Smart Grid

Cyborg Beetles, Cyber-security, Smart Buildings, and the Smart Grid

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Cyber beetles provide an interesting glimpse into agent based interactions. Smart grids and smart buildings are integrated today using deep, integration, and complete control of the underlying processes. As more and more nodes are added to any system, the overhead of maintaining all interactions at a central point becomes more significant. In grid-scale systems, system designers have managed complexity by limiting diversity; a system may be managing ten thousand substations, but at least they are identical systems. A current DARPA project dramatically demonstrates a better approach....

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Cyber Security for the Grid

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SCADA security, often called cyber-security when talking of the smart grid, is one of the areas where not only the answers are difficult, but often selecting the right questions is difficult. Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) refers to the on-line, computer-based monitoring and control of process from a central site. SCADA, which puts little intelligence into the distributed points, is still the primary model used for utility distribution systems, including the telemetry and operation of today’s dumb grid.

The SCADA model of systems architecture was appropriate when...

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Cargo Cult Energy

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I spent last week in Chicago and by of Silicon Valley, talking about new energy. In Chicago, we were talking about the smart grid, and how it enables new markets in energy. Out by San Francisco Bay, the conversation was, of course, about ventures and new businesses and high tech. There were exciting conversations in Chicago, ones that may lead getting the underlying structures of smart energy markets right. There were innovative projects in California, ones that are beginning to answer "What would your stuff do, if it knew the price of energy, now.?" In both locations, there was a tendency to fall into a trap that I call Cargo Cult Energy...

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What if the Smart Grid had Reliable Generation

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Most of today’s conversations about smart energy have at their core recognition that new energy is inherently unreliable. That unreliability will flow throughout the grid, and those that rely on the grid (homes, buildings, industry, vehicles) will need to consider that unreliability. The requirements reach beyond the operation of transmission and distribution (T&D) to intelligent end-points, able to adjust energy requirements, store energy locally, and even supply energy back to the grid. This requires two-way symmetric communications.

But what if new technology provides us with rock solid reliable power? A couple reports this week have turned my thoughts to the problems of the smart grid given perfect reliability of generation...

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