found examples where certain
countries, certain regions, certain

states had policies that allowed for selective undergrounding, he said. Its expensive, but if you see how others have
addressed it, that could be a way that you
could also find ways to do that for your
system.
Onaran said utilities need to be held
accountable to some extent, but the
approach should be from more of a learning experience and in a collaborative fashion rather than just having regulators fine
utilities.
She said EEIs report Before and after
the storm: A compilation of recent studies, programs and policies related to storm
hardening and resiliency helps EEIs
member companies work with state regulators and customers and pick options that
work best for them.
In working on its report, EEI reviewed
efforts in various regions including undergrounding, microgrids, vegetation management, increased labor forces and smart
grid initiatives.
This gave a general idea of what are the
options out there that are available and
what works best for your state, your utility, she said.
An updated EEI report will be released
in January, she said.
The national response event that occurs
when several regions become depleted
in their resources is an EEI initiative that
came directly out of Sandy, Onaran said.
A national response executive committee
of utility CEOs and senior execs overlook
the pooling of all requests for crews and
equipment, for instance, and allocating is
based on need, she said.
We want to make sure that at this point,
we are responding as one industry and not
individual utilities, she said.
EYE ON THE WORLD
CAN STOCK PHOTO INC. / AYZEK
GE Helps ELMAR Modernize Arubas Electrical Grid

To create a modernized electrical network and equip Aruba with
secure, high-capacity and long-range wireless coverage for its complete network, ELMARthe countrys power utility companyhas
turned to GEs RF Grid IQTM point-to-multipoint (P2MP) advanced
metering infrastructure (AMI).
The installation of GEs AMI solutions will create an all-encompassing
wireless metering network, providing ELMAR with crucial electrical
usage and power generation data to improve grid efficiency and functionality while enabling grid integration of renewable energy sources.
Part of Arubas energy plan for the future is to generate more
renewable energy and implement it into its electrical grid, with the
long-term goal of becoming a 100 percent green country, said
Robert Henriquez, director of ELMAR. GEs Grid IQ P2MP
AMI solution provides utilities with important information such as how much power
is generated by a countrys wind farms
and solar power facilities and when the
majority of this power is being generated, helping them to better understand
their electrical grid and what can be done

to optimize it.
MODERNIZING THE GRID

With the RF Grid IQ AMI solution, GE introduces its first AMI product offering specifically designed for global smart meters applications. The wireless AMI network rolled out in Aruba will encompass
170 P2MP meters interconnected via seven access points, each
of which is capable of communicating with up to 20,000 smart
meters and 64,000 distribution automation devices within a 40-mile
radiussome 1,980 square miles. Arubas seven new access points
enable the islands entire installed smart meter base48,000 to
dateto efficiently and effectively communicate crucial data back
to ELMAR to be analyzed. This infrastructure also will allow for
network expansion by as many as 140,000 meters and 448,000
distribution automation devices without additional investment. For
the first six months of the operation, ELMAR will be able to access
and use GE-hosted monitoring software to help maintain its new
wireless AMI network.
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NOTES
EYE ON THE WORLD : CONTINUED

Optimization Modeling Helps Control
Electricity Supply Continuity in Brazil
For boaters, fisherman and others, a lake filled with water is an
using stochastic programming, a technique useful for modeling
opportunity for recreation. But for an organization such as Operador
complex systems when not all input parameters can be known.
Nacional do Sistema Eletrico (ONS) in Brazil, a full lake behind a
The usual criteria used for our planning purposes took a neutral
hydroelectric dam is also an optimization challenge that must be
approach to the risk of energy supply failure, said Joari Paulo da
addressed to provide reliable electric power at a stable cost.
Costa, a research engineer with the Methodology Development
Brazilian power system generation is dominated by hydroelectric
sources that use large reservoirs
that allow multiyear regulation. As
of 2010, the countrys power generation facilities included more than
200 major power plants, of which
141 were hydroelectric. The hydro
facilities account for 77 percent of
Brazils installed generating capacity and are in 14 large river basins
with their generation interconnected to take advantage of hydrological diversity between the basins.
Because the hydro plants use
water stored in reservoirs to gener- Alexander Shapiro, a professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute
of Technology, is an expert on optimizing systems using stochastic programming.
ate electricity, operators must decide
when to use the water. Because the
water inflows depend on rainfall, the amount of water available for
Department of ONS in Rio de Janeiro. During earlier energy rationfuture power generation cannot be predicted with high accuracy.
ing, it turned out that this approach was not sufficient and that
Moreover, historical records indicate the possibility of dry periods,
some measure of risk aversion had to be taken into account by
which place a burden on hydro generation and might require the
the planning model. An ad-hoc procedure had been implemented,
use of thermal power plants to meet demand.
but only with the results of the risk-averse methodology proposed
ONS uses a complex computer algorithm that models the system
by professor Shapiro have we achieved a proper inclusion of these
to help ensure electricity generation meets the demand at miniconcerns into the methodology and computer program.
mum expected cost, planning the generation of power based on
During the course of the project, Shapiro visited Brazil several
such information as electricity demand forecast and water inflow
times to confer with ONS officials, including da Costa and Murilo
scenarios based on the historical data. The system also sets the
Pereira Soares, a senior engineer.
monthly price of power for the country; however, during the early
If they dont have enough water, they have to use more expenpart of this century, power rationing in Brazil called into question
sive generation sources, Shapiro said. The algorithm they have
the validity of meeting day-to-day needs using a policy based on
been using sometimes produces high prices for electricity that,
minimizing the expected cost of power.
although fully justifiable within the mathematical framework, do
To improve the system, ONS decided to develop a methodolnot conform to the expectations and are not intuitive.
ogy for adding a risk-aversion criterion to the planning model.
The system presented a classic optimization challenge concernFour years ago, it contacted Alexander Shapiro, a professor in the
ing the use of a resource whose future availability could not be
Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia
determined accurately.
Institute of Technology. Shapiro is an expert on optimizing systems
The risks in the system are very simple, Shapiro said. When
8 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
you have water in the reservoirs, you can either use it now, which
makes electricity very cheap now, or you can hold onto it. If you
use it now, in a few months you might not have enough water to
produce the electricity you need.
Shapiro and former doctoral student Wajdi Tekaya worked with
ONS to understand the problem formulation and suggested modifications that would reduce the risk of energy supply failures. The
changes they made rely on stochastic programming, which is often
used for modeling optimization programs that involve uncertainty.
We developed a methodology for how to control the risk of energy
shortages while optimizing the use of water, he said. We also wanted
to control the risk of price spikes. It is a very complex system.
The project also provided a computer implementation of the
proposed methodology. This prototype served as a proof of concept, which played a fundamental role in validating the proposed
methodology.
The new risk-averse methodology developed in the collaboration
between Shapiro and ONS has been integrated into the computer program being used to set operational policy and prices for the Brazilian
Interconnected Power System, da Costa said.
The methodology developed by Georgia Tech and ONS potentially
could be applied to other power generation systems, as well as to other
operations in which uncertain natural resources such as water supplies
must be used to meet the demand for electricity or other products.
The approach to managing risk is very general and could be applied
in other areas, Shapiro said. The approach is a new one that could be
used to reasonably control the risk.
In real-world optimization problems, decision-makers rarely have
all the information they want, so decisions must often be made on
incomplete data.
We have to make the best decisions with the information that
we have, Shapiro said. We all know the past, but we cannot know
the future. We have forecasts, but we do not know for sure what
will happen.
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December 2013 | 9
www.power-grid.com
NOTES
SABRE INDUSTRIES CELEBRATES GRAND OPENING

FOR SABRE/BRAMETAL TESTING SERVICES IN TEXAS
Sabre Industries Inc. recently celebrated
a grand opening for its new testing facility,
Sabre/Brametal Testing Services LLC.
Developed with Brametals extensive
testing experience, the new facility is
the result of Sabres joint venture with
Brametal, S.A. A subsidiary of Hollmore
Participacoes E Investimentos S.A,
Brametal is a Brazilian company with
experience in engineering, design and
testing of lattice transmission towers.
Sabre/Brametal Testing Services is
located on Sabre Industries 147-acre
industrial complex in Alvarado, Texas,
and is the only one of its kind in North
America. Completely automated, the
facility provides full-scale structure testing on lattice towers and tubular steel
poles. Also located on Sabre Industries
industrial complex in Alvarado is Sabre
Tubular Structures, Sabres steel pole
division, and Sabre Galvanizing Services,
one of the most environmentally friendly
galvanizers in the United States.
Working with Brametal to develop
our new testing station has given Sabre
the opportunity to build a best-in-class
testing facility for our utility customers, said Peter J. Sandore, president and
CEO of Sabre Industries Inc. We will be
the only company in the United States
to offer this type of testing along with
engineering, design, manufacturing and

galvanizing of tubular steel structures all
on one site.
Proprietary software allows for simulated loads that automatically are applied
to provide realistic and accurate results.
The facility offers destructive and nondestructive testing and can test towers
up to 235 feet high and 85 feet wide at
the base and poles up to 235 feet high
10 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
CAN STOCK PHOTO INC. / RONSTIK
and 12.5 feet wide.

Sabre/Brametal Testing Services LLC
is pleased to be able to bring full-scale
structure testing back to North America,
said Ricardo Minatto Brando, chairman
of the board of Brametal. Through our
joint venture with Sabre, we can offer
our customers in the United States testing without the added cost of shipping
structures overseas.
FirstEnergy Corp. plans to invest an

additional $2.8 billion over four years
to expand its previously announced
Energizing the Future transmission initiative. The focus of the initial construction effort will be the 69-kV transmission
power lines and substations in the Ohio
Edison, Cleveland Electric Illuminating
Co., Toledo Edison and Penn Power areas.
The program is expected to expand into
other FirstEnergy service territories.
Our work on the backbone of our network will focus on enhancing the service
reliability to the communities, businesses
and homes in our service areas, said
Anthony J. Alexander, president and CEO
of FirstEnergy. The average age for much
of this equipment is more than 40 years
old. Our goal is to replace outdated equipment with state-of-the-art smart technology that can be operated remotely in order
to help prevent some outages from occurring. And if an outage does occur, the new
equipment can help reduce the number of
customers who are affected and shorten
the duration.
Work on the new Energizing the Future
projects is expected to begin in 2014 and
continue through 2017. The 69-kV system
is the vital link between the high-voltage
transmission lines and the distribution
network that provides power to end-use
customers. As part of this program, some
7,200 circuit miles of 69-kV and higher
transmission lines will be evaluated and
rebuilt as needed. More than 170 substations will be inspected and upgraded,
along with 70,000 transmission structures
that will be evaluated and rebuilt as needed. The scope will involve adding redundancies to the network, which is designed
to enhance customer service reliability.
Work also will be done to improve security
at substations by adding fencing, thermal
imaging devices and various surveillance ongoing commitoptions. Some of the projects will be done ment to enhance its
by FirstEnergy, but certain work will be high-voltage transmiscompleted by area electrical contractors. sion system. Many of the
Over four years, this program is expected projects, including new or rebuilt highto put more than 1,100 contractors to voltage power lines, new substations and
work, the majority being union workers the installation of specialized voltage-regufrom northeastern Ohio.
lating equipment, are needed to help supOnce operational, FirstEnergys invest- port system reliability as coal-fired power
ments are expected to benefit the com- plants in the region are deactivated based
munities where the company has substa- on the Environmental Protection Agencys
tions, transmission lines and equipment Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and
by increasing tax payments, which will other environmental rules. These initial
support local schools and police and fire Energizing the Future projects represent
services. Because most of the work will be about a $1.8 billion investment in Ohio,
done on the companys existing rights of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Jersey
way or existing substations and other facil- and Maryland over the next five years.
ities, the environmental impact to communities is expected to be
New Generation of Outdoor
minimal.
Sensing Solutions
Overall, the new
transmission proj Pole Mount Transformer Monitoring
ects are designed to
Overhead/Underground Fault Monitoring
increase FirstEnergys
Remote Terminal Unit of Distributed system
load serving capability
SCADA System for Power & Sub-station
Sub-Metering & Monitoring Accurate Measurement
in areas where future
ESS(Energy Storage System)
economic growth is
Building Energy Management System(BEMS)
anticipated, particu Factory Energy Management System(FEMS)
larly in Ohios shale
gas regions; improve
reliability of service;
create more flexibility to restore service
Pole-Proble Rogowski Coil
Outdoor Split-Core CT
Clamp-on Rogowski Coil
after storms; reduce
line losses; and lower
the companys overall
Flexible Rogowski Coil
Outdoor Solid typed CT
Split Core CT
with voltage measurement
transmission maintenance costs.
The Energizing the
Future initiative previTel: 847.299.5182 Fax: 847.965.3336
salesusa@taehwatrans.com
ously was announced
www.taehwatrans.com
in May 2012 as
part of FirstEnergys
December 2013 | 11
www.power-grid.com
CAN STOCK PHOTO INC. / FAITHIE
FIRSTENERGY ANNOUNCES $2.8 BILLION

EXPANSION OF TRANSMISSION INITIATIVE
BY TERESA HANSEN, EDITOR IN CHIEF
ts a shame not everyone can sit in

on one of the five mega sessions at
DistribuTECH Conference & Exhibition
in January, particularly IOU CIOs:
Developing Solutions to Support Customer
Engagement.
Xcel Energy Vice President and CIO
Dave Harkness, NV Energy Vice President
and CIO Kevin Judice, Southern California
Edison (SCE) Vice President and CIO Todd
Inlander, and Pepco Holdings Inc. CIO
Doug Myers will describe how they deploy
and develop smart grid applications,
infrastructure, security and networks and
how these systems are designed to support
enhanced customer engagement. What the
CIOs will share is increasingly relevant, so
I interviewed them with help from PayGo
Chief Marketing Officer Dave Elve, who
will act as their moderator Wednesday,
Jan. 29 in San Antonio. (Elves panel
sessions are always well-attended and get
rave reviews for the amount of audience
interaction with top utility executives and
unscripted, anything-goes nature.)
During the panel session, Harkness,
Judice, Inlander and Myers will discuss
their programs and technologies, as well as
planned enhancements. The session also
will cover lessons learned and the audience
will have plenty of time to ask questions.
12 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
We hope the following interview entices

those of you going to DistribuTECH to
attend the mega session and ask your own
questions and gives those of you unable to
leave work for a week in January a slice of
DistribuTECHs anticipated content.
POWERGRID: What application
have you deployed that has been
the most important to customer
engagement?
Harkness: Our online account
management tool, My Account. This
application allows our customers to view
usage and pay their bills. We will be
adding additional usage comparisons
and promoting energy efficiency
programs. Utilities have been slow to
develop mobile applications, yet today our
customers are able to pay their bills via
mobile. We are focusing on expanding key
customer outage messages and improved
maps. Mother Nature brought large
customer outages with wind damage in
MPLS and flooding in Colorado.
Judice: We have an online account
management service called MyAccount
that allows for billing, account history,
bill analyzer, etc.; however, we are
working on a new program this year that
includes a Customer Preference Center
DA
VE
HAR
KNESS
that enables residential and commercial

customers to specify preferred channels
and devices for communicating with
NV Energy. This preference center will
manage the communications for outage
communications, billing and usage
management, demand response and
other services. As part of this effort, we
are also enhancing our customer outage
communications around reporting
and receiving outage information and
mobilizing this feature set, as well.Lastly,
we are working on a prepay option to offer
our customers the ability to manage the
payment of their energy bills that correlates
to their cash flow.
Inlander:There are a few:
A. Access to individual energy usage
information through My Account
(see stats below).
B. The Budget Assistant tool has had
a very positive response (customers
sign up for alerts when nearing a
spending target, more than 332,000
enrolled).
KE
V IN
JUD
TO
ICE
C. We are in the process of enhancing

our customers digital experience so
that our website and services are
more responsive to todays customer.
This means moving to a new Web
platform, expanding mobile access,
Web chat services, evolving our
apps to be more robust, etc. All
these developments have been in
the works, and we are excited to
move forward with these customer
offerings in 2014. Mobile Web, 17
percent of visits to sce.com come
through a mobile device; thats an
average of about 13,000 visits per
day.
D. With Edison SmartConnect, SCE
successfully completed more than
4,400 remote turn-on and turn-off
requests each day.
My Account usage reports viewed from
12/1/2011 through 9/1/2013:
1. Hourly usage reports: 4,572,419
2. Current billing reports: 4,026,228
3. Specific billing period: 2,079,859
DD
INL
DO
ANDER
4. 13-month trend report: 923,024

Myers:There have been many services
we have introduced that have helped us to
engage better with our customers on many
fronts. Perhaps the most valuable have
been our My Account Web portal and our
mobile apps. Through these services, we
have deployed capabilities that provide
greater flexibility and information to our
customers than ever before.
POWERGRID: How do you
leverage social media?
Harkness: Facebook and Twitter
were utilized during recent storms and
proved many customers leverage these
communication channels during outages.
Judice: NV Energy uses Facebook
and Twitter primarily to drive participation
in customer programs, publish company
news and outage information, and
promote community events.
Inlander: On a day-to-day basis,
social media provides SCE an effective
communications tool for delivering
UG
MYE
RS
important corporate messaging, such as

energy- and money-saving tips, in a more
informal, more personal way. Whats more,
it also allows us to talk with our customers
as opposed to talking at them, which,
if done successfully, will humanize our
brand. This transparent, two-way dialogue
can also quickly diffuse a potentially
contentious situation.
Beyond that, social medias importance
as a communications tool during a crisis
is increasingly important. During a recent
significant outage affecting more than
100,000 customers, we were exceptionally
active on Twitter, proactively posting
updates and reactively responding to
customers. The result was that we were
able to turn a typically negative event for a
utilityan outageinto an opportunity to
engage our customers. Among the dozens
of complimentary tweets we received
from customers were these two: @SCE
Nothing else was working. News stations
didnt post anything til late. Social Media
comes to the rescue, and, @SCE Thank
December 2013 | 13
www.power-grid.com
you guys so much. Power is something we

must not take for granted.
SCE uses Facebook (43,000), Twitter
(six handles), YouTube, Instagram,
LinkedIn, as well as Apps for Outage.
We are building a relationship with
our customers. Internally, it takes a
cross-functional
teamcorporate
communications, IT, the contact center,
and the business customer division
to work together to ensure timely and
cohesive outreach and responses.
SCE utilizes social media in a variety
of ways: in crisis detection and response,
promotion of programs and services, assist
customers, promote local and community
activities, and educate customers and
businesses.
Myers: We leverage social media to
interact with customers on channels
they are already using and to provide
the information they need both on
nonstorm days and during storms. Given
the increasingly important role that social
media plays as a source of information
during emergencies, we use our channels
to provide restoration updates and respond
to customer inquiries quickly. In addition,
increasing our social media visibility
through promoted posts and videos allows
us to better reach our customers and the
public. Our online followers can also help
us amplify our message.
POWERGRID: What has been
the biggest challenge in your
smart grid-customer engagement
implementation?
Harkness: For a regulated utility,
the cost recovery has been the biggest
challenge.
Judice: Maturity of the technologies
deployed and organizational readiness
to support the new processes and
technologies.
14 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Inlander: Regulatory requirements,

technology constraints, evolving business
and customer needs, resource constraints.
Myers:The biggest challenge has been
delivering smart grid benefits to customers
via outdated billing systems. We have
done a remarkable job at retrofitting old
technology to provide functionality that
these systems were not built to deliver,
but it has taken longer than wed have
liked, and it presents constraints on future
releases.We are in the process of upgrading
to one modern system that will allow us to
engage our customers better and faster
going forward.
POWERGRID:What advice would
you give utilities just beginning to
plan and implement customer
engagement solutions as part of
their smart grid program?
Harkness: It is important to work
closely with your regulators and state
commissions to support a complete
program and outline the strategy and
benefits for the complete program. We
did a number of community outreach
workshops with our customers to obtain
buy in and support direction.
Judice: I would agree with Dave
on working with the regulators and
customers. I would also repeat a point
made to an earlier question that you
should ensure you have the organization
prepared to effectively manage the impact
to the operational changes that come with
such a program.
Islander:
A. Customer first. Think about your
customers, how will they benefit,
how will they use it, adoption rate
and value.
B. Compliance. Think about local and
state regulators, legislation, etc.
C. Collaboration. Bring your internal
stakeholders, business leaders,

technology teams and external
partners to the table early when
designing your implementation.
D. Implement with agility and measure
performance against needs and best
practices.
E. Look forward. Balance your design
between existing capabilities and
where you want to be in the future
with your customers and as a
business.
Myers: Collaboration is key.That begins
with ensuring there is one answer to the
question, Who owns customer engagement
at our company?In the context of smart
grid customer engagement, customer
care, corporate communications, smart
grid program management and regulatorygovernment affairs should all have strong
opinions on the topic.Without intentional
collaboration, each independently might
craft sound approaches that are not
necessarily aligned.In addition to internal
collaboration, collaboration with external
stakeholders is also very important.Getting
input from your regulators and other key
external stakeholders helps to ensure
that your customer engagement plan
is informed by as many perspectives as
possible.
DistribuTECH Conference & Exhibition
is Jan. 28-30, 2014, at the Henry B.
Gonzalez Convention Center in San
Antonio.
In 2013, DistribuTECH and Utility
Products Conference & Exposition drew
nearly 10,000 attendees from 53 countries,
more than 400 exhibitors, more than
350 of the industrys top speakersmore
than 180 from utilitiesand featured 77
conference sessions in 14 tracks. Visit www.
distributech.com for more information and
to register.
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BY KRISTEN WRIGHT, SENIOR EDITOR
th
The 24
annual DistribuTECH
Conference & Exhibition will return to
the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center
in San Antonio for the second time Jan.
28-30. There is still time to register for
North Americas No. 1 electricity transmission and distribution show at www.
distributech.com.
Organizers of the 2014 show expect
some 10,000 attendees, more than 450
exhibitors and more than 350 of the
industrys leading speakers in 79 conference sessions in 15 tracks and five mega
sessions.
DistribuTECHs sister conferences will
be in San Antonio, as well, and there are
a few changes.
UTILITY UNIVERSITY
Utility University will begin at 8 a.m.
Sunday, Jan. 26 and run through 5 p.m.
Monday, Jan. 27. These 28 intensive classesincluding six water-specific onesfill
up quickly. Tracks include big data, communications, customer strategies, cybersecurity, DA/DMS, demand-side management, DER integration, grid storage, smart
grid, smart metering, system integration,
smart substations and standards. Reserve
a spot through the DistribuTECH website,
www.distributech.com.
AWARDS DINNER
For the first time, the magazines
Projects of the Year finalists and winners will be announced live at 6:30 p.m.
16 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Preview San Antonio
Monday, Jan. 27 during the awards dinner

This years theme is Winning the
in the Lonesome Dove room at the con- Ratepayer-to-Customer Revolution. For
vention center. The cocktail dinner also the first time, the conference will feature a
will honor Electric Light & Powers Utility closed-door session about who owns data.
of the Year and Large and Small Utility Keynote speakers are energy journalist
CEOs of the Year. Whats more, the dinner Robert Bryce and famed high school basis now open to the public.
ketball coach Ken Carter.
Its a great way to hobnob
Other speakers include
The Projects of
with the industrys most
execs from ComEd,
the Year will be
powerful executives and
SDG&E,
Southern
announced
toast to their successes.
California
Edison,
live at the
Tickets are $45 and may
PSE&G, the University of
Electric Light
be purchased through the
Southern California and
& Power and
POWERGRID
registration page on the
USAA Bank. Registration
International
DistribuTECH website.
is $595, and a full upgrade
Awards Dinner
to DistribuTECH is $790.
on
Monday,
ELECTRIC LIGHT &
Visit www.elpconference.
Jan. 27.
POWER EXECUTIVE
com to register.
CONFERENCE
Also new, the Electric Light & Power UTILITY PRODUCTS
Executive Conference will begin Monday, CONFERENCE & EXPOSITION
Jan. 27 and wrap up Tuesday, Jan. 28 at
Utility Products Conference &
the Grand Hyatt San Antonio. This sched- Exposition will be co-located again with
ule differs from previous years when the DistribuTECH. It brings the pages of
conference began on a Sunday.
Utility Products magazine to life and brings
Utility executives told us they were together buyers and sellers of power, telehaving to leave on Saturday to make it to com, CATV and water equipment, providthe executive conference when it began on ing them an opportunity to learn firsthand
Sunday, so it wasnt as travel-friendly as it about their industries latest products.
could have been, said Teresa Hansen, the
Registration is $75 and includes access
events program chairwoman and Electric to five workshops and nine product demLight & Power editor in chief. It was an onstrations in the Presentation Theater
easy fix, and weve already seen our regis- on the exhibit floor with more than 450
tration numbers rise. This years executive exhibitors, the opening keynote session,
conference should be the best in its five- and opportunities to network with lineyear history.
men from all over the country during

networking receptions. Visit www.utility

productsexpo.com to register.
DISTRIBUTECH CONFERENCE
& EXHIBITION
Tuesday, Jan. 28. Nearly everyone
is using social media, and utilities and
their customers are part of the trend.
Who better to kick off DistribuTECH
at 9 a.m. than keynote speaker Randi
Zuckerberg, former director of market
development for Facebook and CEO of
Zuckerberg Media? Joining her will be
NV Energy President and CEO Michael
Yackira and CPS Energy President and
CEO Doyle N. Beneby.
The exhibit hall will open at 11 a.m.
immediately after the keynote, and a
delegate lunch will be served from 11:30
a.m. to 1 p.m. in the exhibit hall.
Conference sessions will begin at 1
p.m. and run until 4:30 p.m. Tracks are:
advanced metering; big data; customer
strategies and technology; cybersecurity;
18 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
demand response and energy efficiency;

DER and renewables integration; enterprise information and asset management;
GIS and mobile solutions; grid communications; international projects; renewables, transmission and policy; smart distribution management; smart grid operations solutions; substation integration and
automation; and water utility technology.
From 5 to 6 p.m., exhibitors can enjoy
hors doeuvres, drinks and networking
among the more than 450 companies
booths during the opening reception in
the exhibit hall.
Wednesday, Jan. 29. Breakfast
roundtables will open day two from 7:30
to 9 a.m.
Conference sessions will begin at 9:30
a.m. The exhibit hall will be open from
10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a delegate lunch
being served from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in
the exhibit hall.
Choose from five mega sessions from
2:30 to 4 p.m.: Lessons Learned From
Superstorm Sandy Executive Panel; IOU

CIOs: Developing Solutions to Support
Customer Engagement; Chapter 2:
What Happens to Smart Grid Initiatives
After DOE Funding?; Bring Your Own
Thermostat: Residential Demand Response
Program Field Results; and A Global Look
at Smart Grids Progress and Future.
Sponsors will celebrate Its 5 Oclock
Somewhere from 4 to 5 p.m. at their
booths. And when the clock really strikes
5 p.m., POWERGRID International will
throw a Networking Party in the Grand
Ballroom. Attendees and guests are invited
to join the festivities, which will feature
food, drinks and live music.
Thursday, Jan. 30. Conference
sessions will begin at 8:30 a.m. and
conclude at noon, and the exhibit hall
will be open from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
PennWells annual drawing for a car will
be at 1:30 p.m. at Booth 100. This years
car is actually a truck, and you must be
present to win.
ATTEND UTILITY PRODUCTS CONFERENCE & EXPOSITION AND:
PR
RODUCTS
Gain new insight into cutting edge utility products
confer
eren
ence
ce & e
exp
xpos
osit
itio
ion
io
n
Network with linemen from all over the country

Meet face-to-face with leading utility product and safety equipment providers
andmanufacturers
Participate in educational presentations focused on training, safety, vehicles and more
REGISTER TODAY!
Use coupon code PRINTAD when registering.

owned & produced by:
presented by:
supporting publications:
Jan. 28 30, 2014

Henry B. Gonzalez Convention
Center
San Antonio, Texas
http://utilityproductsexpo.com
media sponsor:
host utility:
BY LARRY OWENS, SILICON VALLEY POWER
Silicon Valley
Wirelesss Broadband
Broadban
S
ilicon Valley Power (SVP), a

municipal power and water utility
in Santa Clara, Calif., provides services
to 52,000 power and 27,000 water
customers. Its 19.3-square-mile service territory in the heart of Silicon
Valley encompasses many large Fortune
500 companies, including Applied
Materials Inc., Microsoft Corp., Texas
Instruments Inc., Nvidia Corp., Owens
Corning, Oracle Corp. and Yahoo Inc.
Starting as early as the 1990s, SVP
began piloting the reading of electric
meters via a fixed 700-megahertz radio network with
now-defunct Whisper
20 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Com
Communications.
After some early shortfalls, it wasnt until 15 years later SVP
falls
began developing its smart grid strategy
beg
and identified advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) as the first application.
stru
AMI promised to improve customer serAM
vice by:
Increasing distribution system reliability;
Reducing time to detection and pinpointing outage locations, speeding
service recovery;
Increasing meter-reading accuracy;
Providing more timely access
to metering data (especially important in planning for
industrial customers);
Offering remote lock and unlock
service; and
Reducing operational costs.
Power Case Study:

y
nd Benefits Smart Grid, More

WIRELESS NETWORKA CRITICALL
SMART GRID ELEMENT
Next, SVP started investigating the types
ypes
of solutions needed to build a smart grid.
rid.
The utility quickly realized that a wireless
less
network was critical and would serve as a
field-area network (FAN) that spanned the
entire service territory. With this goal, the
utility began looking at which technologies
gies
might match the present-day needs.
SVP considered narrowband and
quickly determined such a solution probrobably would work for AMI when limited
ited
to meter reading. The team then began
gan
thinking about what other smart grid
applications it might want to consider
der
and determined narrowband would nott
provide the bandwidth and performance
to future-proof the investment. In considering what smart grid applications the utility might want in the future, it expanded
the list of possibilities beyond AMI to
include grid and asset monitoring, distribution automation, outage detection,

security, mobile work force applications
and disaster communications. The utility
determined through many discussions a
high-capacity, cost-effective wireless network that provided strong security, high
reliability and scalability was needed. In
addition, SVP decided a private network
was best. High availability was key to this
decision, as was the ability to control a private communications network. As many
remember, in 1989 the San Francisco Bay
Area was hit with a 7.1 earthquake. Over
the two days it took to recover, public
com
communication
systems were inundated
but the SVP private communication systems remained viable and effective.
tem
FIEL
FIELD-AREA
NETWORK
TECHNOLOGY
TEC
EVALUATION, FINDINGS
EVA
At the time, several companies and
A
technology choices were commercially
tech
available for creating a FAN. The utility
avai
evaluated Wi-Fi and WiMax technologies.
eval
To evaluate Wi-Fi, it purchased an existing network that already was installed
around downtown Santa Clara from a
arou
company that was going out of business
com
Larry Owens is the division manager of customer services and marketing at Silicon Valley Power.
He has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies and more than 20 years in the electric utility
industry. Owens oversees SVPs marketing communications, key customer services, energy efficiency
and renewable energy programs, dark fiber leasing and the development of online information products and services for customers. He is the sponsor and manager of SVPs MeterConnect program for
smart grid technologies.
December 2013 | 21
www.power-grid.com
(itsbusinessmodel was an advertisingfunded network that was unsuccessful).SVPusedthenetworktoconduct

testing for AMI and opened a separate
channeltoprovidethecommunitywith
free Wi-Fi access. The network served
its purpose as a test bed, and when
the Association of Home Appliance
Manufacturers selected Wi-Fi as its
smartappliancestandard,SVPdecided
that Wi-Fi would remain a persistent
standard. They were also convinced
that metro-scale Wi-Fi could be used
for smart grid applications and would
helpimproveoperationalefficiencyand
customer service. SVP executives also

determinedtheinexpensiveWi-Finetworktheyhadpurchaseddidnotmeet
alloftheirneeds:Itdidnothavecitywide coverage; the network nodes did
nothavebatterybackup;andtheWi-Fi
equipment vendor was absorbed by
anothercompany.
SVP METERCONNECT IS BORN

SVP launched SVP MeterConnect in
2008 and funded the program as part
oftheutilitysinfrastructureimprovement
initiative.Theprogramencompassed:
AcitywidewirelessFANusing802.11
Wi-Fistandards;
AMI meters that replaced 52,000
powerand27,000watermeters;
A meter data management system
(MDMS);and
Upgrades to the customer informationsystemusedforbilling.
SVPoutlinedtheeconomicjustification
andbenefitsfortheprojectas:
Operational
efficiencies:
reducedoperatingcostsoverarange
ofutilityapplications.
Revenue protection: reduced
loss from illegal activities, improved
meter-readingaccuracy,reducedcost
forlockandunlockservice.
22 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Customer service improvements: increasing billing accuracy,

moreup-to-dateaccesstousagedata,
allowing for early problem detection,fasterawarenessandresponseto
poweroutages.
Environmental and social benefits: conservation, energy efficiency,
reduced greenhouse gas emissions
and improved safety for SVP field
personnel.
SVPissuedapublicrequestforproposal
(RFP) in July 2009 for all the elements
requiredforSVPMeterConnect,including
the wireless FAN. The requirements for
theFANidentifiedbasedonSVPsresearch
andexperiencewere:
Coverage: contiguous citywide
wirelessnetworkcoverage;
Peak performance: at least 95
percent of routers capable of delivering a minimum of 3 Mbps bidirectional peak throughput plus 100
percentofrouterscapableof1Mbps
bidirectional simultaneous peak
throughput;
Network availability: Greaterthan
99.9percent;and
Security: AMI-SEC system security
requirements: NERC CIP 002-009,
NIST Special Publication (SP) 80053,ISTSP800-82.
SVP received and evaluated five FAN
vendorsthatrespondedtotheRFP.Elster
andTroposteamedupforacombination
thatfitSVPsneedsandsuppliedtheAMI
system and Wi-Fi wireless mesh for the
FAN, respectively. Tropos (now a part of
the ABB family) stood out above the rest
of the products evaluated. As a plus, the
companyhadaprovenrecordindeploying multiuse networks for utilities and
municipalities.
ROLLOUT PLANS AND RESULTS

Before the rollout, SVP communicated
its smart grid plans to customers and conducted a survey, which was completed in
2010. The goal was to identify the advantages customers expected to realize from
smart grid applications, such as AMI, and
to highlight areas of concern where more
education or information might be necessary. The survey results showed that twothirds of SVPs customers were supportive
of the smart grid ideas. However, an even
higher value to them was free outdoor
Wi-Fi access the first test network was
more popular than SVP expected!
The SVP team continued communityoutreach efforts by using public meetings and written communications about
wireless networks, AMI meters, security,
billing, and other topics. The utility also
launched a website to answer common
questions received from customers and
updated it on an ongoing basis. It learned
that a proactive public relations campaign to educate customers throughout
the planning and implementation process
is critical to a successful rollout.
SVP MeterConnect is being rolled out
in three phases:
Phase 1 (completed spring 2013):
FAN, AMI pilot, public Wi-Fi;
Phase 2 (began fall 2013): 2,000
industrial and 15,000 commercial
and residential AMI; and
Phase 3 (12-24 months after completion of Phase 2): completion of
residential AMI.
SVPs smart grid team selected to
roll out the FAN first based on Tropos
Networks mesh product for two reasons. First, the territorywide network is
a foundation for successfully operating
all the smart grid applications planned.
Second, based on the strong feedback
from the community, SVP wanted to

deliver free Wi-Fi to residents immediately. SVP deployed the free Wi-Fi on a
separate channel and reserved the other
15 separate channels for utility applications to ensure security and tightly
managed quality of service. With the
free Wi-Fi, the goals were not to replace
home and business broadband but rather
to support light use across town. The
decision was also made to limit bandwidth to 2 Mbps per user and supported
outdoor use only.
Santa Clara is the first city in the nation
to leverage its utility AMI network to
provide free outdoor Wi-Fi citywide.
Feedback from the community has been
positive, and the economic development
department highlights its availability. The
network averages some 500 users per
hour and peaks at more than 5,000 users
per day.
The FAN covers Santa Clara. More
than 600 Tropos Wi-Fi access nodes are
mounted on city-owned assets, including light and power poles, traffic safety
lamps and buildings. This includes 58
gateways all connected to city fiber. SVP
designed the network for a maximum of
three hops from any node to a gateway.
This was done to achieve performance
and ensure redundant paths were available if a node should fail. All radios are
equipped with four to six hours of battery backup to provide communications
during widespread events. The utility
had specified the network capacity be
3 Mbps, but it delivers substantially
more capacity at 10-12 Mbps in most
areas. When AMI meters are installed in
2014, electricity and water usage information sent across the network will be
highly encrypted. Security on this part of
the system mimics that of banking and
national defense institutions.
A MULTIUSE FAN
The Tropos FAN is a cost-effective
foundation for deployment of many
applications that will improve the reliability and quality of services that provide power and water to customers.
In addition to using the network for
public access and AMI backhaul, the
SVP billing department field staff uses
the network to connect their iPads to a
Web-based interface to the billing system. They can perform many services
from the field, such as:
Lock and unlock services (move-in
and move-out), including meter
reads;
Disconnecting for nonpayment;
Updating billing information and
notes for meter location or identifying access issues such as new
dog;
Tamperingpictures and video
records; and
Emailing to co-workers and connection to utility and city websites
when needed.
SVP is considering additional electric
utility applications that would leverage
the FAN, including distribution monitoring, security monitoring, remote
fault-current indicators, capacitor bank
switching, outage detection, asset management and power-loss analytics.
Water utility applications under consideration include remote meter reading,
leak detection, usage profiles by areas
of the city and supervisory control and
data acquisition. The citys fire department is considering using the Wi-Fi
network over its existing system to
enable download of building or patient
information while driving or communicating with other emergency service
units in the field.
December 2013 | 23
www.power-grid.com
CAN STOCK PHOTO INC. / BASKETMAN23
BY DAVID KREISS AND MASOUD ABAEI, AMI OPERATIONS CONSULTING LLC
24 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
ost utilities that have deployed

advanced metering infrastructure
(AMI)systemshavenotcreatedcentralized
operations centers that provide realtime, end-to-end monitoring, analysis
and management of their systems. The
operationofanAMIsysteminmostcases
is shared by a collection of disparate
groupsoftennotinthesamelocation.Each
group has management responsibilities
for a component of the AMI system to
include the meter data management
(MDM), information technology (IT),
communications, cybersecurity and
metering hardware. These groups often
worknormalbusinesshoursandarenot
structured to provide near-time system
monitoringandanalytics.
Acentralizedoperationscenterprovides
manybenefits,including:
Overall lower staffing and resource
costs;
Superior system performance (meter
readrates);
Higherreliability;
Better security with respect to
identifying potential cyberattacks;
and
Superiorriskmanagement.
CENTRALIZED AMI
OPERATIONS CENTER
An AMI operations center is a formal
structure for the management of an AMI
system to allow the operator to manage
performance, security, reliability and
risk.Ithasmanycharacteristicsofagrid
controloperationscenter.AMIsystemsare
AMI OPERATIONS CENTER STRUCTURE

Transmission
Distribution
SCADA/EMS
DMS
an extension of the distribution system.

Although the primary function of an
AMI system is the reliable collection of
energy usage data, it is expected that
AMI systems will support transmission
and distribution (T&D) and smart grid
activities to include storm management,
loadbalancing,voltagecontrolandhomearea network (HAN)/demand response
(DR) activities. AMI operations center
willneedtobestructuredtoaddressthe
growingcollectionofactivities.
TheoperationofanAMIsystemrequires
manytasksthatvarybyutility,depending
on the organization of departments
revenue services, meter services, etc.
but most operations centers address the
followingdailytasks:
Identifying deviations in overall
performance and analyzing root
cause;
AMI
HAN
AMI Ops
Mitigatingdeviceissuestoinclude
noncommunicating meters, failed
metersandconnectivityissues;
Provisioningandcommissioningof
newlyinstalleddevices;
Metering false positive security
alertanalytics;
Conducting over-the-air meter
reprogramming and firmware
downloads;
Backhaul management that generally requires activation, deactivationandsuspensionofbackhauls;
Backhaul business management
whenusingapublicnetwork;
Processupdates;
Securityalertanalysis;and
Nolightssupport(loadsidevoltage
test).
The goal of an AMI operations center
David Kreiss is a consultant for AMI Operations Consulting LLC. He has worked as general
manager of Southern California Edisons AMI operations center, SCE project manager of the SCMAS
(SmartConnect monitoring and analysis system) and founder of Kreiss Johnson Technologies, a utility
smart grid software development company. Reach him at david.kreiss@amioperations.com.
Masoud Abaei is a consultant for AMI Operations Consulting LLC. He has worked as the chief
architect of Southern California Edisons SmartConnect project that included the design and
deployment of SCEs MDM system and SCMAS. Abaei also was the chief architect for SCEs Customer
Service System. Reach him at masoud.abaei@amioperations.com.
December 2013 | 25
www.power-grid.com
is to complete the daily tasks as defined

in the centers processes and to ensure
system performance, maintain reliability
and minimize risk. An AMI operations
center has:
A secure, dedicated facility;
A single, secure and traceable point
for ad hoc over-the-air communications;
Tools or a system to provide situational awareness and real-time system analysis;
Dedicated full-time staff to address
routine and daily processes and triage
incidents;
A complete set of approved processes
and service level agreements (SLAs);
and
Work management to ensure business-as-usual tasks and incidents are
completed within required SLAs.
AMI OPERATIONS CENTER BENEFITS
An AMI operations center can improve
management of performance, reliability,
security and risk all at a lower cost.
Performance. The primary objective
of an AMI operations center is to ensure the
reliable, secure collection of interval data
for billing and that daily read performance
targets are met. This requires that read
performance be monitored in real time
and tools and processes are in place to
mitigate identified issues. All aspects of
the AMI system should be monitored to
identify trends to address issues before
they affect performance. Typically for a
1-million-meter deployment, a utility can
expect 10,000 to 30,000 meters that may
not read on a given day.
The operations center can perform the
following to improve system performance:
Intelligent scheduling of OTA daily
jobs;
Identifying clusters of low-responding
26 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Security. Cybersecurity attacks can

occur directly over the communications
system and via the IT system. Either
way, obtaining and using meter data is
essential to the analysis of a possible
attack. Meters record events and issue
exceptions that are associated with
possible cyberattack. Unfortunately,
a number of normal operations cause
meters to generate these events. The
Optimized read performance translates result is false positive events. Their
to fewer pick-up reads and delayed bills.
analysis is time-consuming, which
Reliability. AMI system reliability can could lead to utilities falling behind
be broken down into three categories: field in performing false positive analytics.
device (meter and backhaul hardware), This would pose a risk of missing a true
communications (radio frequency (RF) and security breach. A centralized operations
IP) and IT (server and software) reliability. center would have the correlated data,
The AMI operations center is a key player staff and tools to be the logical solution
in all three areas. The meter services for the rapid analysis of these events
organization might have
to
remove
obvious
the lead role in monitoring
false positive and issueAn AMI
meter hardware issues, but
validated security alerts.
operations
the AMI operations center
Risk management.
center can
is the first line of defense
AMI vendors have a history
improve
in immediately identifying
of exceptional reliability.
performance,
hardware incidents and
Although a collection of
reliability,
meter issues that result
troubling incidents have
security and
from OTA programming
occurred, no catastrophic
risk at a lower
activities such as firmware
events have been reported.
cost.
downloads. Utility IT
Utilities have never before
operations and maintenance typically are deployed this quantity of mission-critical
responsible for the AMI IT system but new technology assets in their T&D
generally are only involved when a server systems. Some could argue the potential
or service crashes. The AMI operations risk is not yet understood or there is a lack of
centers end-to-end monitoring philosophy ability to identify and mitigate a cascading
would facilitate the monitoring of IT catastrophic event. Such an event could
system loading and capacity (if not CPU be a large-scale, remote service switch
and memory usage) and allow for the early disconnect, a collapsed communications
identification and prediction of IT-related system or even a cascading meter hardware
issues. Finally, a responsibility of the AMI failure. Whether the origination is a security
operations center would be to monitor breach, an IT system bug or a firmware
the communications network, including bug exposed during firmware activation,
obtaining RF network statistics, backhaul the consequences could be the same.
device loading and the public or private IP
The AMI operations center plays the key
communications system.
role in risk management, specifically to
meters that could be mitigated by the
addition of backhaul devices;
Identifying and mitigating communication bottlenecks;
Identifying and alerting on performance degradation of IT components; and
Rapidly identifying and mitigating
backhaul devices.
identify the issue quickly and immediately

address the situation. The operations
center would supply management quickly
with the best information to ensure the
best decisions are made and the most
reliable, comprehensive information can
be communicated to interested parties.
O&M savings. An AMI operations
center results in lower operating costs
because a centralized focused staff requires
smaller head count. The improvement of
performance and reliability reduces pickup
reads and delayed billing issues. Improved
over-the-air analytics reduces truck rolls
and meter replacements. In addition, an
operations center is naturally structured to
provide additional services and analytics
easily, which reduce the incremental
costs of supporting T&D and smart grid
activities. These activities include storm
restoration, no lights, high impedance fault

detection, load balancing and transformer
overload detection projects.
AMI OPERATIONS CENTER
COMPONENTS
Processes. An important, resourceintensive component of an AMI
operations center, which is generally
underestimated, is the development,
implementation and tracking of
AMI-related
processes.
These
include monitoring, analysis and
mitigation of nonresponding meters,
firmware download and responses to
cybersecurity alerts. A typical AMI
operations center might be responsible
for more than 100 processes. A key
to an effective operations center is to
minimize swim lane activities of groups
external to the center.

Staffing. The operations center
should be staffed to minimize reliance
on external groups to perform their
core processes. This requires staff with
expertise in communications, meter
hardware, security, database and IT.
Change management and process staff
also are required.
Facility. The operations center
facility should facilitate efficient
communications among staff. It should
include whiteboards, meeting tables
and visualization technologies to allow
teams to triage incidents and evaluate
events. For most large AMI deployments,
a large, central visualization display
is useful to annunciate incidents
and provide situational awareness. A
single facility also allows the utility
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December 2013 | 27
www.power-grid.com
to manage over-the-air activities and

provide security that otherwise would
be unavailable. Finally, IT must provide
the staff within the facility with access
(firewall configurations) to data sources
used in their work.
Operations center software
tools. The operations center must have
tools to analyze the huge quantities
of meter data collected daily. Tools
provided by the vendors have proved
insufficient. Vendors generally supply
tools that consist of the head-end system
(or collection engine) that is the single
point of communications with the
meters, an operational reporting system
and a backhaul (IP device) monitoring
and reporting system. These tools are
not meant to provide an integrated
end-to-end view of the system. They
neither consider the data necessary for
monitoring and analysis of systems
beyond the AMI system nor do they
provide real-time situational awareness.
Utilities are addressing the need for AMI
operational tools in two ways: through
the acquisition of standalone application
or through an integrated approach. An
integrated system is a better approach
that is less costly long term and enhances
the benefit of the operations center. The
following describes the functionality of
an integrated set of toolsthe AMI
operations center software system
that satisfies the needs of a larger AMI
operations center:
Rules engine for automated
incident identification. The
quantities of data are too large and
the analysis steps too complex for
incidents to be identified manually.
Many incidents are being ignored
and others are not addressed in
a timely manner, reducing read
performance and increasing risk.
28 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
Data access to the broad

scope of data sources
required by AMI processes.
It is necessary to access from the
source system such data as meter and
backhaul RMA (returns), backhaul
(cell relay) activation status and
work orders, fieldwork orders and
HAN registrations. In addition, the
centers meter incidents and work
management information must be
integrated.
Real-time situational awareness. Operators must be able to
identify issues in real time and have
the tools to perform basic analytics
to understand the emerging situation. Such issues include a cyber
alert, cascading communications,
field device or IT system failure,
or poor read response during a
broadcast job. In addition to issue
identification, the system must provide information that would help
mitigate the issue, as well as the
information that would be communicated to management to allow
escalated action to be taken. A geospatial application is essential.
Automated work management. Work activities must
be generated for each incident
identified by the system. This
ensures the mitigation is performed
in an efficient and timely way. The
work activity would include the
tasks that must be performed to
complete the activity and record the
timing and person who completed
the task for tracking.
End-to-end monitoring. Incidents can be identified reliably only
when viewing the system from end to
end. This means operators must have
insight into the IT infrastructure,
including all subsystems, the IP

communications system (public or
private) and related data pipes, the
RF backhaul devices, and finally the
meters. In some cases, the ZigBee
and HAN elements also should be
in view.
THE PUSH FOR AN AMI
OPERATIONS CENTER
AMI systems challenge the utility
industry. Not only is AMI a relatively
new technology; it is large and costly.
The operation of an AMI system is more
complex than anticipated. The analytics
of analyzing field device issues are much
more involved than expected, and AMI
operational activities such as firmware
download require many more steps than
initially thought.
Utilities are in the early stages of
defining the operational needs of an
AMI system and formulating structures,
processes and tools. A few utilities
recently implemented AMI operations
centers and developed the required
tools. This provides the utility industry
with working models that can be used to
develop utilities own operations centers
that meet their needs.
The benefits of an AMI operations
center for a larger AMI system outweigh
the costs. The benefits include optimizing system performance, operational efficiencies, improved system reliability and
security, and the management of risk.
A large AMI system requires a
dedicated facility with a skilled staff
and documented processes to meet
the existing expectations and support
planned smart grid projects. Expectation
can best be met with a well-structured
AMI operations center that provides
real-time end-to-end system monitoring,
analysis and mitigation.
JAN. 28-30, 2014

HENRY B. GONZALEZ CONVENTION CENTER
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
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Host Utility:
The Reputation Imperative:

Why North American Utilities Still Dont Get It
Feeling
Leadersh
ip
sh
la c
rk p
zen
www.power-grid.com
Wo
C i ti
30 | December 2013
ation
Innov
Admire
n the 2013 Global Reputation

2013 GENERAL PUBLIC
Leaders Study, Reputation
DRIVERS OF REPUTATION
Institute spoke to more than 300
executives at some of the worlds
Produc
ts/S
largest, most influential compaervi
ces
nies and heard variations on this
11.8%
14.3%
storyline: As much as reputation
leaders (a diverse group, but most
Esteem
frequently the senior communica13.0%
tor, chief marketing officer or the
RepTrak
14.9%
Pulse
head of business strategy) would
like to tell the CEO and board that
Tr u st
everything is under control, when
13.2%
14.8%
it comes to stakeholder relationship management, everything is
p
18.0%
not under control.
G o v erna n ce
Most companies agree reputation
Factor Adjusted Regression
management is important, but few
N = 1,200
AdjR = 0.746
know what they should do about it.
Although 79 percent agree that
we live in a reputation economy, an econ- response to a companys ability to deliver
omy where who you are matters more on seven rational dimensions of reputathan what you produce, only 20 percent tion: products and services, innovation,
say their company is ready to compete workplace, governance, leadership, citiin it. Unfortunately, U.S. and Canadian zenship and financial performance.
utilities have not been able to store much
This article analyzes 11 utilities on both
reputation capital in recent years, as this sides of the 49th parallel and how they
is one industry that has weathered the have been unable to build up enough
global financial crisis better than most reputation capital to get out the sea
with the general public across North of sameness and remain a reputationAmerica.
challenged industry in 2013. Southern
Each spring since 2006, Reputation Co. was the only North American utility
Institute conducts a syndicated quantita- to enjoy a strong reputation (70.32),
tive research study across 34 countries and Manitoba Hydro at 62.68 was the
and asks the general public to rate hun- only Canadian utility to score above 60,
dreds of organizations on the trust, admi- signifying an average reputation. In all,
ration, good feeling and esteem they have 10 of the 11 utilities included in this
for the largest companies in each market. special report for Electric Light & Power
This Reputation Pulse score between 0 scored in the average/weak category,
and 100 is a perception and an emotional with Hydro One at 49.80 bringing up
the rear. Five other U.S. utilities

Duke Energy Corp., Exelon Corp.,
Florida Power & Light Co., Xcel
Energy and Constellation Energy
Resources LLCscored within
three points of one another in the
low- to mid-60s, and the remaining three Canadian utilitiesBC
Hydro, Hydro-Quebec and Fortis
Inc.were all in the low 50s.
WHAT DRIVES CORPORATE

REPUTATION IN THE NORTH
AMERICAN INDUSTRY?
The top three reputation drivers
for the utility industry are governance, innovation and citizenship,
composing just less than half (47.4
percent) of a utilitys reputation
(see Figure 1).
Because of the nature of the products
and services they provide, utilities
corporate reputations are influenced
more by how they are run and what
they give back to the communities
where they operate, pushing governance
and citizenship into dual prominence
as reputation drivers for the industry.
John Patterson is a New York-based
senior advisor at Reputation Institute. He
has worked with clients and written about
the global energy and utility industry for
20 years at Burson-Marsteller, Ernst &
Young, Capgemini and Ketchum, and is
an honors graduate of Harvard College.
Reach him at jpatterson@reputationinstitute.com. For more information and
a free report on your utilitys Reputation
Journey, visit www.reputationinstitute.
com/reputation-challenges/take-the-reputation-diagnostic.
CAN STOCK PHOTO INC. / IQONCEPT
BY JOHN PATTERSON, REPUTATION INSTITUTE
BUILDING A STRONG UTILITY

REPUTATION THROUGH
A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
During the past two decades of foundational work with some of the worlds
most progressive companies, Reputation
Institute has observed four elements that
are core to a reputation management systems rise to the top: business rationale,
intelligence and strategy, management and
accountability, and integration. Companies
that manage their
reputations well are
WHERE ARE YOU ON YOUR
2
REPUTATION JOURNEY?
working with these
four elements in a
3%
structured way that
Integration Into
5 Full
Long-term Strategy
brings clarity and
12%
and Investments
Cross-functional
focus to their efforts.
4 Implementation and
36%
Accountability
In return, that tends
32%
Business Planning
3
to enable companies
Integration
%
17%
Companies
and Measurement
to develop more
2 Management
Framework Development
Exploration
and
Phase 1
profitable and more
Busniness Rationale
highly respected
Sources: 2013 Reputaion Institute, Reputation Leader Study (Based on responses from
leaders at 292 of the worlds largest and most inuential companies)
businesses
than
companies on a higher level than other companies that dont.
industries not tainted by recent scandal.
How does your utility measure up
Each dimension alone accounts for when it comes to the following 16 elemore than 11 percent of reputation, and ments of a world-class reputation manthe difference between the leading driver agement system?
(governance at 18 percent) and the Business Rationale
lowest-rated one (financial performance
Integrated company purpose
at 11.8 percent) in 2013 is just more
Corporate reputation rationale
than 6 percentage points.
Defined stakeholder ecosystem
Compare todays picture to the utility
Leadership alignment
reputation dimension weights back in Intelligence and Strategy
2007, when TXU Energy Retail Co. LLC
Systematic evaluation
was involved in the largest leveraged
Priorities and success metrics
buyout in history and most North
Corporate reputation strategy
American utilities were operating in a
Corporate narrative
macro environment of strong economic Management and Accountability
growth and a bullish stock market.
Collaboration and relevance
Back then, citizenship (20.5 percent),
Planning and simulation
products and services (19 percent) and
Cross-functional management
innovation (14 percent) were the top
Executive accountability
three drivers, followed by governance, Integration
workplace, leadership and financial
Corporate narrative activation
performance.
Corporate narrative embedded
The utility industry is one of only a
handful of global industries of the
25 studied by Reputation Institute
in 2013 where products and services
was not the No. 1 reputation driver
for consumers; governance is most
important largely because of a lingering
BP/Macondo or Tokyo Electric Power
Co. Inc./Fukushima effect, which places
consumer expectations of the ethics
and transparency of energy and utility
across touch points

Sustainable ambassador/advocacy
Transformational investments
CONCLUSION
Like re-engineering and total quality
management (1990s) and leveraging enterprise resource planning investments in IT
(2000s) before it, reputation management
is coming of age as a boardroom issue in
the 2010s. Coming out of the worst global
recession in 80 years, Reputation Institutes
research shows that the companies that
are winning license to operate and benefit of the doubt are the ones that understand the new normal where stakeholders
rule. Customers, investors, regulators and
potential employees all want to know what
a company stands for. Making the grade is
about trusting a company to do the right
thing, and demand is at an all-time high in
2013 although only 15 percent of global
organizations are Phase 4/5 companies
(see Figure 2).
The reputation journey continues, and
North American utilities have a long way to
go to escape the industry comparisons to
big pharma and clueless telecom/wireless
carriers when it comes to reputation management. It takes far more than research;
rather, it involves taking a data-driven
approach to managing all stakeholders
from associates to influencers to commercial audiencesbecause a one-size-fits-all
strategy is doomed to repeat mistakes. It
takes using the intelligence gained from
stakeholder conversations in shaping strategies and initiatives that clearly demonstrate to the world who the company is
and what it stands for. It also takes more
than campaigns. It is about implementing
the companys promises and commitments
into all touch points, and that takes a different kind of governance and co-creation
than most utilities are used to. Is your
organization ready to face the reputation
imperative of the 2010s?
December 2013 | 31
www.power-grid.com
BY TONY CONROY, ELLIS
arlier this year, Richard Shaw,

managing director of U.K. manufacturer Ellis, called on the IET to
reclassify cable cleats as protective
equipmenta move he said would
eradicate overnight, longstanding specification and installation issues that
cause health, safety and system integrity
problems.
Now he is repeating this call to the
global electrical community.
Weve been banging the drum about
the importance of correctly cleating
cables for what seems like years, Shaw
said, yet still it feels like we are lightyears away from reaching a satisfactory
32 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
National Grids London power tunnels.
conclusion. In fact, Im still absolutely

staggered by the number of installations
I see where cleats have been incorrectly
specified and, in some cases, dispensed
with completely in favor of cable ties.
To fully understand Shaws concerns
and the impact the reclassification of
cleats would have, one must understand the purpose of cable cleats. Their
importance is frequently underestimated, he said.
What this means in practice is
that instead of being treated as a vital
element of any cabling installation, they

are lumped in with the electrical sundries and seen as fair game for cost
cutting, Shaw said. But for an installation to be deemed safe, cables need
to be restrained in a manner that can
Tony Conroy is export director of Ellis, a
Yorkshire, England,-based manufacturer that
designs and manufactures cable cleats. It
is the only manufacturer in the electrical
industry that focuses solely on cable cleats
and its products. Visit www.ellispatents.co.uk
for more information.
The Zagorskaya pumped storage plant in Russias Moscow Region.
withstand the forces they generate,

including those generated during a
short circuit, and this is exactly what
cable cleats are designed to do.
Shaw said that without cleats, the
dangers are obvious: costly damage
to cables and cable management systems, plus a risk to
life posed by incorrectly
or poorly restrained live
cables.
Unfortunately, its
not just a question
of installing any old
cleat, he said. It
has to be correctly
specified for the
project in hand. If
not, the cables might as well be
secured with plastic cable ties; the reason being that different cable cleats are
designed to withstand specific forces,
meaning the only thing underspecified
cleats will do in a short circuit situation
is add to the shrapnel.

One reason for the confusion is that
the cable cleat market is manufacturerdriven. Therefore, the choice of product
tends to rely on third-party certification
in the form of a short circuit testing
Ellis Emperor
trefoil cable
cleat.
certificate, but
unfortunately this
can be misleading.
For example,
Shaw said, some
manufacturers
claim a given short
circuit withstand at a given cleat
spacing and legitimately provide thirdparty certification to support this.
Overlooked, though, is that the quoted
short circuit withstand is valid only for
a cable diameter equal to or greater
than the diameter of the

cable used in the test. If
the project in question
uses smaller cables (and
the fault level and spacing is the same), then the
force between the cables
is proportionally greater and the certificate is
inappropriate.
Plainly and simply
you cannot say that a
specific cable cleat has
a short circuit withstand without qualifying
the statement, he said.
So instead of claiming
a withstand of 150 kA,
youd need to say that
the cleat has a short circuit withstand of 150 kA
when securing 43-mm cable in trefoil at
300-mm centres. To me, the only way
of rectifying this whole complex and
potentially lethal issue is through the
adoption of cable cleats as short circuit
protection devices.
The reason, Shaw said, is simple: By
giving cable cleats the same importance
as fuses or circuit breakers, no one
would have a doubt about ensuring
their correct specification.
To support this argument, he outlined three key points:
1. In the event of a short circuit fault,
the maximum electromechanical stress between the conductors occurs during the first-quarter
cycle, i.e., at or before 0.005 seconds (based on 50 hertz).
2. Typical circuit breakers and other
protection devices dont trip and
interrupt a fault until between
three and five cycles (0.06 to 0.1
seconds).
December 2013 | 33
www.power-grid.com
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3. In contrast, correctly specified

cable cleats earn their crust during the first-quarter cycle, ensuring the cables remain intact and
operational.
Ellis Centaur cable

saddle for high-voltage
cables.
the system is absolutely vital.

And whats more, this process is
being replicated in our key markets.
We are enjoying ongoing success in the
USA, Australia, Latin America, China,
Russia and closer to home in mainland Europe and the U.K., and in
every instance contracts are
won after we
highlight the
reasons why
cable
cleats
need to be correctly specified for
each and every project. Yet for every
success, I am sure there are others
circuit as opposed to just the cleat.

Yes, the standards are only advisory,
but anyone working in the electrical
industry anywhere in the world should
pay heed to them; they have been
developed for a reason, and the reason
is that electrical cable installations have
the potential to kill, Shaw said. There
is no way of sugar-coating that particular message. They pose a very real danger that the various standards, whether
international, European or even British
have been developed specifically to
eradicate.
The problem, though, is the discrepancy between the prescribed course of
What these three points demonstrate is that without properly specified cable cleats, the time, effort and
expense spent assembling a circuit
breaking system will go to waste as any
electrical installation will be irrevocably
damaged by electromechanical stresses
long before the short circuit protection
devices are put to the test, Shaw said.
To date, this argument, despite its
seemingly unbreakable logic, hasnt
gathered the support needed to influCleats being put through their short circuit paces.
ence industry regulators to make the
change. But rather than admitting where corners are cut, cleats are under- action and the one that the electrical
defeat, Shaw and his team continue to specified and lives and systems are put industry as a whole seems to believe
focus attention on changing attitudes at unnecessary risk. Its very much an is the right course of action. Where to
wherever and whenever
ongoing battle, and it point the finger of blame for what is a
they can.
really shouldnt be.
complex and difficult problem is hard
Things are changShaw
said
internato do, but how to resolve this dangerous
Where
ing slowly but surely,
tional and European situation is straightforward.
cleats are
he said. There are
standards
safeguard
The reclassification of cable cleats
underspecified,
European and internaagainst
incorrect
specias
protective equipment would immelives and
tional standards relatfication. For example, diately see electrical cable installations
systems are put
ing to cleats where once
levels of cable protec- being specified and installed that delivat unnecessary
there were none. More
tion can be enhanced ered the necessary level of protection
risk.
and more specifiers and
by selecting only prod- both in terms of excessive temperatures
contractors are ensuructs classified in section and electromechanical stresses, Shaw
ing cleats are correctly specified, most 6.4.4 of the International Standard. In said, and, of course, eradicate the
notably in HV and EHV cable instal- other words, the cable is guaranteed risk to life posed by incorrectly cleated
lations where ensuring the integrity of to be intact and operable after a short cables.
36 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
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Interoperability Enables Innovation

BY ROBERTO AIELLO, ITRON
ost products consumers use in their

daily lives are based on standard
components manufactured by different
companies that interoperate with one
other. From watching the morning
news to driving to and from work, most
daily activities depend on collaborating
tools and technologies that afford more
convenient and connected lifestyles. Rarely
does someone wonder what his or her life
would be like without this interoperabilitydriven world.
Meanwhile, the power grid historically
has been characterized by specifically
designed proprietary technologies, with
few companies providing true end-toend solutions. As the smart grid industry
moves to a new phase in which consumers
affect the behavior of the grid and utilities
apply automatic optimization processes,
interoperability becomes critical in opening
the door for new applications.
Many devices have gone down the path
of interoperability, moving from proprietary
to open standards. What lessons can the
utility industry learn from these devices?
Lets start with a couple of examples of true
interoperability.
38 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
INTEROPERABILITY TODAY
Consider a teens sharing a picture
on a social network. The teen holds the
phone in front of her, takes a picture,
logs onto the social network using an
app on her phone and posts the photo.
After a few seconds, the image becomes
visible to her friends. The following
steps break this process to see the chain
of interoperability.
OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division

Multiplexing) signaling used by the
cellular network. Nor did they create
the file system used by the servers. Most
of the added value is the user interface
design and ease of use. The app delivers
a great social value to the teen using
existing, interoperable technologies.
Another example is music streaming.
Some new vehicles stream the owners
ACTION
INTEROPERABLE COMPONENT
Phone stores image.
Image Compression
Phone sends image to cellular network.
3G Protocol
Cellular network sends image to server.
Internet Protocol
Server stores image.
File System
In reality, there is much more involved,

and there are many more granular steps,
but these simplified steps are sufficient
to make the point.
The app that allows sharing the picture
doesnt contribute to any of the steps
described in the table. The engineers
who developed the app didnt have
to develop the JPG image-compression
scheme or specify the Internet Protocol
packets used by the Internet or the
Roberto Aiello is technology advisor at

Itron, where he is responsible for emerging
technologies and new business initiatives.
During his career he has managed
wireless research at Interval Research,
Paul Allens technology incubator in the
Bay Area and technology transfer at
Disney Research. Aiello is a Lean Startup
expert and serves as a mentor at startup
accelerators such as Cleantech Open and
Startup Weekend.
selected favorite music from his or her

smart phone through the cars speakers.
These apps have made music available to
consumers anywhere, anytime, but the
distribution channel to these consumers
has nothing to do with them and
everything to do with interoperability.
The chain of interoperable components
is shown in the following figure.
FROM PROPRIETARY
TO STANDARDS-BASED
TECHNOLOGIES
Companies often introduce new products into the market based on proprietary
technologies. As the industry matures,
those companies might see the introduction of standard and interoperable technologies as a threat to their existing market
ACTION
Server accesses music file.
File System
Server sends music file to network.
Internet Protocol
Phone receives music file.
3G Protocol
Phone sends music file to car system.
Bluetooth
Car systems play music.
MP3 Decoder
In this example, there are standards

related to music compression,
share. Others see that as an opportunity to

increase the breadth of products.
networking and wireless components.

In both cases, the infrastructure used
by these apps is made of standard,
interoperable components developed
by other companies specialized in
specific domains. Without this existing
infrastructure, it would be impossible
to offer these products to consumers.
From lightbulbs and power plugs to
coffeemaker filters, doorknobs, train
tracks and bicycle pumps, examples of
interoperability are everywhere.
An example of proprietary technology

is FireWire. Developed by Apple in
the late 1980s, FireWire was a serial
bus interface. It was one of the first
technologies designed to provide highperformance links. Apple and a few
others who owned intellectual property
wanted to maintain their rights, making
it a mostly proprietary technology.
FireWire did not become ubiquitous.
USB (Universal Serial Bus) had larger
market share.
USB was developed in the mid1990s. The intent of the design was to
standardize connections for computers
but since has evolved into an essential
tool to back up documents or charge
smart phones. In this case Compaq,
DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC
and Nortel not only developed the
technology and made it available free
to anyone but also created the USB
Implementer Forum to guarantee
interoperability among devices.
Another good example is Ethernet.
Originally developed by Xerox PARC
in 1974, it later was promoted as a
standard by Xerox, Intel and DEC and
eventually was approved as a standard
as IEEE 802.3 (Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers) in 1984. The
technology improved in speed, cost and

availability, and it is now one of the most
successful networking technologies.
Many companies have been successful
delivering products based on standard,
interoperable components, so why
wouldnt we assume the smart grid
would be the same?
SMART GRID
One of the best examples in the smart
grid industry is given by advanced
December 2013 | 39
www.power-grid.com
wireless signaling and mesh protocol to

network protocol, then to the file format
in the database to the analysis software.
Electric meters also allow connectivity to
consumer electronics devices using inhome wireless interoperable standards.
From hardware to software and applications, most systems are not completely built on interoperable and standard components. When AMI system
providers began designing products, the
technologies were created without consideration of standards and interoperability and were made to accommodate
the needs of a specific utility. Solutions
for energy and water utilities have been
traditionally vendor-specific.
The utility industry is becoming more
advanced, expansive and interoperable. For example, a typical system
enables utilities to monitor electricity
The changes happening in this industry allow innovators to develop new

applications and business models that
would be impossible without standard
and interoperable systems. This will
create more value for utilities and consumers.
Utilities also will be able to focus on
their core expertise of energy management instead of having to be experts in
every system component. In this new
scenario, utilities wont have to specify
the meter data format, type of mesh network or type of in-home network. They
can specify high-level functionalities,
technologies meet their specific needs,

regardless what theyre trying to accomplish.
This is similar to the changes that
have happened in the telecommunications industry during the past 10 years,
where network operators used to specify
which components should be included
in a specific phone. Now phone manufacturers offer phones made of standard
components, and network operators can
focus on network reliability and services.
Standard components will find their
way in the industry, AMI manufacturers
will specify and include those components in their systems, and utilities will
drive use cases and metricsnot which
components to be included in an AMI
system.
If the industry can accelerate this
transition, it will benefit from interoperability. Standard and interoperable
systems are important to the development of new, innovative applications and
business models that otherwise would
be impossible. Standards also will free
utilities from having to specify every
system component so they can focus on
the desired high-level functionalities of
the system. AMI vendors should move
toward standard components, resisting
consumption based on interoperable

and standardized products from the
electric meter socket to the data format
in the meter, followed by encryption,
such as the frequency at which the data

needs to be viewed, the level of security
or the parameters related to energy use
prediction while letting interoperable
the temptation to hang on to proprietary

solutions. The industry will gain much
more by working together to achieve
true interoperability.
metering infrastructure (AMI), which features two-way communications down to

the electricity, gas, heat or water meter.
AMI enables utilities to measure, collect
and analyze energy and water usage either
by request or on a schedule.
ACTION
Meter stores metrology data.
Meter Data Format
Data is encrypted.
Encryption Protocol
Network interface sends data.
Internet Protocol
Data is relayed to collector.
Mesh Network Protocol
Collector sends data to server.
3G Protocol
Data is unencrypted.
Encryption Protocol
Data is stored to server.
Database File Format
40 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
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BY DONALD POLLOCK, AMBIENT CORP.
he telecommunication industry and

the electricity industry are both
more than a century old. Advances
in information technology and
communications have transformed the
telecommunications industry, but the
electric grid has not changed much
during the past 100 years. One often
hears that were Thomas Edison to
return today, he probably still would
recognize the electric grid. But change is
underway. During the past decade, the
utility industry has embraced the smart
grid, using two-way communication
technology and computer processing
to add intelligence to devices and
processes on the grid.
According to Smart Grid
Networking and Communications,
a September report by Navigant
Research,
spending
on
communications for grid
automation and control is
accelerating as utilities
demand more robust
42 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
networks to support a growing range of

applications such as advanced metering
infrastructure (AMI), demand-side
management (DSM), distribution
monitoring and automation, direct load
control and more.
Building the communications
platform for increasingly diverse
applications is challenging. Keeping
pace with advances in technology can
be overwhelming. The dilemma for
many utilities is to make the right
technology investments to guarantee
long-term economic, operational and
environmental benefits. In addition,
there is the need to ensure effective
integration with existing assets.
Avoiding fragmented, isolated and
unconnected systems is paramount
to achieve the cost and operational
benefits that new technologies promise.
Early smart grid adopters identified
challenges and gained significant
insights into best practices in deploying
smart grid communications systems,
according to a June white paper by
Ambient Corp. called The Smart Grid
Communications Node in a Distributed
Intelligence Grid Architecture. It
suggests an app
approach that emphasizes
systemwide common architectures
capable of pushing data collection,
analysis and application to the edge
of the utility network while leveraging
multiple communications technologies.
This approach can maximize value by:
Reducing the cost of implementation, communications and operations;
Delivering network visibility and
control;
Providing for new applications and
technology through a flexible foundation; and
Incorporating and extending the
value of legacy assets.
The approach goes against the traditional norm for grid modernization of
deploying disparate systems independent of one another and, in most cases,
managed independently of one another.
Key factors distinguish the traditional
siloed approach to grid communications
from a platform approach: flexibility,
scalability and security.
Donald Pollock is global vice president of sales and marketing at Ambient
Corp. He has a Bachelor of Science from
Edinburgh University.
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility defines the ability of the
grid to deliver safe, reliable service in means a smart
an increasingly dynamic environment: grid
should
from generation through distribution be a system of
to consumption. It was identified in interoperable systemsnot siloed netthe Energy Independence and Security works.
Act (EISA) of 2007 as an important
Interoperability starts at the comcharacteristic of a smart grid. The EISA munications layer. The development of
called for a grid that:
a robust, Internet Protocol (IP)-based
Is flexible, uniform and technol- communications architecture facilitates
ogy neutral, includend-to-end,
two-way
Flexibility
ing but not limited
flow of information. IP
defines the
provides a common comto technologies for
ability of the
munication protocol that
managing smart grid
grid to deliver
enables utilities to deploy
information;
safe, reliable
Accommodates tradifferent technologies
service in an
ditional, centralized
on different parts of the
increasingly
grid while being able to
generation and transdynamic
control and manage data
mission resources
environment.
through a unified system.
and consumer distributed resources;
The use of a common
and
IP-based communications architecture
Is flexible to incorporate regional or platform provides the foundation
and organizational differences, and for a robust, flexible and scalable smart
grid.
technological innovations.
These principles are vital to ensure
the emergence of an efficient grid in SCALABILITY
Flexible gridwide connectivity is a
a dynamic context. In practice, that
prerequisite to building
a smarter grid, but it
also potentially creates
a problem: lots of data.
As technology advances,
more devices will add to the volume
of data generated.
To improve business outcomes,
managing the data deluge will be
vital. A network infrastructure that
incorporates local computing to
empower decision-making at the
edge of the network, in addition to
centralized control, will save time and
cost and will enable the network to
scale to support the addition of future
applications. A distributed architecture
allows utilities to understand their
operations at a more granular level,
which enables more targeted operational
decisions and more efficient operation.
Incorporating local computing to
NODE-BASED SMART GRID COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM
December 2013 | 43
www.power-grid.com
empower decision-making at the edge

of the network offers faster response to
changing grid or market requirements.
A grid architecture that enables
distributed intelligence provides:
Real-time monitoring and analysis
on data collected at the edge;
Reduction of large volumes of
raw data to smaller amounts of
manageable and usable data;
The ability to select specific types
or subsets of data to be backhauled
to central systems;
The collection of data only on
exceptions determined by utilityconfigured thresholds;
The reduction in communication
costs associated with transporting
data back to a central data
warehouse; and
The optimization of data warehouse
storage costs.
The Node: key enabler of a
platform approach. A purposebuilt, modular, IP-based network
devicethe smart grid node
installed at various points on the
grid to perform data collection,
aggregation and management is the
key enabler of a platform approach
to grid communications. This node,
(see figure) specifically designed to
support utility communications, can
be configured to serve different roles
simultaneously within a network.
Other benefits of using a node-based
architecture include:
Multiple communications,
applications. The node delivers
upstream and downstream highspeed data communications using
wired and wireless technologies,
44 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
including cellular, power line communications (PLC), Wi-Fi, radio

frequency (RF) or combinations of
these protocols. It allows utilities to
mix and match connections to grid
endpoints such as electric meters,
gas meters and sensors by leveraging the modularity of a single piece
of hardware.
Distributed intelligence. Data
collection, aggregation, analysis,
monitoring and communication
between endpoints and their
appropriate central systems can be
enabled locally at the node.
Flexibility.
Third-party
applications and devices can be
integrated into the node easily.
This means the utility does not
require a separate, single-purpose
communication network to serve
each new application.
Future-proofing. The node can be
upgraded remotely to incorporate
new applications and analytics
and to integrate other smart grid
devices and functions as they are
deployed on the grid. In addition,
endpoint devices can be upgraded
using the communications and
applications platform.
A node-based communications and
applications platform incorporates the
best principles of security, scalability
and flexibility to support the integration
of multiple technologies and multiple
applications.
SECURITY
Information technologies
enable a smarter grid but
the networked technologies required to realize the
potential benefits of a modern grid also add complexity and introduce interdependencies and
vulnerabilities. Approaches to secure
these technologies and protect privacy
must be integral to the design and
implementation of smart grid programs
and devices.
Three fundamental design principles
are incorporated in the definition,
design and development of the platform
approach to grid communications and
the devices and software deployed:
Availability:
to
prevent
disruptions and loss, providing
reliable operation.
Integrity: to stop unauthorized
modifications through proper and
secure access controls.
Confidentiality: to protect data
delivery and prevent unwanted
disclosure.
Adopting an open and standardsbased platform approach reduces
reliance on proprietary solutions and
avoids vendor lock-in. It also provides
the opportunity to develop a single
schema to secure data from multiple
devices, strengthening the overall
security approach.
BY DICK DeBlasio, CHAIR, IEEE STANDARDS COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SCC) 21
Smart Grid Interoperability

and Standards Update
hen the electric power systems

(EPS) that so many utilities
around the world rely on were initially
engineered, the challenge of linking with
active, distribution-level generation and
storage technologies still loomed years
away. That is why the 2003 publication of IEEE 1547 Standard
for Interconnecting Distributed
Resources with Electric Power
Systems was so monumentalit established for the
market an unprecedented
foundation of credible,
shared engineering practices on how to do something
it wanted to do. IEEE 1547
filled a void.
After that standards
release, technologies and
techniques for interconnection technologies have evolved quickly; largely, interconnection has grown more digital and
more controllable. And innovation has
intensified in the most recent years, with
the gathering, global drive for grid modernization. Development of IEEE P1547a
Draft Standard for Interconnecting
Distributed Resources with Electric Power
SystemsAmendment 1 is underway
to help the market as it confronts new
challenges in grid interconnection with
the worldwide proliferation of distributed generation and applications such as
microgrids.
Now, an even longer leap forward
is being undertaken. Utilities, vendors,
independent power producers, regulators
and other stakeholders are being

marshaled to consider the scope and
intentions of a full revision of IEEE 1547
to be completed by 2018.
Might the scope of the standard be
expanded to address transmission, in
addition to distribution? And what
emerging,
advanced
technologies and applications

microgrids,
islanding,
inverter
communications,
ride-through
frequencies/voltages, higher renewable
penetrations, synchrophasors, etc.
should be addressed in more depth in a
revised standard?
These and other questions must
be addressed before the hard work of
consensus building around and writing
an updated IEEE 1547 begins in earnest.
The unfolding story of distributed generation rollout and IEEE 1547 is emblematic of the larger relationship of grid modernization and standards development.
One feeds the other, and smart grid
innovation and deployment are fueled.
STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT
SPURS MARKET ACTIVITY
In the United States, with industry
deregulation in the late 1990s, independent power producers sought to level
the business and technical barriers to
distributed generation. The problem was
that no widely adopted industry standards
were in place to define the interconnections between independent power producers and
the power grid. Rather, thousands of complex interconnection agreements existed across
the global utility landscape, and
this hindered technology development because it was costly for
vendors to develop solutions that
might have to be tailored for so
many disparate applications and
inconsistent agreements from utility jurisdiction to utility jurisdiction.
This is where the Department of Energy
(DOE) comes into the story. Hoping to
relieve the market stagnation and spur
manufacturing, implementation and
interconnection of distributed generation
technologies, the DOE engaged IEEE in
Dick DeBlasio, in addition to his role as
chair of IEEE SCC21 Standards Coordinating
Committee on Fuel Cells, Photovoltaics,
Dispersed Generation, and Energy Storage,
which sponsors and leads the family of
standards for IEEE 1547 and IEEE 2030,
is a member of the IEEE Standards Board
and past member of the IEEE Standards
Association board of governors and chief
engineer with the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory.
December 2013 | 45
www.power-grid.com
developing a national standard for this

area.
The IEEE 1547 development project
was launched. Upon its approval by the
IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) in
2003, the standard set forth the industrys first performance, operation, testing, safety and maintenance criteria and
requirements for distributed resources
with aggregate capacity of 10 megavolt
ampere (MVA) or less at the point of common coupling.
Since IEEE 1547s publication, the
standard has been leveraged in federal
legislation and rule making, the deliberations of state regulatory bodies and key
utility engineering and business practicesnot only in the United States but also
other markets including Germany, Japan
and Korea. Eighty percent of the United
States public utility commissions (PUCs)
have adopted IEEE 1547, and the standard was referenced in the U.S. Energy
Policy Act of 2005 as the model for interconnection services. In other markets,
while it might not have been formally
adopted in whole, IEEE 1547s material
requirements for how distributed generators can be linked or disconnected with
the grid have been leveraged in various
documents. IEEE 1547, furthermore, has
been used by utilities in developing technical requirements and informing interconnection agreements with independent
power producers.
NEW MARKET NEEDS DRIVE NEW
STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT
Increased reliance on distributed generation, as supported by IEEE 1547, is at
the core of some of the smart grids most
revolutionary possible benefits, such as
improving grid reliability, reducing the
number and impact of service outages,
bolstering national energy strategies and
46 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
slashing environmental impact and utility

Power
Systems
Distribution
and consumer costs. So, it is no surprise
Secondary Networks.
that, in the wake of the standards publiDevelopment is ongoing, too. IEEE
cation, implementation of solar, wind and P1547.7 Draft Guide to Conducting
other distributed generation technologies Distribution Impact Studies for
such as electric vehicle batteries and Distributed Resource Interconnection is
associated interconnection methods have underway, as is IEEE P1547.8 Draft
matured.
Recommended Practice for Establishing
Moreover, an entire suite of IEEE 1547 Methods and Procedures that Provide
interconnection standards
Supplemental Support for
has developed as new marImplementation Strategies
Since IEEE
ket needs have arisen in
for Expanded Use of IEEE
1547s
tandem with the real-world
Standard 1547. IEEE
publication,
deployment of distributed
P1547.8s initiation is the
the standard
generation. Publication
result of market uptake
has been
used by the
of the base IEEE 1547
of energy storage, hybrid
feds, states
spurred market implemengeneration storage sysand utilities in
tation, implementation
tems, intermittent renewthe U.S. and
revealed new challenges,
ables, plug-in electric
abroad.
and new challenges necesvehicles, inverters used in
sitated development of a
home solar-power systems
gradually expanding range of IEEE 1547 and other technologies in the global smart
extension standards:
grid effort.
IEEE 1547.1-2005 Standard
Also, theres the previously discussed
Conformance Test Procedures IEEE P1547a, which, when completed,
for Equipment Interconnecting is designed to help enable greater reliance
Distributed Resources with Electric on renewable resources.
Power Systems;
IEEE P1547a is being created to
IEEE 1547.2-2008 Application address renewables intermittency. When
Guide for IEEE Std 1547, IEEE the wind is going to blow and when the
Standard for Interconnecting sun is going to shine are not precisely preDistributed Resources with Electric dictable, and utility EPS demand preciPower Systems;
sion in terms of interconnection of power
IEEE 1547.3-2007 Guide for sources if grid reliability, stability, power
Monitoring, Information Exchange, quality and worker and consumer safety
and Control of Distributed Resources are to be preserved. Consequently, the
Interconnected with Electric Power penetration of renewable sources has had
Systems;
to be limited to not jeopardize utilities
IEEE 1547.4-2011 Guide for traditionally strong profiles in these areas.
Design, Operation, and Integration of
Smart inverters comprise a technology
Distributed Resource Island Systems innovation designed to offset the impact
with Electric Power Systems, and
of the intermittency, thus paving the way
IEEE 1547.6-2007 Recommended for reliance on greater numbers of solar,
Practice
for
Interconnecting wind and other renewable sources. IEEE
Distributed Resources with Electric 1547a, then, addresses the new market
need revealed by the proliferation of the

new power electronics: to revisit the
existing limitations on penetration and
operations of distributed resources and
potentially reset guidelines for voltage
regulation and response to abnormal
conditions of voltage and frequency.
Does the amendment need to define
interconnection beyond 10 MVA?
Penetration ceilings vary around the
world (higher in Denmark and Germany,
for example, than in the United States),
and some nations including China seek
to significantly boost reliance on wind
and solar sources. Participants in the
development of IEEE P1547a include
utilities, manufacturers, system integrators, regulators, test laboratories and
academia globally.
After more than 10 years of successful
use in the field (and the grassroots

development of new interconnection
lessons learned and engineering practices in the real world of implementation),
IEEE 1547 is ready for a comprehensive
refresh. PUC commissioners, utilities,
manufacturers and independent power
producers each have a unique perspective to offer in helping shape the
direction of the revised standard, and
the coming months will present their
opportunity to weigh in.
IEEE standards are created within a formal, time-tested process that is rooted in
consensus, due process, openness, right
to appeal and balance and is adherent to
the principles and requirements of the
World Trade Organizations Decision
on Principles for the Development of
International Standards, Guides and
Recommendations. Developing a project authorization request is the first

step toward launching a formal IEEE
standard-development project. Once
such a request is approved, a working
group develops a draft standard that
then goes through a series of ballots. All
comments received must be considered.
A 75 percent response from the draft
standards ballot group is required
with 75 percent voting to approvefor
approval.
When executed effectively, the IEEE
process is proven for producing standards that expand global markets, contribute to interoperability and innovation and accelerate the pace of technical
evolution. These dynamics are evident
in the story of the ever-growing IEEE
1547 family of standards.
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BY SCOTT ZAJKOWSKI, IUS TECHNOLOGIES
he U.S. demand for power is continuing to move along an upward trajectory that is unlikely to be curbed soon. And
utilities are facing government regulation
to be cleaner and more efficient while still
relying on their aging infrastructure. The
challenge to deliver enough electricity to
an increasing volume of customers while
reducing emissions and keeping necessary generation in check must be met by
smart grid technologies.
The main objectives of transforming
a legacy grid into a smart grid are to
increase efficiency and distribution reliability. Achieving these goals will lead
to a steady stream of power with fewer
interruptions to more people using fewer
resources while emitting fewer carbon
gases. This upgrade is necessary based
on customer demand, both from an
efficiency and cost standpoint, but also
for todays modern customers who use
increasingly more electronic devices and
adopt new power-hungry technologies
such as electric cars.
EFFICIENCY
When power grid efficiency is spoken
48 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
of, it equates to optimization of existing

infrastructure. Grid efficiency is impossible without high-quality, real-time
information, which can be achieved
only through the full integration of
capacitor banks, changers and voltagesensing equipment at the midline and
end of line.
Once complete information is available, utilities are equipped to control
volt/VAR levels, minimizing losses while
increasing efficiency. The largest efficiency gains are obtained here because
when volt/VAR is optimized voltage
can be reduced. The benefits include
reduced demand on power generation
and increased life spans on plugged-in
consumer electronics and utility-owned
assets. This is largely made possible by
managing peak demand. In legacy situations, the greatest inefficiencies occur
when additional generating power is
needed to satisfy relatively brief periods
of peak demand, which can be difficult
to predict. These periods vary depending on geography. In warm regions,
they are typically during summer when
air conditioners are running, but cooler
climates where electric heating is common might experience peak demand

during the coldest days. A properly
implemented volt/VAR optimization
strategy can reduce the generation capability needed to satisfy peak demand,
but this requires enough data from the
grid to predict it.
Volt/VAR programs provide utilities
the ability to improve grid reliability
and efficiency significantly, but to implement volt/VAR optimization (VVO)
or volt/VAR control (VVC) programs,
utilities need real-time data measurement and monitoring throughout the
distribution line. IUS Technologies VS
series of sensor products, the VS1000,
Scott Zajkowski is part of the North
American Business Development group with
IUS Technologies, which develops end-of-line
devices for the smart grid, including the Born
Smart series of sensors. He has an MBA from
Indiana University Kelley School of Business
and an undergraduate degree in packaging
engineering from Michigan State University.
Previously Zajkowski worked at International
Truck & Burger King in packaging engineering and management.
CAN STOCK PHOTO INC. / KENTOH
VS2000 and VS3000, play a significant

role in this distribution automation
application. To implement grid optimization, utilities need to know what
is happening on their distribution or
feeder lines, and currently utilities lack
this knowledge. They are unaware of
voltage, VAR, harmonics and other vital
power measurement levels on their
feeder lines. The condition and load
on these feeder lines vary by day and
require real-time intelligence throughout the distribution system.
Voltage sensors can provide utilities
with powerful, flexible and economical solutions for single-or three-phase
measurement, monitoring, alarming
and recording. The VS products allow
electric utilities to monitor voltage and
current anywhere along the distribution
line, providing real-time data to make
decisions at the edge of the electric grid.
When lowering the voltage levels on
the distribution line, accuracy is paramount. Implementing sensor points
and VVO or VVC software allows the
utility to be more responsive to changes
in the distribution line.
Linked sensing equipment and controls that monitor and report power
usage in real time can provide utilities with the necessary information to
reduce voltage without risking a drop
in the amount of electricity provided to
customers. Even a 3 to 5 percent drop
yields significant results that lead to
measurably lower costs, the prolonged
life spans of assets and reduced maintenance expenses. In addition, lowered
voltage levels enable utilities to meet
government regulations for generation
and emissions. When voltage levels are
dropped without instant demand data,
however, service disruptions might
occur.
DISTRIBUTION RELIABILITY
communication technologya probOne of the most troublesome power lem because communication more fredistribution issues for customers and quent than 15-minute intervals is rare.
utilities is outage notification. On a
traditional grid, customers who experi- THE DYNAMIC MODERN GRID
ence service disruptions must notify
Power use is changing quickly. As
their utilities, which must dispatch line more alternative energy resources come
workers to locate and correct the prob- online, it adds a layer of complication
lems. Each with his or her own thresh- to maintaining optimal voltage levels.
old and requirements, a line work- Many utilities also allow customers to
erafter the quota is metthen must generate their own power and push it
search and find disruptions. This takes back into the grid when they are not
time and money and causes frustration. using it.
Sensing technologies that construct
Smart meters relay this informathe smart grid can detect
tion back to the utility
problems as they occur
about how much power
and, if robust enough,
is being fed back into
As more
can solve problems
the grid, but workers on
alternative
without human interthe line also need this
energy
vention, thus a self
information. For examresources
healing smart grid.
ple, imagine a worker
come online, it
When smart sensors
is conducting mainteadds a layer of
detect problems, they
nance, thinking a line is
complication
to maintaining
notify reclosers, which
not live because power
optimal voltage has been disrupted from
isolate locations of the
levels.
issues and often reroute
the generation end. If a
power and avoid discustomer generating his
ruption. If a worker is
own power is feeding
required to correct a physical problem, the line, this can create unknown live
the exact location is provided so no wires and present real danger to utiltime is wasted investigating and trou- ity workers. Smart line sensors build a
bleshooting the line, leading to shorter much more complete picture of what
outages and happier customers.
is occurring on the line at any time,
In a fully self-healing scenario, sen- improving safety for anyone who comes
sors report the problem and confirm into contact with it.
the system has corrected itself. Voltage
Utilities across the nation are implelevels automatically optimize and this menting many innovative programs to
information is reported to the utility improve efficiency and distribution reliso it knows no further action is neces- ability: Demand response, smart meters
sary. Retrofitting legacy equipment has and secondary transformer monitormade parts of this process possible on ing are all steps in the right direction.
traditional grids, but full self-healing Voltage optimization and a self-healing
requires integration of equipment that grid, however, can be realized only
can communicate in real time. Most through the integration of a fully smart
retrofitted equipment relies on cellular grid.
December 2013 | 49
www.power-grid.com
PRODUCTS
Power Distribution
Planning Software
The
Siemens
Load Control Module

The Sensus FlexNet LCM for use in residential and comLow
and
mercial applications enables electric utilities to shed load
Medium Voltage Division has
by controlling power to energy-intensive appliances with-
extended and updated the software tools Simaris design,
out a ZigBee-enabled meter. The DR application allows
Simaris project and Simaris curves. The new versions sup-
utilities to create, monitor, schedule and manage load
port electrical designers even better in planning electric
shedding programs and events using the Sensus FlexNet
power distribution systems for industrial applications and
multi-application, wireless communications system, which
infrastructure projects. Designers can directly factor in
is based on open standards, interoperability and FCC-
the functional endurance of plants in the event of fire as
licensed spectrum. The FlexNet system enables utilities to
legally stipulated in certain application cases, for instance.
gather data that confirms which devices are participating
Separate protection of parallel cables in feed-in circuits
in the load shedding event and to know if the device is or
can be determined right in the planning stage. This
has been tampered with. The Sensus TC240RAC-S load
enables an even more realistic mapping of the network
control module includes a powerful, 2-watt FlexNet radio
and installations as planned. All product data kept in the
that allows direct, two-way communication between the
tools was adapted to the current Siemens product portfo-
LCM and the tower with no need for pairing to a meter
lio. Owing to the extension of the country-specific systems
or other devices. Direct communication facilitates tamper
data stock, in particular the integration of more medium-
alarm monitoring and over-the-air configuration, which
voltage switchgear, transformers and distribution boards,
enables LCM capabilities to be upgraded as needed. The
Simaris project can be used for planning projects in Brazil,
Sensus LCM is compatible with any demand response
Turkey and Russia besides Germany, Austria, Switzerland
management application.
Sensus
and Poland.
Siemens
GO TO HTTP://PGI.HOTIMS.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION
Dual-hinge Diagonal Cutter

Smart Communications Technologies
The Knipex Tools LP patented, dual-hinge designed
A Harris Utilities SmartWorks and Tantalus strategic
high-leverage diagonal cutter, TwinForce, achieves
partnership will enable both organizations to better serve
impressive cutting performance with two, welded,
public power and mid-market utilities. Through its new
forged-in axles and
partnership with SmartWorks, Tantalus will supplement
p re c i s i o n - m i l l e d
its communications technology offering with smart appli-
functional surfaces.
cation solutions including utility decision management
This 7-inch tool cuts
(UDM), customer engagement (CES) and meter data
like a 10-inch tool. With its compact size, it can fit into
management (MDM) solutions, including: SmartWorks
tight areas that a 10-inch tool cannot. The dual-hinged
Compass, a UDM solution composed of robust analytics,
design enables a high transmission of force, permit-
metrics, visualization and automation tools; MeterSense,
ting cutting performance with considerably less strain,
an advanced MDM solution that enables utilities to
which is beneficial for cutting for long periods and for
improve business processes and enhance customer ser-
repetitive use. It requires approximately half of the
vice; and CustomerConnect, a CES and Web-based data
strength to cut medium to hard wire when compared
presentment tool that enables consumers to access and
with other high-leverage diagonal cutters of the same
interpret their consumption patterns.
size, even at the cutting tip.
SmartWorks and Tantalus
Knipex Tools
50 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
DistribuTECH 2014: The industrys most comprehensive

conference on automation, smart grid and T&D engineering.
Jan. 28-30, 2014, San Antonio. 918.832.9265
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CALENDAR
1421 S. Sheridan Road, Tulsa, OK 74112

P.O. Box 1260 : Tulsa, OK 74101
918.835.3161, fax 918.831.9834
http://pennwell.com
ACLARA ................................5
DISTRIBUTECH 2014 .........29
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NORTH AMERICAN

POWER GENERATION GROUP
Richard Baker
918.831.9187 richardb@pennwell.com
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Daniel Greene
918.831.9401 danielg@pennwell.com
ADVERTISING TRAFFIC MANAGER
Dillon Waters
918-831-9454 dillonw@pennwell.com
EFACEC ADVANCED
CONTROL SYSTEMS ........7
ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER
EXEC CONF 2014 ...........41
ELSTER .............................. C4
ENOSERV .............................9
FLIR .....................................15
SALES DIRECTOR, WESTERN,

INTERNATIONAL SALES MANAGER
Candice Doctor
918.831.9884 fax 918.831.9834
candiced@pennwell.com
G&W ELECTRIC ................ C2
EASTERN REGIONAL
SALES MANAGER
Tom Leibrandt
918.831.9184 fax 918.831.9834 toml@pennwell.com
HUBBEL POWER
SYSTEMS ........................ C3
HUBBELL
POWER SYSTEMS ..... 34-35
CHINA & HONG KONG SALES MANAGER

Adonis Mak
ACT International
Unit B, 13/F, Por Yen Building
478 Castle Peak Road, Cheung Sha Wan
Kowloon, Hong Kong
+86.138.252.678.23 fax +852.2.838.2766
adonism@actintl.com.hk
ISRAEL SALES MANAGER
Daniel Aronovic
Margola Ltd.
1/1 Rashi Street, Raanana 43214 Israel
phone/fax +972.9.899 5813
aronovic@actcom.co.il
SENIOR DISTRIBUTECH EXHIBIT
& SPONSORSHIP SALES MANAGER
Sandy Norris
918.831.9115 fax 918.831.9834
sandyn@pennwell.com
DISTRIBUTECH EXHIBIT &
SPONSORSHIP SALES MANAGER
Melissa Ward
918.831.9116 fax 918.831.9834
mward@pennwell.com
REPRINTS
Rhonda Brown
219.878.6094 fax 219.561.2023
rhondab@fosterprinting.com
NOVATECH LLC ................17

POWERBRASIL
EVENTS 2014 ...................37
POWERGRID
WEBCASTS ......................27
TAEHWATRANS .................11
TAIT
COMMUNICATIONS ........3
TRANSFORUM
TEXAS 2014 .....................47
UPCE 2014 ..........................19
JANUARY
ADVERTISER. ............................ PG#
27 28
Electric Light & Power
Executive Conference
www.elpconference.com
San Antonio
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Electric Light & Power
CEOs/Utility of the Year,
POWERGRID International
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Awards Dinner (tickets $45)
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DistribuTECH
Conference & Exhibition
San Antonio
28
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST
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A Smarter Control Room
for a Smarter Grid
Intergraph
Room 212 A&B, www.elp.com
29
9:30 to 10:30 a.m. CST
Alstom Grid
29
Noon to 1 p.m. CST
Building a Smart Utility:
Distribution Network Optimization
and Customer Engagement
The Efficiency Link
Schneider Electric
30
10-11 a.m. CST
Opower
December 2013 | 51
www.power-grid.com
OF ELECTRICITY HISTORY
DECEMBER
1930
Mountain States Power Co.

Line Truck With Live Line Tools
1960
AEP workmen perform live-line maintenance

barehanded or with ordinary work gloves.
As long as the workmen are insulated from the
ground and working at the same potential as the
energized conductor, they can work safely, saving
significant man-hours over conventional methods.
1980
Fiber-optic Link is Better

A test installation at Pennsylvania Power & Light
shows that a fiber-optic entrance link for transmission
line protective relaying will prove superior in
dependability and security to a regular leased line.
52 | December 2013
www.power-grid.com
1999
Yikes! Y2K Prompts Fear

As fears of hacker threats intensify, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the
U.S. General Accouting Office are at odds
over Y2K nuclear plant preparedness.

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Elster 2013
For the industr y s c areer- minded profe s sionals
WINTER 2013
Key Considerations for

U.S. Energy Policy
Reexamining U.S. Energy Policy
Through Alternative Fuels
TRAINING INSIGHTS
Millennials Take On
Our Increasingly
Complex World
REGIONAL INSIGHTS
Electricity Diversity
Takes Shape in
the Middle East
New Policies
Develop Asia-Pacifc
Energy Future
A supplement to PennWell public ations
w w w.P ennEnerg yJOB S .c om
WINTER 2013
A P E N N W E L L P U B L I C AT I O N
EDITORS LETTER
The Policy Issue

Dorothy Davis Ballard, PennWell
Key Considerations for U.S. Energy Policy

Charles Dewhurst, BDO USA, LLP
Reexamining Outdated U.S. Energy

Policy Through Alternative Fuels
Robert Johnsen, Primus Green Energy
TRAINING INSIGHTS
Millennials Take On Our Increasingly Complex World
10
12
Dr. Scott M. Shemwell, Knowledge Ops
Stacey Schmidt, Publisher

staceys@pennwell.com
ORGANIZATIONAL INSIGHTS
Dorothy Davis Ballard, Content Director

dorothyd@pennwell.com
Integrated Management Systems meet

policy and regulation demands
Hilton Price, Editor

hiltonp@pennwell.com
Brad Kamp, Interliance Consulting, Inc.
Cindy Chamberlin, Art Director

cindyc@pennwell.com
REGIONAL INSIGHTS
MIDDLE EAST
Daniel Greene, Production Manager

danielg@Pennwell.com
Electricity Diversity Takes Shape in the Middle East
Tommie Grigg,
Audience Development Manager
tommieg@pennwell.com
PennEnergy.com
15
ASIAPACIFIC
New Policies Develop Asia-Pacifc Energy Future

PennEnergy.com
PennWell Corporation
1421 South Sheridan Road
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74112
918 835 3161
PennWell.com
www.PennEnergyJOBS.com
Adver tisers
Index
Chevron C2
PennEnergy Recruting Now 4
PennEnergy 6
PennEnergy Jobs 8
MAPSearch 14
PennEnergy Research Services C3
Aramco Services Co C4
Recruitment Advertising Sales:

Courtney Noonkester
Sales Manager
918 831 9558
courtneyn@pennwell.com
Editor s
Letter
The Policy Issue
N researching
and gathering together resources for the last issue of 2013, there
emerged a theme we had not originally considered policy. While examining
industry milestones and their infuence on the energy workforce, what continued to
stand out are the existing and evolving policies behind these developments.
We open the fnal issue of 2013 with two timely examinations of U.S. energy policy
from industry leaders at BDO and Primus Green Energy. Our frst editorial feature
presents key considerations for the U.S. on page 3, highlighting the need for a cohesive
national energy policy in ensuring continued progress.
Explored next are the outdated U.S. energy policies as they apply to alternative fuel
resources on page 5. At the center of this editorial is an examination of the current
Renewable Fuel Standard and the limitations it imposes on the energy industry through
its outmoded structure.
PennEnergy then offers
international insights on the
infuence of policy in an
examination of emerging
energy diversity in the
Middle East on page 12 and
developments in the AsiaPacifc region on page 15.
Our winter edition is
rounded out by a look at the
policies that shape the business of energy through its workforce. Learn the challenges
and advantages for emerging Millennials in the industry on page 7 as they navigate a
corporate culture still working to catch up with more stringent modern policies.
Finally, we are offered a look at how integrated management systems can help meet
the demands of policy and regulation on page 10. Find out how companies are using
IMS to stay compliant and save money.
What we have put together for this issue offers a lot of insight, but in truth, just
brushes the surface. Our goal is to encourage new dialogue on the impact of policy on
the energy industry. We want to hear more from you. Who else could paint the most
honest picture of what the evolving shifts in global policy have meant and may mean
for us going forward?
So be certain to join the conversation at PennEnergy.com and connect with us on
Google +, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You will also fnd us at POWER-GEN
International November 12-14 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.
Carpe diem!
Our goal is to encourage new

dialogue on the impact of policy
for the energy industry.
Dorothy Davis Ballard
Winter 2013 | FOR JOB OPPORTUNITIES, VISIT www.PennEnergyJOBS.com | EnergyWorkforce
Cover STORY
Key Considerations for

U.S. Energy Policy
By Charles Dewhurst, leader of the Natural
Resources practice at BDO USA, LLP
March 2012, when President

Obama addressed Prince Georges
Community College in Maryland, he
stated that the United States need[s] an
energy strategy for the future an allof-the-above strategy for the 21st century
that develops every source of American-made energy. Later, in June 2013,
Obama delivered a speech on climate
change at Georgetown University, applauding the United States progress in
the clean energy sector and its strides toward energy independence. Since 2012,
the U.S. energy industry has certainly
made much progress toward boosting
its production and exportation of energy
resources, but regulatory and political
uncertainties persist and could threaten
future growth. Developing a comprehensive and cohesive national energy
policy now will help us capitalize on
the momentum of the U.S. energy sector and ensure its future growth. This
policy should be forward-looking, aiming to secure U.S. energy resources and
capabilities for years to come.
While renewable energy often seems
to be at odds with more traditional sources
like oil and gas, this dynamic is counterproductive. The United States requires
N
regulations and policies that allow these

energy sources to complement, rather
than contradict, each other. There are
benefts and drawbacks to every form of
energy, yet each has an important role to
play in the United States energy industry
and economy overall. Between now and
2040, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that 31 percent of
new U.S. electricity-generating capacity will come from renewables, while
natural gas will account for 63 percent.
While renewable energy may be more
environmentally friendly, its infrastructure can be relatively costly to build and
operate, and is usually located in geographically remote areas that cannot service large, urban areas easily. Moreover,
many forms of alternative energy are, by
their very nature, intermittent and subject to occasional interruptions. At the
same time, traditional sources like oil
and gas are much less expensive to produce and excellent at providing a consistent supply of energy, but also have
a greater environmental impact. U.S.
energy policy should refect the need for
a variety of energy sources to operate and
fourish concurrently in order to support
the countrys overall needs.
Coal also has a role to play in bolstering the United States energy economy.
While the coal industry has been criticized for its greenhouse gas emissions, it
is still a dominant player in the energy
sector. According to the EIA, U.S. estimated recoverable coal reserves are the
largest in the world, and our exports are
rising as other countries, such as China,
struggle to meet their growing energy
needs. The EIA reports that from 20002010, an average of fve percent of U.S.produced coal was exported each year. In
2011, that number doubled to 10 percent,
and it has been growing since. The EIA
notes that, despite coal serving as the
largest source of power generation for the
United States for more than six decades,
EnergyWorkforce | FOR JOB OPPORTUNITIES, VISIT www.PennEnergyJOBS.com | Winter 2013
its annual share of total net generation for

the country was only 37 percent last year,
down 26 percent since 2007. This decline
is partially due to some power producers
now favoring less expensive, more environmentally friendly natural gas. Yet as
long as coal remains plentiful, exportable
and relatively inexpensive to produce, its
future should be considered in any comprehensive energy policy.
Our energy policy must also grapple with ensuring that the United States
has the right infrastructure to deliver its
energy products to market. The approval
of the Keystone XL pipeline would be
a step toward alleviating a shortage in
infrastructure capacity that limits the
industrys ability to take full advantage of
the U.S. oil and natural gas renaissance.

While the United States and Canada
wait for Obama to sign off on the crossborder segment of the massive project,
both have begun tentatively outlining
and planning the logistics for the domestic portions of the pipeline. The energy
industry continues to move projects forward, but uncertainty remains around
whether policy decisions will ultimately
permit these projects to come online.
As the industry waits for further clarity
on energy policy at the national level, it
continues to keep an eye on state-level regulatory changes. These do not supplant the
need for a national policy regime; however,
this decentralized regulation allows states
to individually determine how to most
effectively and effciently exploit their own

resources. Each state faces unique opportunities, as well as unique policy pressures
from its residents, suggesting that in some
cases, policy is best determined on a local,
specifc basis.
Overall, a comprehensive national
energy policy is essential to positioning
the United States as a leader in the global
energy market. As the international energy
landscape continues to evolve, the United
States is poised to become a net energy
exporter and to fulfll burgeoning global
demand. However, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, the United States
requires a policy with a clear-eyed vision of
what the energy industry needs now, and
what it will need in the future.
Dont miss another
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Reexamining Outdated U.S. Energy

Policy Through Alternative Fuels
By Robert Johnsen, CEO, Primus Green Energy
abundance of natural gas

brought about by new drilling
techniques has led to a profound
shift in the North American energy mix,
enabling a new era of energy independence by reducing reliance on petroleum and coal.
The natural gas boom has been embraced by the governments of both the
United States and Canada, with the
United States in particular positioning
natural gas as the centerpiece of an all
HE
of the above energy strategy that promotes a balanced mix of energy sources.
While this strategy has been welcomed
by the oil and gas industry, it has led to
some unease in the renewable energy
sector, which fears that support for natural gas could stunt the administrations
focus on the adoption of clean energy
technologies.
In reality, however, the administration
has continued to support both traditional and renewable energies, believing that
natural gas can serve as a bridge to
renewable energy that enables a reduction in carbon emissions while buying
time for the renewable energy sector
to improve economics and effciencies.
This all-of-the-above strategy is personifed by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz,
a staunch believer in renewable energy
who has also promoted the use of natural gas to curb carbon emissions.
Unfortunately, however, some areas of U.S. energy policy are lagging
behind this all-of-the-above strategy.
One sector in which this phenomenon
is very apparent is alternative fuels.
Alternative fuel technologies produce fuels from any non-petroleum
source, such as biomass, natural gas,
municipal solid waste, coal or other
carbon-based feedstocks. The main
policy related to alternative fuels is the
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a policy dating back to 2005 that mandates
minimum requirements for how much

alternative fuel must be blended into
commercial transportation fuels. The
amount of alternative fuel to be blended
increases each year, with an end goal of
36 billion gallons by 2022.
In its frst few years, the RFS successfully encouraged the development of alternative fuel technologies, leading to a
cleaner transportation fuel mix. For example, ethanol comprises 10 percent
of most fuels sold in gas stations today.
But, the RFS was created in the context
of the alternative fuel technologies that
were available in the mid- to late-2000s,
which were primarily frst-generation biofuels that used corn as the feedstock and
produced ethanol as the end product.
In recent years, advanced alternative
fuel technologies have been introduced
that open up new feedstock and end product opportunities, but the RFS has not
been modifed since 2007 to accommodate them. An example is Primus Green
Energys STG+ technology, which can
convert a variety of feedstocks, including biomass and natural gas, into dropin transportation fuels that can be used
directly in vehicle engines without the
blend wall that is required for the use of
frst-generation biofuels such as ethanol.
The limitations of the current RFS
are apparent in the biofuel industrys failure to meet minimum mandates. The industrys continued inability to produce
enough biofuel to meet federal mandates

has prompted the American Petroleum
Institute (API) to fle a lawsuit against the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
arguing that the RFS is an unrealistic
mandate that unfairly penalizes oil and
gas companies for failing to incorporate
the mandated amount of biofuels into
their transportation fuels.
There is a way, however, to bring RFS
policy into line with the governments allof-the-above stance on the energy mix
and that is to include fuels produced from
natural gas in the RFS standard.
One of the most recent developments
in advanced alternative fuel technology is
the ability to use natural gas as a feedstock
to produce transportation fuels. There are
several companies, including Primus, Celanese and Coskata, who originally set out
to commercialize biomass-based alternative fuel technologies, but who recognized
that using natural gas as a feedstock represented a rare opportunity to bring these
advanced technologies to market more
quickly while simultaneously moving closer toward energy independence.
Despite the fact that natural gas is
cleaner burning than petroleum, the
RFS does not currently include fuels
derived from natural gas, meaning that
the cleaner-burning fuels being produced
by Primus and other companies cannot
be used to fulfll the optimistic alternative fuel mandates that are not currently being met. Although there have been
attempts in Congress to expand the RFS

to include natural gas-derived fuels
most recently by U.S. Rep. Pete Olsen
(R-Texas) so far, this legislation has
come to naught.
If the administration is truly committed to an all-of-the-above energy policy,
and if it truly does see natural gas as a
bridge, it should revise its fagship energy policies to refect the latest developments in the alternative energy sector.
The goal of such policies should be to
support technologies that hold the greatest potential to make the administrations
energy strategy a reality, rather than those
whose limitations have been highlighted
by their failure to produce enough fuel to
satisfy federal mandates.
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TRAINING
Insights
Millennials Take On Our

Increasingly Complex World
By Dr. Scott M. Shemwell, CEO of Knowledge Ops
January 1st at 0348 hours a

young engineer employed by
a service company is trying
to address a problem she has encountered with a compressor on a drilling
rig in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
She graduated from college three years
ago and went to work for a large energy
services company. However, several
months ago she changed jobs and is
now on her frst offshore hitch as team
leader with her new company, a similar
size global energy services company.
She is a competent engineer but is
uncertain what the company policy
is regarding a piece of rotating equipment that while seemingly malfunctioning does not appear to jeopardize safety, the environment or production at the
present time. But she worries that the situation could get worse.
A quick call to the graveyard shift
at the company onshore Operations
Center is not reassuring. Staffed by
those who are too junior to be on vacation during the holiday season, the engineer she talked with had only been
with company three years and actually
had less feld experience than she did.
His supervisor was not encouraging either. Should he call and wake experts
at this early hour?
Adding to the problem, the compressors data plate was mostly unreadable. And of course, a famous Texas blue
northern was blowing through. High

winds, rain and cold temperatures further impaired proper equipment identifcation, much less working conditions.
Both the feld engineer and the operations engineer are aware that their company signed a Bridging Document with
their customer as part of the new Safety
and Environmental Management System (SEMS) regulatory requirements
and both had attended the appropriate
training for this project. Both are knowledgeable that the Stop Work Authority
(SWA) gives them the right and even
the obligation to dramatically intervene
with operations if they feel it necessary.
As a new mom, the feld engineer
is concerned that she might develop a
reputation in the company as fakey

if her next decision turned out to be
a mistake. The engineer at the operations center was receiving real time data
feeds from the rotating equipment but
he could not feel the vibrations as the
on-site individual could and the equipment was still within tolerances.
Horns of a Dilemma
The engineers in our story are competent, qualifed individuals doing a great
job. Early in their careers, they are the
vanguard of feld operations. Millennials
by label, they are technologically savvy
and among the best and the brightest
in their felds.
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during daylight hours in perfect weather, hence the colloquial term. Moreover,
the personal stress of a new mother concerned about her reputation and opportunities for promotion resulting from just
another day at the offce should not be
underestimated by those desk bound or
later and more secure in their careers.
The real world of feld operations can
be very unforgiving even when the results
turn out OK. All of the individuals in our
story have signifcant skin in this game.
It is fne to empower people in the
team building sessions. It is an entirely different story in the middle of the preverbal
stormy night when ones career and reputation are on the line. Field personnel must
believe they company will stand behind
their decisions, right or maybe less so.
Change. How do these young people

come up to speedquickly?
Organizations not only depend on the
individuals depicted in our story for their
bottom line, shareholder value is at risk if
they cannot prevent the next major mega-disaster. And what if they can prevent
a minor incident?
Loss time, loss production, loss anything has economic consequences. Most
organizations run on margins that are
thinner than they would like. Oil companies are included in this group. More
importantly, energy service provider
margins can be even lower. This business model pushes our engineers to lower costs, reduce downtime and in some
cases push the envelope.
Millennial Transformation
Enablement
These best and brightest can only be as

good as their supporting infrastructure.
These individuals not only face engineering issues, any actions they take must be
in accordance with company policy, the
Bridging Document and various regulatory compliance requirements as well.
This is a lot to put on the plate of an engineering team.
However, since their childhood these
individuals have been online. Our feld
engineer mother looks in on her infant
son at day care from her smart phone from
a hundred miles offshore. The operations
center engineer routinely Skypes with his
girlfriend, a physician, who is in east Africa serving with Doctors Without Borders.
These individuals are at the top of
their technological game. However, they
lack the feld engineering experience of
their more seasoned colleagues. This represents a demographic challenge for organizations in the middle of the Big Crew
Out engineers appear to have the deck

stacked against them. Normal Accident
Theory (NAT) with its roots in the Three
Mile Island nuclear power plant incident
suggests that tightly coupled technologies
with invariant sequences and limited slack
such as deepwater drilling operations will
have accidents in the normal course of
events. In other words there is a certain
inevitability of a major incident on their
watch. Maybe not during this rotation but
a certain possibility during their careers.
However, these Millennials have a safety arsenal their parents did nota new
business model that capitalizes on their
technology prowess. The emerging feld
of High Reliability Theory (HRT) emphasizes are a strategic prioritization of safety,
careful attention to design and procedures,
a limited degree of trial-and-error learning,
redundancy, decentralized decision-making, continuous training often through
simulation, and strong cultures that create a broad vigilance for and responsiveness
to potential accidents.
Arm feld engineers and graveyard operations watch colleagues with HRT driven policy and associated tools and then
get out of their way. A strategic or systemic safety model with a holistic perspective
of the life cycle the process coupled with
truly empowered key personnel trained
with the latest learning tools in a strong
Culture of Safety offer a new perspective
for a new workforce.
Aircraft pilots routinely retain and upgrade their skills in sophisticated fight
simulators. What If scenarios, whereby the team can learn by trial and error
environment where the worst result is a
computer animated do-over. Other industry sectors train using this well documented successful approach.
In a true Culture of Safety a mom
would not worry about her job or career
if she erred on the side of safe operations.
She would not be labeled nor would her
co-worker in the Operations Center hesitate to wake up the experts New Years Eve.
Finally, if the maintenance history
and all updated equipment manuals were
available on a Smart Tablet with training
videos and animation support, trepidation by those new to the company/process would lessen. Organizational policy, its Operations Management System
and bridging documentation built into
the workfow will enable better decision
making in the High Reliability Organization of the near future.
A decade ago the digital oilfeld was
labeled the Digital Oilfeld of the Future.
Integrated Operations is a common model today.
The Millennials World-of-theFuture will mirror the concepts of an
HRO. Will she be working for you or
your competitor?
ORGANIZATIONAL
Insights
Integrated Management Systems

meet policy and regulation demands
By Brad Kamph, President, Interliance Consulting, Inc.
technology, and government policy are transforming

the energy feld and challenging
the business-as-usual approach to company governance. The rise of cant
fail functionssafety, environmental
management, regulatory compliance,
system integrity, and othersare now
forcing pipeline, gas, and power utility
companies to consistently deliver highlevel performance in all aspects of their
operations.
The stakes are high, and the umpiresenergy regulators, legislators,
watchdog groups, and the general publicare watching. The umpires are
looking for guidelines that show a company runs its everyday operations with
the best interests of employees, the public and the environment in mind.
CONOMICS,
Its a must-win match.
How are companies playing to win?

Companies can efficiently comply
with policies and regulations through
implementing an integrated management system (IMS)a method for assuring that everyone works together in
the most effective manner possible. An
IMS is accomplished by re-engineering
business functions and processes so every employeefrom CEO to feld technicianunderstands and executes the
company plan.
The bottom line: Companies using
10
an IMS can more easily adhere to regulations, perform well in audits and save
money by implementing operational
effciencies.
A beginning with the end in mind
Implementing an IMS begins with the

evaluation of a single area or an entire
company. Either way, the frst assessment is of the current management systems effectiveness.
Starting at the highest level of the
company, a well-designed management
system incorporates the priorities and
objectives of the organization into everyday activities in a manner that is logical, measurable, and self-reinforcing.
Authority is aligned with responsibility,
so each employee knows what to do and
has the tools to do it. Targets are established that are tied to measurable outcomes. An objective process is put in
place to determine progress and identify gaps. There is also a built-in mechanism to correct problems and improve
performance over time.
Interliance client Wild Well Control,
the worlds No. 1 oil and gas well emergency response company, implemented a safety management system that
lowered its underwriting costs and reduced its equipment and personnel losses to zero. Casey Davis, Wild Well Controls vice president of Health, Safety and
Environment, says, Its very unusual to
have a safety management system that

is compliant to multiple regulatory regimes and is also an effective management tool. Thats how thorough our
management system is. We save over $2
million per year in underwriting costs
and operating expenses.
A results-oriented management system
Along with energy-sector companies,

Interliance has also helped utility companies to create an IMS. One in particular also included implementing customized training and knowledge transfer.
With 17,000 employees, FirstEnergy is one of the nations largest
investor-owned electric systems, serving

six million people with 23,000 megawatts
of capacity and managing distribution
lines spanning 194,000 miles.
When FirstEnergy realized that 90
percent of its senior workforce was going
to retire within fve to seven yearsand
that it took that long to train new employees, they faced the potentially devastating
results of a retirement exodus of this size.
Brian Wilkins, a long-time staff member
at First Energy, was tasked with capturing
workforce knowledge and transferring it
to new employees. He turned to Interliance for help.
First, he developed, with several
professors at local universities, a fullyaccredited, two-year college program to

train future employees in critical skill
sets. Then, FirstEnergy worked with Interliance to reduce on-the-job training
from a two- to three-year process down
to just 18 months.
Other aspects of the management system included compliance and internal
and external audits, which were required
every six months. Another element was
linking on-the-job-training to performance reviews and pay. The compliance of the people executing the on-thejob-training and management system was
tied to their performance review, which
was tied to their pay.
The management system helped save
the company about $5 million annually,
says Wilkins.
Improvements that pay for themselves
To put it simply, when it comes to company management, everything is connected. For example, problem solving
can involve multiple departments across
a company and have a high potential for

conficting interests. How do you manage this process, effectively handle tough
decisions and mitigate business risk? By
creating a system that defnes a companys core functions and processes, shows
how they overlap and interact with each
other, integrates all inputs, and is easily
used throughout the entire organization.
Companies using integrated management systems experience fewer failures,
respond more effectively to challenges, and deliver consistently better safety
and compliance performance over time.
These systems become a great solution to
regulatory worries, reduce operating risk
and improve profts, creating the perfect
outcome: better safety and compliance
improvements that pay for themselves.
Interliance Consulting, Inc., is a world leader in architecture and implementation of

integrated management systems for cant fail business functions such as Health, Safety
and Environment, Emergency and Crisis Response, Regulatory Compliance, and Risk
Management. For further information, contact Brad Kamph.
Interliance Consulting, Inc.
200 E. Sandpointe Ave., Suite 510
Santa Ana, CA 92707
Phone: 855.540.8889
Web site: www.interliance.com
Email: info@interliance.com
11
REGIONAL
Insights
Electricity Diversity Takes

Shape in the Middle East
By PennEnergy.com
the last year, a number of countries in the Middle East have revised
their energy policies to diversify
their electricity generation and increase
the use of cleaner, renewable power.
Though the Middle East is home to
some of the largest oil and natural gas
producers on the planet, countries
within the region are investing more
money in solar, geothermal and other
renewable sourcesand encouraging energy effcient projects.
N
Saudi Arabia aims to expand

renewable energy market
In July, Saudi Arabia invested $109 billion in renewable energy development.

The investment will help the country
reach its goal of generating a third of its
energy from solar, wind and other renewable sources of power, Arab News
reported earlier this year.
Also in July, the King Abdullah City
for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE) released details of its new National Energy Plan, which details just
how much renewable energy it aims to
generate. According to the plan, Saudi Arabia will add 41 gigawatts of solar
power, 1 GW of geothermal and 9 GW
of wind power. The country also plans
to add 18 GW of nuclear power and 3
GW of waste-to-energy, according to the
Arab News.
In December 2012, Saudi Arabia
12
announced its first large-scale solar

project would be complete by the end
of the year. The installation produces
100 megawatts at full capacity - enough
to power 20,000 homes. The project will
also help Saudi Arabia meet its goal of
having renewable energy account for 7
percent of its total power supply by 2020.
We truly believe solar will be a major contributor to meeting our own requirements, said Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, the UAEsspecial envoyfor Energy
and Climate Change, the Saudi Gazette
reported. We are not like many other countries today that have a desperate need for complementary sources of
power. We are looking at it from a strategic point of view ... we want to become
a technology player, rather than an energy player.
UAE energy diversifcation
The United Arab Emirates has also

made major investments in energy generation in the past year. In July, Ministry
of Energy Suhail Al Mazrouie said the
country would invest $25 billion over
the next fve years to explore new natural gas felds and increase its gas output,
the Arabian Gazette reported.
Months later, in October, UAE government officials made another announcement regarding energy policy.
UAEs Undersecretary of Energy Dr.
Matar Al Niyadi said the country would
be diversifying its energy mix, with new

energy policy focusing on diversifcation, conservation and effciency as
well as securing an energy supply and
managing talent in the industry, the
Khaleej Times reported.
Diversifying our energy mix is the
frst pillar of our energy policy, Al Niyadi said. To meet immediate demands,
we are using more natural gas to generate electricity, because of its clean and
effcient burning properties.
The country was the frst in the Middle East to establish renewable energy
targets, Al Niyadi said. In March, the
country approved the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world,
the Shams 1 project. This, along with
other projects, will help UAE reach its
goal of generating 2.5 gigawatts of new
renewable energy capacity by 2030, the
Khaleej Times reported.
Niyada also spoke of other UAE projects in the pipeline that will help the
country meet its energy diversifcation
policy, including energy effciency and
conservation efforts.
In the UAE, we have the regions
frst mandatory green building codes,
leading to cuts in energy and

water consumption by more
than 33 percent in new buildings, Niyada said in October.
Kuwait sets renewable
energy goals
Earlier this year, Kuwait revised

its renewable energy policy, increasing the amount of energy
it hopes to generate from solar
and other alternative sources.
The country previously aimed
to generate 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources by
2020.In May of this year, the country
pushed that target up, saying it now will
aim to generate 15 percent of its energy
from renewable sources by 2030.
Kuwait, which has one of the highest
energy consumption rates per capita in
the world, hopes to decrease its dependence on oil for power, Gulf Business reported. In four years, the country believes
it can cut oil consumptionsignifcantly
in just four years, using just 20 percent of
its oil production capacity.
Kuwait already has a major renewable
energy project in the works - a 280 megawatt solar thermal power plant in Kuwait.
The plant, located in Al-Abdaliya, will be
Kuwaits frst solar facility. It is also the
frst project in which a private company
has been involved with a government energy development strategy, Clean Technica reported.
The MoU is a framework through

which it will determine the number of
activities that the countries have agreed
to jointly pursue such as [energy security and supply], environmental issues and
a number of other issues which are common for the three, said Cypriot Energy
Minister George Lakkotrypis.
Lakkotrypis expressed interest in Cyprus, Greece and Israel being connected through an underwater electric cable,
linking electric grids and making it possible to supply other nations with power,
New Europe reported.
in late September it would aim to generate thousands of megawatts of electricity from geothermal energy projects
and other renewable sources, Pakistan
Today reported.Ahmad said renewable
energy was sustainable, could be generated at low costs and would reduce
the countrys dependence on imported fuel.
Pakistan imports about one-third of its
energy requirements, costing the country $15 billion during the fscal year ending June 2013, The Diplomat reported. In
2012, oil and gas accounted for 65 per-
we want to become a technology player, rather

than an energy player. Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber
Greek Energy Minister Yannis Maniatis also said the MoU and future energy projects developed through the agreement will help stabilize energy supplies
in the three countries and beyond.
[T]he electric conduit can easily become a cable which will supply and export electricity to the European energy
market, and provide us with energy security, said Israels Energy Minister Silvan Shalom.
The MoU also states that the three nations will jointly work to protect the natural gas felds in the Mediterranean Sea.
MoU established between

Cyprus, Greece and Israel
Pakistans move to renewable,

geothermal energy
In early September, the three nations

signed a memorandum of understanding which covers cooperation between
the countries regarding energy and water
resources, New Europe reported.
Pakistan, like other countries in the

Middle East, has made commitments to
transition to using more renewable energy. Chairman of theEnergy Foundation Pakistan Javed Ahmad announced
cent of Pakistans energy mix. Energy

demand in the country is only expected
to increase, growing to around 40,000
MW by 2020. Yet, the government aims
to meet its energy shortfalls by increasing its investments in renewable energy
projects.
Ahmad said he would work to attract
investment in 10,000 MW of geothermal
power projects and start producing electricity at lower prices within just three
years, the source said.
Existing geothermal power plants in
Pakistan have proven successful,Ahmad
said, according to the Associated Press of
Pakistan. The move to more clean, renewable sources would also reduce the
countrys air pollution created from its
coal-fred power plants, he added. Expanding geothermal and renewable energy in the country would also trigger economic growth,Ahmadsaid.
13
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REGIONAL
Insights
New Policies Develop

Asia-Pacific Energy Future
By PennEnergy.com
HE Asia-Pacifc region has had a
number of new energy policies

enacted in the last year - from
new solar feed-in tariff rates to international agreements on fossil fuel development. The new policies have impacted numerous forms of energy generation, including renewable sources and
natural gas.
China solar tax rebates aim to curb
declining profts of industry
A number of Asian countries are encouraging renewable energy development as

a way to reduce pollution levels. China, a major supplier of solar panels, is
offering tax rebates to solar panel and solar product manufacturers. The goal of the rebates is to
help the sector that has taken a
hit in recent years among weak demand and to cut pollution levels,
the BBC reported.
Manufacturers will be granted a 50 percent value-added tax
rebate from Oct. 1, 2013 to Dec.
2015. The Ministry of Finance
announced the new tax rebate policy Sept. 29, Bloomberg reported. The announcement sparked interest in the
countrys solar sector almost immediately, according to the source. Shares
for LDK Solar Co. and Suntech Power Holdings Co., two Chinese solar
manufacturers, rose to their highest level in two months following the

tax rebate plan announcement. LDK
gained 30 percent, for example.
The tax rebate plan may have also
improved the future outlook of Chinas solar industry. In late September, analysts said they expected solar installations in China to increase
as much as 15 gigawatts in 2014 - up
from about 7 GW this year, Bloomberg reported.
The government also enacted a new
policy in late August. The National Development and Reform Commission
said Aug. 30 it would offer a $0.07 per
kilowatt-hour subsidy to solar power stations in the country, according to the

Want China Times.
China LNG expansion project to

meet rising energy demand
Along with solar and other renewable

energy development, China also committed to increasing its use of natural
gas. The government-owned National
Offshore Oil Corp said in September
it plans to add fve liquefed natural gas
receiving terminals by 2015 and double
its capacity to as much as 40 million
tonnes per year, reuters reported. The
project means China will be able to signifcant boost the amount of LNG it imports to meet strong energy demands in
the country.
The move will also help China increase its use of natural gas
to 8 percent of its energy mix
by 2015. Natural gas currently
accounts for 5 percent of Chinas energy use. More natural
gas also means China can cut
air emissions from coal and
reduce oil imports, Reuters
reported.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects
Chinese LNG demand will
increase 5 percent annually
through 2035. The increase of
LNG in the Asian country is
expected to have global implications.
China is already infuencing the
underlying mid-term LNG market and
will likely continue to, said Stephen
15
Cornish, Geneva-based director of global gas and LNG at Koch Supply & Trading, a subsidiary of Kansas-based industrial company Koch Industries, Risk.net
reported
Thailand also looks to expand LNG market
Thailand, too, will be expanding its

LNG imports to meet increasing energy demands and to avoid power outages
in the country. PTT LNG, a subsidiary
of the state-owned oil and gas company
PTT, said it will double capacity at its 5
million megatons per year LNG import
terminal, Platts reported.
The expansion, being referred to as
Phase II, includes building a new jetty, storage tanks and new processing
and regasifcation facilities at the import
terminal.
The government has a clear policy to ensure stable supply of natural gas
for industry, especially for power generation and this includes going ahead with
Phase II on schedule, an offcial with
PTT LNG said in June.
The project is expected to be complete
by late 2016, with new capacity being operational in the frst three months of 2017,
Platts reported.
The project announcement comes after PTT came close to experiencing power outages due to a lack of energy supplies. In March, PTT said it would need
to double LNG imports in April to avert
power outages. The state-owned company imported two LNG shipments of
70,000 tonnes each that month - about
70,000 more than it normally receives,
Bangkok Post reported.
Japans feed in tariff regime boosts
renewable energy investments
Japan began offering feed-in tariffs in
16
July 2012 through its Act on Purchase

of Renewable Energy Sourced Electricity by Electric Utilities to encourage investments in renewable energy sources,
including wind and solar power. The act
requires utilities operating in the country to purchase renewable energy for prices and durations set by the Minister of
Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
The new policy was expected to spur development in renewable energy in Japan.
It worked. In 2012 alone, the tariffs
boosted investment in renewable energy
by 75 percent, resulting in $16.3 billion
spent on solar, wind and other clean energy developments in Japan, a report on
the tariff system by DLA Piper said.
The government revised this tariff
scheme this year at the end of March,
and the new surcharge rates took effect in
April of this year. The 2013 revised feedin tariff rate by METI remain among the
most generous rates in the world, the
report said.
In February, Hitachi, a Japanese engineering and electronics company, announced it would invest about $10.5
million in a 8-megawatt solar plant scheduled to be complete by the end of the
year. Months later, in May, Goldman
Sachs announced plans to invest approximately $487 million in renewable energy projects in Japan over the next fve
years. Goldman Sachs formed the Japan
Renewable Energy Company to develop
a range of clean energy projects as well.
In September, The Japan News reported, the feed-in tariff system has drawn a
number of solar power companies to invest in new projects. For instance, Hokkaido Electric plans to build a battery
system for solar generation at a substation in Abira. Advanced projects like this
will allow utilities to buy 10 percent more
electricity from renewable projects, the

METI believes.
In the second quarter of 2013, Japan added 1.7 gigawatts of solar capacity, mainly through commercial installations. Much of this new renewable power
generation is thanks to the countrys feedin tariff scheme, Clean Technica recently reported.
Vietnam strikes deal with
US over nuclear power
Vietnam, which is home to the secondlargest market for nuclear power in East
Asia, struck a deal with the United States
over its nuclear power program. Under
the agreement, the U.S. will sell nuclear fuel and technology to Vietnam. In
exchange, Vietnam is prohibited from
enriching or reprocessing plutonium or
uranium during nuclear energy development, Bloomberg reported. The agreement isaimed at curbing the creation of
nuclear weapons.
The agreement helps both nations.
It will open up opportunities for Vietnam to have the best and most modern
technology, Tran Chi Thanh, Hanoibased head of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, said by phone today. One
key issues is that we must train personnel.
The agreement will hopefully give us opportunities to do so.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
said the deal will open numerous opportunities for businesses in the U.S. and
Vietnam.
Our companies can now compete,
he said, according to Bloomberg.
Vietnam has 13 nuclear power stations
in the planning phase. If built, these projects would add 16,000 MW of new power over the next 20 years, Bloomberg
reported.
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COM : DECEMBER 2013

Silicon Valley Power Wireless

Networks vs. Platform

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30 The Reputation Imperative:

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38 Interoperability Enables Innovation

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45 Smart Grid Interoperability

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48 The Smarter Approach

Creating Reliability, Efficiency on the Grid

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