Environmental Engineering Reference
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disturbances related to weather or natural disasters as well as by social and political
disruptions related to the geopolitics of fuel or equipment supply.
Improved Reliability and Resilience
The increased ability of electricity systems to respond to both natural and human-caused
disruption can increase system reliability and resilience by improving “wide-area
situational awareness,” which is a term used in the electricity industry to represent the
capacity to monitor and be aware of what is going on throughout the entire system. A
key component of improved reliability includes communication sensors that would make
it easier to identify where and when a disruption occurs. Examples of improvements
to resilience include networks of sensors on the high-voltage transmission grid and
low-voltage distribution networks that can allow for better monitoring and management of
the system. On the high-voltage transmission network, synchrophasors provide real-time
measurements of electricity waves to monitor frequency and rapidly identify system
disturbances. On distribution networks, sensors and advanced communication devices
allow better management of power quality. An additional component of reliability and
resilience relates to adding and integrating distributed generation (DG) on the distribution
network and creating islanding capabilities and microgrid management to improve overall
A key part of smart grid's promise of enhanced reliability through improved resilience
relates to the idea of creating a “self-healing” system, allowing for automated fault
detection followed by automated repair. Continuous system-wide monitoring and local
islanding, or isolating a subsection of the grid during times of disruption, could enable
quicker recovery from storms or other power loss events and make the electricity system
more robust in times of system duress (LaMonica
2012
). For example, during Superstorm
Sandy in 2012, Princeton University was able to keep the lights on by disconnecting from
the bulk power grid, creating its own island of power, its campus-system microgrid. More
Both civilian and military interests are enthusiastic about the resilience promised by
smart grid. After determining that the current electrical grid poses an unacceptably high
risk of power outages, the U.S. Department of Defense is cooperating with the U.S.
Departments of Energy and Homeland Security to develop a program called Smart Power
Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security (SPIDERS), promoting
microgrids that would enhance system resilience by ensuring “continuity of
mission-critical loads” in the event of widespread and/or long lasting power outages
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