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Quick Take: Self-healing is one of the key selling points for a modernized grid. To date, S&C Electric has gotten much of the credit as a self-healing pioneer, as you can review on our page that lists recent S&C Electric smart grid coverage. But many other companies are hard at work on approaches that distribute intelligence out to the edges to allow the grid to recover automatically from many problems, as with the Siemens and RuggedCom teaming effort described below. - By Jesse Berst

 

Power outages cost American businesses billions every year. But for a hospital, it's more critical than money. Outages can jeopardize patients' lives. But with the deployment of an ultra high-speed distribution feeder automation (DFA) system and its detection and protection features, officials at the only hospital serving Virginia's eastern shore expect any disruptions to be so brief that patients won't notice them.

 

The new system is the handiwork of Siemens Energy and RuggedCom – and developed for A&N Electric Cooperative, the electric utility that serves the area. The smart grid solution provides optimized fault detection, isolation and restoration – features that can quickly find and isolate trouble spots, and reconfigure the feeder to get power from another substation through unaffected lines.

 

"Because Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital is so critical to our community, we needed a way to reduce the impact of outages caused by numerous automobile collisions with our pole lines," said Kelvin Pettit, VP of reliability for A&N. He said the DFA system from Siemens "...meets our needs by detecting faults, isolating problems and transferring to alternative power sources in less than half a second."

 

The utility expects to expand the automation technology to other distribution feeder lines as time and finances allow.

 

Jesse Berst is the founder and chief analyst of Smart Grid News.com. He consults to smart grid companies seeking market entry advice and M&A advisory. A frequent keynoter at industry events in the US and abroad, he also serves on the Advisory Council of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Energy & Environment directorate.

 

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