Latest Trends In Smart Grid Technology In The Utilities Industry

REALICE LAS ACTIVIDADES QUE SE ENCUENTRAN AL FINAL DEL TEXTO

SMART GRID SYSTEM DELIVERING NEXT-GENERATION UTILITIES, KNOW HOW!

Global energy providers adopt modernized grids integrated with hardware and software innovations, to ensure a smarter, faster, and efficient solution for achieving the growing energy demand. Upgrading the current system it helps utilities and consumers to access the potential of a digital grid. Although the upgradation of the existing electrical grid infrastructures delivers significant output; industries are making strategic decisions and taking meaningful steps to create a next-generation workforce and a vibrant, thriving utility of the future.

• Future for the Energy Consumers

The energy consumers in the present world tend to have more information, choice, and control over virtual aspects of the energy supply chain. As renewable and distributed energy rapidly becomes the mainstream, the impact of deploying advanced technologies, automation, and innovations on the grid cannot be ignored. Benefit monitoring, health management, maintenance, and replacements are the results of data-driven decisions and predictions. Today, all the efforts to improve safety, efficiency, and better information enhance the reliability and save cost for the customers, delivering flexible, robust, agile grid to satisfying their new demands.

• Restructuring the Business Model

The utility business model increases the integration of load and generation at the distribution level. New technologies for communications and coordinated controls enable significant changes in grid operations, customer experiences, and empowerment. It helps to make the grid operations more efficient and reliable, enabling an environmentally friendly electric supply. A smart grid needs to facilitate the integration of distributed energy resources, minimize outages, and provide improved communications and response and cost-effectively availing real-time information and controls for consumer benefit.

• Up-grading the Energy Production System

With the changes in customer demands and requirements, while measuring the environment-friendly ways, energy providers and industries need the right training and tools to adapt and succeed in the energy revolution. The implementations of the innovations empower the employees to take risk and challenges to explore new solutions in the existing problems. It encourages the employees to learn, contribute, and stretch their capabilities and take a leadership role for challenging projects. There are tremendous opportunities and enormous potential for the industries to achieve new economies with a flexible, modern grid and customer-driven energy choices.

Utilities demand sets of technology components to take a holistic approach for grid modernization. The multiple grids and micro-grids system enables the management of energy from diverse power sources and leads to generate efficiency at a low cost of operation. Smart grids function as an advanced distribution management system availed from the real-time, analytical, and ancillary applications. Technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) devices and cloud-based data management platforms leverage analytics and facilitate IT/OT convergence. Smart grid systems promise a bright future for utilities by embracing the technologies in the right directions.

Available at https://medium.com/@mikethomsan/latest-trends-in-smart-grid-technology-in-the-utilities-industry-9e2f295d3a4f. Acceso el 2 de octubre, 2020.

Dielectric Strength

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 Dielectric Strength

Dielectric Strength reflects the electric strength of insulating materials at various power frequencies. Or it can be defined as the measure of dielectric breakdown resistance of a material under an applied voltage and is expressed as Volts per unit thickness. It is an indicator of how good an insulator a material is.

In other words, it is the voltage per unit thickness at which a material will conduct electricity. The higher the value, the more electrically insulating a material is.

It is an important property sought for materials used in applications where electrical field is present and is a vital parameter for electrical industry applications.

Applications include:

  » Development of materials for energy storage applications

  » Dielectric materials for capacitors

  » Thin films in high speed digital circuitry

The dielectric strength depends on:

  » The type of the plastic and electrodes

  » The shape of the plastic and electrodes

  » The rate with which the field is increased, and

  » The medium that surrounds the insulator

How to Measure Dielectric Strength?

The most generally used standard tests to calculate dielectric strength are ASTM D149 or IEC 60243-1 (ofcourse there exist several other methods as well, but they are not discussed here).

The measurement of dielectric strength is usually carried out either by the:

  »  Short-time method

  »  Slow rate-of-rise method

  »  Step-by-Step method

Short-time method

In this method, the voltage is applied across the two electrodes and increased continuously at a uniform rate (500 V/sec) until the breakdown occurs. Breakdown is defined as when an electrical burn- through punctures the sample or decomposition occurs in the sample.

Slow rate-of-rise method

In this test method, the voltage is applied to the test electrodes from the starting voltage 50% of the breakdown voltage until breakdown occurs.

Step-by-Step method

The voltage is applied to the test electrodes at the preferred starting voltage in steps and duration until breakdown occurs.

Specimen Size - The recommended specimen type is a 4 inch plaque or larger. Any specimen thickness can be used.

Dielectric strength is calculated by dividing the breakdown voltage by the thickness of the sample.

Most plastics have good dielectric strengths (in the order of 100 to 300 kV/cm).

Factors Affecting Dielectric Strength

• The dielectric strength of an insulation material usually decreases with increase in temperature 
  It is approximately inversely proportional to the absolute temperature. At the same time, it is equally important to note that below room temperature, dielectric strength is substantially independent of temperature change.


• Mechanical loading has a pronounced effect on dielectric strength
  Since, a mechanical stress may introduce internal flaws which serve as leakage paths, mechanical loaded insulators may show substantially reduced values of dielectric strength.


• Dielectric Strength of an insulating material is influenced by the fabrication details
  For example, flow lines in a compression molding or weld lines in an injection molding may serve as paths of least resistance of leakage currents, this reducing the dielectric strength. Even nearly invisible minute flaws in a plastics insulator may reduce the dielectric strength to one-third this normal value.

Available at https://omnexus.specialchem.com. Acceso el 9 de octubre, 2020.