SCADA - supervisory control and data acquisition - systems have long been a stalwart of electric utility operations, becoming increasingly complex as new technologies arrive and new issues emerge on the road to a modern electric grid. The resources below will help you stay current on SCADA trends in this changing utility environment.
Results: 40 results found. You are on page 1 of 2 pages.
New research from the ARC Advisory Group suggests the SCADA market for electricity transmission and distribution is among the most rapidly growing control system markets in the world. Click to see which country the report says will be the driving force in SCADA technologies by 2020.
Andres Carvallo and John Cooper are the authors of "The Advanced Smart Grid," the best book yet about technical and organizational strategies for the smart grid. In an earlier article, they explained the need for an integrated communications network. They've stopped by again with another adaptation from their book, this time explaining why and how to reinvent the utility control center and make it part of an integrated optimization engine.
Telvent is making its first foray into the Australian smart grid market through partnerships with an electric utility and a gas utility to replace their existing SCADA systems with its multi-utility single platform. Click inside for more on this latest trend indicator.
In today's Discovery Showcase installment, we're featuring a photo showcase of five new smart grid technologies, from PJM's new state of the art Advanced Control Center to Texas Instruments' next generation of power management integrated circuits for energy harvesting – and we've got the hBOX too. It's all inside.
DOE recently published 21 steps to improve the security of the smart grid and other public assets that are remotely managed and monitored. But Carl Ford says there's a worrisome "keep quiet" strategy at play.
A report from Research and Markets predicts the global market for outage management systems will grow at a slow pace between now and 2020. Click inside to find out why.
Iberdrola USA has picked Siemens for a benchmark integrated network control systems project that will involve bringing two New York utilities into a single system for improved operational efficiency, adaptability and cost management. There's more inside on this innovative integration project.
The Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, which is building one of the world's most advanced smart grid networks, has teamed with Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs to develop new techniques to analyze devices and voltage at an unprecedented level of detail. Don't miss this sneak peek at the project, provided by Alcatel-Lucent.
This study is based on inputs from utilities, regulators, manufacturers, systems integrators and consulting firms. It also includes highlights from recently completed Newton-Evans studies.
Jesse Berst got a look at the latest smart grid research from Newton-Evans. The findings may help utilities and vendors alike determine where to place their bets. SCADA and substation automation? A big winner. Smart metering? A loser. Click inside to see other surprising revelations.
This illustrated presentation by Bob Uluski of the Electric Power Research Institute offers a comprehensive overview of distribution management systems - what they are, key applications and what goes into the planning, procuring and implementating a DMS.
Jeff Taft, chief smart grid architect for Cisco Systems, takes a good, hard look at smart grid data quality issues, the challenges utilities face when trying to deal with them – and some very useful tips on how to beef up data quality. It's the first of a two-part series, so stay tuned.
As electric utilities search for new and better ways to improve the reliability and security of their infrastructure, Matthias H. van Doorn of FreeWave Technologies makes a case for wireless data communications. (He also shares an intriguing tale of actress Hedy Lamarr's contribution to grid security made way back in the '40s.)
An article from Electric Light & Power summarizes the findings from a 2010 Newton-Evans survey of utility buying plans for SCADA, DMS and related systems as well as popularity rankings of different brands. Click inside for details
Two companies have partnered to provide a cyber security solution for utilities and other segments of the energy sector that allows them to deal with SCADA and industrial control-related security issues without taking critical systems offline.
The Stuxnet worm targeting control systems and utility companies is heavy-duty malware. Security blogger Andy Bochman says that means USG and FERC must get way more serious about energy control system security and issue mandatory policy. Why? Without a crippling blow from Stuxnet, Andy predicts most utilities will simply move along with no procedural changes. Find out why he calls that unacceptable.
IEEE has produced its 1815 Distributed Network Protocol (DNP3) standard for electric power systems communications in record time. The group also announced the release of a draft standard for a common technical platform for distributed resources interconnection applications.
The move from analog to digital TV created unused broadcast channels and now a rural electric cooperative in California has teamed up with Google and Spectrum Bridge to launch a Smart Grid wireless network trial utilizing those TV White Spaces.
With all the Smart Grid standards now in the works, which ones are most essential? Smart Grid expert Dr. Dale McMullin argues that a single set of standards for geospatial interfaces and encodings deserve a spot on your "pay attention" list. Find out why.
It may not be pretty to look at, but Intergraph and Siemens have taken a step towards seamless outage management in an “off-the-shelf” application. Jesse Berst thinks it's impressive. But is it the holy grail of integrated, real-time outage management? Click inside and see what you think.
What does the big Y2K scare at the turn of the century have in common with today’s Smart Grid roll-outs? Security expert Andy Bochman recalls that perceived Y2K threats and remediation costs were used to justify new apps and the shuttering of older apps and systems. It became a catalyst for modernization and efficiency – and Andy believes that same ‘taking stock’ drill could be a boon to utilities readying for the Smart Grid.
Entergy, a Fortune 500 company with 14,300 employees, produces and delivers electric power to 2.7 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The company has captured trillions of records from its supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system and its more than 320,000 SCADA objects. To better extract value from SCADA data, the utility deployed a real-time data storage application, called Pegasus RDS, which was created by Microsoft partner Nobadeer Software.
This white paper discusses how the electric utility landscape has changed over the past few decades, necessitating the smart grid. It then shows how Ethernet-based Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems can be used to monitor and control power flowing into and out of the grid and how Ethernet-based SCADA systems can be used to match power inflows and outflows to keep the grid stable.
The fusion of technologies that is the Smart Grid also represents a mixture of technical cultures. As Pike Research senior analyst Bob Gohn explains, it puts the netheads and the power guys in a culture clash that could influence the Smart Grid’s evolution. His message to industry decision makers? Be aware.
As this overview discusses, primary drivers for selecting OSIsoft PI at CPS Energy were the ability to create custom displays easier, to retrieve data quickly and easily using common tools such as Excel, plus dissatisfaction with performance of existing historian and a desire to make use of the multiple interface capability (T&D EMS, Gas SCADA, Modbus, etc.) and to provide access to data for staff in corporate offices.
We're getting mixed signals about the vitality of the smart grid market. On the one hand, the recent DistribuTECH conference was one of the most successful ever. On the other, a well-known Wall Street analyst recently told his clients that the smart metering sector is "facing several headwinds," including weak regulatory support in the U.S. and delays in European adoption. Taking the pulse of the smart grid industry is this week's Tuesday Topic.
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