By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-09-29 05:30
Car makers collaborate with utility companies
A successful transition to electric vehicle (EV) transport will require more than electric cars that perform well on the road. It will also require charging systems that fulfil the consumer’s needs.
The development of such systems can only be accomplished through collaboration between car makers and utility companies. The latter have to ensure that the appropriate charging technology is in place and that the national electric grid can support the increased demand.
Since drivers will need to be able to charge their vehicles wherever they are, smart charging meters will have to be installed in large numbers. Moreover, car makers and utility companies will have to agree on an industry standard to ensure that those meters communicate with all the EVs.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2009-02-25 12:22
The Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) just published its 4th Benchmarking Report on the Quality of Electricity Supply. It deals with three types of electricity quality: the speed and accuracy with which electricity customer requests are handled (commercial quality); the availability of electricity (continuity); and its technical properties (voltage quality).
Lord Mogg, CEER President, said, “In order to ensure that quality is not compromised as electricity companies seek to cut costs, more and more regulators have introduced electricity quality incentive/penalty regimes.”
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By Walter Hulshorst / Published on Sun, 2009-02-01 10:39
Often windturbines in the range between 300 kVA up to 3000 kVA are connected to the MV grid by a distribution transformer. Very often it is easy to measure the electricity on the LV side of the transformer, which is connected to the windturbine. Since this is not the actual point of connection with the grid, it is needed to make an estimation of the energy losses due to the transformer.
As can seen from the figure above the measured electricity at the location of the meter equals to Ewind, while the actual delivered energy to the grid equals Edelivered. The difference between them are the losses caused by the transformer (strictly the cables should also be included). To calculate the electricity delivered it is necessary to make an estimation of the losses of the transformer.
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By Jonathan Manson / Published on Mon, 2009-01-12 16:45
By Jonathan Manson and Roman Targosz
Since the end of the 1990s the European Copper Institute [ECI] has been concerned about the impact experienced by commerce and industry of the changing nature of the energy demands organisations face as a result of equipment technological advances, the increasing need o build in resilience into their electrical power installations and the presumed mounting costs of not taking either adequate preventative or reactive action to accommodate the changes.
After some preliminary small scale studies into the impact of poor power quality on such organisations and as the empirical but anecdotal evidence mounted being discussed at length among the growing membership of the Leonardo Power Quality Initiative [LPQI*], so ECI decided to mount an extensive research project into what the impacts were on key energy suing industrial sectors of their not coping with poor power quality.
The project itself took over two years to complete and its results have been exposed in 2007 to a broad technical academic community with a view to securing their support and agreement for this work, the findings of which, whilst not surprising to us, make very negative reading in terms of the avoidable wastage and economic losses incurred by these industrial sectors at a time when energy and resource efficiency are the demands of today. Apply this to more commercial interpretation and it is clear that the EU’s competitive position is also unnecessarily undermined asa a result of this wastage.
This report presents the European PQ Survey – it is clear that the industrial sectors interviewed annually lose upwards of €150 billion as a direct result of their electrical power installations not being sufficiently reliable and resilient for today’s and future operating demands.
The causes of these losses are not new nor are the Power Quality [PQ] phenomena involved. What was both surprising as well as concerning was and we suspect is still the relative lack of analysis and measurement that take place among these power critical industries to be able to know what is causing these damaging interruptions to their operations.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Fri, 2008-12-12 16:01
Stakeholder conference with some 350 participants from some 35 countries with policy makers, regulators, business, NGOs and media organised by UCTE.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2008-11-26 16:44
We are pleased to introduce Transmission & Distribution Europe 2009, a conference and exhibition focusing on the key issues facing the European TSO and DSO market. Transmission & Distribution Europe will bring together the key players of the energy supply industry.
During the event you will have the opportunity to:
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Thu, 2008-08-28 14:23
By Daniel Kottick
The Israel Electric corp. deployed a nationwide Power Quality Monitoring System (PQMS). The PQMS monitors the quality of supply of all of its high voltage costumers, as well as a sample of its medium voltage customers. The PQMS monitors both the voltages and the currents. The PQMS has been operational since October 2005. The paper presents preliminary measurement results obtained from the PQMS.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2008-06-11 00:00
By Sompop Pattanariyankool and Lester B. Lave
Northeastern United States whose capacity factors are 29-34%, we calculated the optimal size of the transmission line connecting the wind farms to distant customers. For a distance of 500 miles, the optimal transmission capacity is about 86 %; for a 1,000 mile separation, the optimal transmission capacity is 75 %. Building a line at full capacity would increase transmission cost almost 15 % while transmitting only about 4% more electricity to the customer.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2008-06-09 05:00
The IEA has presented their Energy Technology Perspectives 2008, ETP 2008, which is both the sequel to the 2006 version and an elaborated variation giving valuable input to the G8 meeting in Japan a month from now. The message is crisp and clear – “we are on an unsustainable path”, but not without hope – “the road can be changed”.
It will, however, require a revolution, they say. A dramatic shift in government polices is needed together with unprecedented co-operation among all major economies.
Scenarios
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Thu, 2008-06-05 13:26
The SEEDT project, a cooperation between energy agencies, institutes, electrical utilities, transformer manufacturers and academic institutes, presents its new selection guide for energy efficient distribution transformers (EEDT).
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