ME smart grids can 'leapfrog' other regions

Bob Gilligan, vice president, transmission and distribution, GE Energy

Robert Gilligan – vice president, transmission and distribution – GE Energy, talks exclusively to UME about his thoughts on the introduction of smart grids into the Middle East.

What is GE’s take on smart grids?

GE has been investing around smart grids for ten years and we have acquired numerous software companies, network management system companies and monitoring diagnostic technologies, so GE has been investing in this space for some time. Smart grid is about bringing information technology and process automation technology into the existing electrical networks and trying to improve the reliability of the network, trying to improve the efficiency of transmission and distribution.

It is also about enabling deeper penetration of renewable power and dealing with the intermittency of renewable power and bringing more information to consumers, allowing energy management automation.
So we are taking a very holistic view of this and we are a bit different to our competition in that we have a very broad range of products. We go from the generating station all the way down into the consumer residence. We have metering products, automation products, software products, the sensors and monitoring and diagnostic devices and we have deep domain expertise.

We have been in transmission and distribution for over 100 years so we know the utilities and we understand how they need to plan and manage the networks. We build and we design products within the network so we know how to monitor its health and sense when it is beginning to get ill.

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Is the smart grid concept easier in countries with a single utility?

I think that in integrated utility it is easier to feel the full benefits because they experience the benefits of the efficiency, less fuel goes in for a given amount of electricity to come out. But we are having success with utilities around the world regardless of whether they are an integrated utility or just transmission or just distribution.

How hard do you think it will be to enable smart grids in the Middle East?

I think that in the Middle East there is an opportunity to leapfrog, because as you are putting all this new infrastructure in you can enable it from the time you put it in with sensors and communication etc to enable a smarter grid so you can actually move faster.

There is strong interest. We see some of the utilities beginning to pilot smart meters and thinking about what they need in terms of the communications infrastructure. We see them getting more awareness in what is going on in the distribution grid and doing more automation around the distribution substation, so I think it is beginning.

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