Gearing up for the future

“We already have an extensive portfolio for smart grids”
-Ralf Christian

Siemens | www.siemens.com/energy/smartgrid

P&E. Can you give a brief background on Siemens' interest and activities in the smart grid?
Ralf Christian. Siemens is the only company that can offer everything from generation, through all the grid elements for transport and distribution, to smart consumption. Siemens sees the increasing share of decentralised and renewable energy as a growing challenge for the electrical grid. In order to master these challenges, the grid and its consumers must become more flexible and interactive.

Therefore, we need to transform today's grid into an intelligent network that allows bi-directional communication between electricity suppliers and consumers and fosters sustainability by providing incentives for the efficient use of green energy. What is needed is an end-to-end infrastructure starting with generation over transmission and distribution to smart consumption. Siemens' integrated smart grid portfolio addresses the whole electricity chain from generation until consumption with innovative, smart products.

What areas of the smart grid are of particular interest to Siemens?
Today's power grids are already at their limit. Enormous challenges are facing Europe's grids if they are to meet the climate protection targets - 30 percent less CO₂ and 20 percent more renewable energy sources in the grid by the year 2020 - and guarantee a reliable and sustainable energy supply at the same time. Upgrades and investments in traction networks and distribution networks are an absolute must if a sustainable energy system is to be achieved.

Power grids operating near capacity today are coming up against their limits. These were not originally designed for the integration of renewable energies with fluctuating power infeed. Blackouts, such as were experienced in Europe in November 2006 and in the US in August 2003, show just how vulnerable our power grids are. The smart grid is one attempt to revitalise grids which are at their limit and to make them blackout-proof.

The Siemens approach to the smart grid centers around a new energy grid design with innovative management structures. Today's static grid operation must become a 'living' infrastructure. This means flexible, transparent and fast multi-way communication between all the players in the electricity market. It must be implemented all the way along the energy conversion chain, from electricity generation through to the consumer. The basic requirement: integrated communication standards and new grid intelligence. We want to be the outright number one on the smart grid market in the field of grid intelligence.

What technologies has Siemens developed for the smart grid and what makes these unique?
Smart grids involve the entire electricity production, distribution and power consumption chain. We work closely with our customers to address their individual challenges with tailored solutions that incorporate the highest quality, reliability, sustainability and efficiency.

Our advanced energy management systems, for example, can be used as the brain of control centers for the transmission grid. Smart substation automation and protection systems can be used as the backbone for a secure transmission grid operation. Our asset management systems and condition monitoring devices are promising tools to optimise the OpEx and CapEx spendings of the utility.

Furthermore, our intelligent distribution management systems are the counterpart to the energy management systems in the distribution grid. In countries where outages are a frequent problem, the outage management system is an important component of distribution management systems. We provide distribution automation and protection systems; whereas automated operation and remote control is state of the art for the transmission grid, mass deployment of distribution automation is just recently becoming more frequent.

Virtual power plants - a centrally controlled set of small distributed power generation systems - are part of our smart grid solution portfolio, as well as micro grids. These are still in their infancy, but we are already working on suitable solutions because there must be optimum grid management between generator and consumer in small communities without grid access.

Here, there is no backup from a large grid to compensate for grid fluctuations. For our customers, we develop smart metering solutions, too - our automated metering and information system automated metering and information system (AMIS) integrates the metering infrastructure with distribution automation. This includes meter data management, a software tool aggregating the meter data. It is a key component for realising additional functionalities like the use of metering data for outage management.

Smart meter integration and enablement allows utilities to optimise their business processes. In addition, Siemens also offers billing and customer care applications, which are key elements in the area of customer relationship management for all market roles: meter reading companies, energy suppliers and distributors. Smart building - energy efficient building (clusters) that manage dynamically their energy consumption, generation and storage facilities and are enabled to react on price signals from the grid - are also part of Siemens' smart grid portfolio, along with power electronics, which is among the 'actuators' in power grid. Systems like HVDC and FACTS enable actual control of the power flow.

Where are some of the utilities/projects in which Siemens smart grid technologies are deployed?
There is, for example, a virtual power plant project we started together with the German utility RWE. Within that project, we gain practical experience with virtual power plants from existing, big decentralised power producers in an interconnected supply area.

Another example is a pilot project for real-time measurement and power system dynamics caused by wind energy generation in the network of the German utility E.ON. Our AMIS solution, currently being implemented for the Swiss utility Arbon Energie AG, focuses on merging the core tasks of metering and distribution network automation. AMIS provides functions for implementing a smart grid among other features.

Another project is a so called decentralised energy market place, called E-DEMA, a German smart grid pilot and research project from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology in cooperation with several German companies to establish a smart grid IT infrastructure.

What does Siemens see as the main challenges in rolling out smart grid, and how may these be overcome?
With a view to meeting the challenges connected with the setup and expansion of a smart grid, our product range already includes intelligent solutions for reliable energy grids offering environmental sustainability and economic efficiency.

For decades now, our core business has been concerned with making power grids more intelligent and consumers more energy efficient. We are the market leader in the field of power automation, the control technology for power grids, and already possess the relevant expertise. We have been offering intelligent power automation solutions for decades and have gained in-depth knowledge about the complex correlations of grid operation.

We utilise the latest technologies to ensure environmental soundness and energy efficiency in facilities. Thanks to our comprehensive portfolio, we are the only company worldwide that is capable of offering solutions for all sectors of the power supply market. Our solutions feature the necessary interoperability, standardisation capability and compatibility allow integration of demand and generation side.

Where is Siemens focusing its R&D efforts on smart grid technologies?
We operate the world's largest research and development network in the field of electric power engineering. Our R&D locations on grid intelligence are in the US, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Austria, China, India, Brazil and Serbia. Major investments in research and development coupled with acquisitions and partnerships have allowed us to strengthen our position in relation to important smart grid technologies.

For grid intelligence, Siemens is the world market leader in control systems for power grids - one of the main pillars of a smart grid. These products and solutions include programmable grid controls, such as protection, control and communication systems; technical systems for grid automation, such as electronic data transmission and processing; intelligent operations support; or simulation systems or the key components required for power grids, such as switching substations and current transformers. Worldwide, we are one of the few companies with the requisite know-how and technology that are capable of offering one-stop solutions.

Ralf Christian is CEO of the Power Distribution Division within the Siemens Energy Sector. Prior to this, he was the Head of the High Voltage Division of Siemens' Power Transmission and Distribution in Erlangen, Germany. Christian studied industrial engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.