ME smart grids can 'leapfrog' other regions

Peter Ward , February 3rd, 2010

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.



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.

Are you dealing with Masdar on this topic?

We are cooperating in the Masdar project and we hope to do more there. We are involved in city scale deployments of smart grids including embedded generation, so solar generation and including plug in stations and how that needs to interact with the utility.

Does the smart grid concept constitute an invasion of privacy, with so much information being passed from consumers to utilities?

I know that that is a concern amongst some people, but there is nothing about the smart grid which says the utility has the right to any data beyond your total energy use. Its really up to the regulators to set the guidelines, what information is provided to the consumer and what incremental information is provided back to the utility. I think that this could be a system where consumers elect to share their use information so their utilities can provide them broader services or they can elect not to do that which would limit the services the utilities provide.

What are the challenges facing the deployment of this technology?

There is not a big technology challenge. I think we have technology that can address the needs of a smarter grid. The challenge is going to the policy and the regulatory frameworks, getting the right incentives around efficiency, ensuring that it pays to reduce losses. Getting the right incentives around renewable and ensuring that we are encouraged to have greener energy sources is another challenge.

Utilities by providing information to consumers can help them reduce their energy use. But that doesn’t benefit the utilities, you are reducing the demand for their product. So you need to have the right policy and regulatory framework.



How important is education?

It’s critical. We as consumers have a very shallow relationship with our utilities. We get a bill at the end of each month which tells us how much we used and how much we owe. Most of us don’t know what a kw/h is but that’s the language that utilities use. So we have a lot to learn about how we talk to consumers, how we get them to be excited about the idea of reducing their energy use, how we gt them to understand that there are opportunities to use different energy sources. That is a lot that we can do to begin preparing consumers for this greener future.

Younger consumers are very interested and they are so more environmentally in touch than the older generation. I think there is a lot we can do with kids and with young adults, and they will become catalysts for consumers to more generally become interested.

What are your hopes for the future?

I want to see more smart city deployments where we have holistic deployments of smart grid technology on a scale which is meaningful so that we can demonstrate the benefits that we can reduce the losses and we can support more distributed generation and do it in a sustainable way and we can improve reliability and enable consumers to change their energy use habits.