The Electrical Power Grid, Including the national electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) network, is a massive network of infrastructure that most scholars and practitioners treat as disconnected from energy justice concerns. But underlying this infrastructure are a series of unseen justice dimensions. For example, stronger and more resilient distribution lines are located in more affluent neighborhoods, which results in disparities in incidence of blackouts. Furthermore, both grid vulnerability and expansion have important implications for future generations. As another example, the siting and permitting of grid infrastructure, including infrastructure that serves as a nuisance, is uneven across geography. In this article, we define an energy justice taxonomy and discuss how the grid can potentially contribute to four different types of injustice: sociodemographic, spatial across urban and rural locations, temporal, and interspecies.

DC generators ran well in parallel, and ac generators didn’t—why was that? Almost no one knew!

Since substation automations systems were introduced in the 1990s to protect, control, and automate high-voltage and medium voltage substations, several new technologies have been applied to improve the functionality, performance, and efficiency of the design and architecture. Digital substations are beginning to replace substation automations systems, benefitting from new architectures that are based on digital interfaces provided by intelligent primary devices and related sensors. This transition was prompted by the intensive work in standardization of communication protocols and data models dedicated for power system automation, as defined in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61850 series of standards. The evolution of technologies and performances driven by microelectronics enabled the functional integration of previously separated devices onto common hardware over the last three decades. Still, the functional integration was limited by requirements concerning reliability, resilience, testability, and life-cycle perspectives. In a substation, any device, such as a protection relay, was allocated to a bay, a feeder, or a zone. Applying concepts of IEC 61850 concerning the separation of physical signals, their conversion into digital information, and allocation of application functions using this information from any physical device, makes it possible to think about the next generation of digital substations. Based on virtualization technologies developed in the world of information technology (IT) to dramatically improve the design, operation, and maintenance of IT systems, centralized protection and control systems (CPCs) would allow an even more flexible and economic way to protect, control, and automate substations.

Modern power grids are evolving into highly integrated networks of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution facilities together with distributed energy resources (DERs) on customer premises—solar generation, energy storage, wind power, and grid-interactive devices (home automation), for example.

Data exchanges and cybersecurity obligations are mandated by energy regulations and cybersecurity legislation. This article examines Italy’s experience with the implementation of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 62351 standards for securing distribution system operator (DSO)–distributed energy resource (DER) communications.

Popular history of electric power promotes an erroneous legend that a titanic 1890 “War of the Currents” immediately obliterated dc installations in favor of ac systems. Some authors may mention that dc has specialized railway and industrial applications. While there was a legal and public relations competition among proponents of each system, the actual competition was very different. There was no immediate change, as ac systems took time to perfect and dc retained its place, as it was superior for certain applications. Electric power at that time had three primary markets: local distribution of power to customers, electric railways, and long-distance transmission. Only in the latter did ac gain immediate acceptance, though not without competition from dc schemes.

A distribution system operator (DSO) IS A utility company managing the electricity distribution network. It develops, operates, and modernizes the electric grid and guarantees a high-quality electrical supply for all its customers. It carries out customer connections, 24/7 troubleshooting, meter reading, and all technical interventions. One major challenge: make the electricity distribution network more resilient, efficient, and secure.

in Seattle, Washington.This premier power engineering conference will bring together practicing power engineers and academics from all over the world.The aim of the conference is to provide an international forum for experts to promote, share, and discuss various issues and developments in the field of electrical power engineering.

Electrical energy usage at the grid edge is growing steadily. Consequently, the electric distribution sector is undergoing an extraordinary transformation. Enabled by emerging regulations, customer-owned behind-the-meter assets with the ability to provide grid services have blurred the boundary with utilities. The end users exposed to frequent and powerful extreme weather events are demanding resilience against disruption of supply. Further, the impact of climate change and the need for sustainable energy are forcing a wide-ranging shift from traditional grids. Coupled with procedural bottlenecks for siting and commissioning new transmission and centralized generation projects, there is an urgent need for enhancements to the distribution grid. Grid edge technologies and devices that boost resilience, sustainability, and economic paybacks are expected to rapidly penetrate the electric distribution realm. The integration of these devices, and the associated operation philosophies, offers unexplored benefits and new challenges. We present practical implementations of an intelligent grid edge technology, i.e., a versatile microgrid controller (MC), that addresses resilience, economic benefits, interconnection management, and sustainability. To deliver a successful implementation, the technology must be de-risked in sequential stages, from algorithm development to pilots, with transitional stops at software in the loop (SiL), hardware in the loop (HiL), and digital twin testing. In this article, we detail a comprehensive methodology for the development of an MC technology via this de-risking approach and present three successful field deployments corresponding to different use cases and customer types.