A regular feature of Smart Grid News is the SGN Tech Take. In this series of articles, power engineer and architect Erich Gunther evaluates actual products and services against the SGN Smart Grid Scorecard. SGN believes these Tech Takes provide actionable intelligence to our readers, so we are listing past articles in a summary table. Below are the products previously reviewed in SGN Tech Take articles:
Summary of previous SGN Tech Take articles using the SGN Scorecard
All of these ratings in this series are based on their relative merit as compared to the state of the art at the instant in time of the review.
I also tend to give favorable consideration to those who are actively involved in a clear improvement process for their underlying technology through R&D investment, standards and industry group participation, and other means. So when I give a score of 9 out of 10 to an organization on our security metric for example, it means that they are better than 90 percent of their peers on the date of my review. The scoring is therefore relative.
I like to think that our current criteria are forward thinking enough and stable enough that we are not completely relative, but the reality is that a relative scoring mechanism is not easily avoided and instead should be embraced and leveraged at that instant in time.
In the meantime, please enjoy these reviews as a personal take on how I (and my staff who do the background research) think a particular product suite or technology fits into the Smart Grid universe and use that as a guide on your own research into how that product might serve your organizations need after your own carefully evaluation.
How are relative scores being adjusted as new products are released and reviewed?
Relative scoring does have merits, especially when comparing to other products available at the time scored. However I'm afraid a product reviewed highly 3 years ago (with low competition) will look better than a new product that is scored lower against a much higher relative standard.
There are a couple approaches that might mitigate stale relative scores:
1. Score against absolute benchmark, then translate to current relative index. Whenever the relative index is adjusted to higher standard the old scores will automatically decrease compared to new products.
2. Develop relative improvements table that can be used to adjust scores in each area.(Tricky as new metrics are added that old product review might not have information about.) For example, perhaps one metric index has improved 20% in the industry over last 2 years. All reviews 2 years old would take a 20% decrease in their original score for that one metric. The table of relative adjustments needs to be published including adjustment amount, reason for each index adjustments, and official adjustment date. A link to this relative adjustments table needs to be added to any review over 6 months old (or provided in ALL reviews with understanding that new reviews are unaffected).
3. Mark all products reviewed over 2 years old with "Stale review" warning stating readers should not directly compare with current scores. Then re-review highest scoring and most popular (by sales volume) products every 2 years to update their score to current standards (and remove "stale review" warning flag).
What is the SmartGridNews.com plan for responsibly managing relative review scores over time?
Zephan Schroeder - 07/23/2008 - 12:25
BPL Global's Scorecard
BPL Global visited my company today and I was fairly impressed with their potential as a fully integrated solution provider (Transmission to the premise) for smart grid applications. Have you considered producing a scorecard for this company?
Michael Ray Henry - 12/09/2008 - 16:33
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories
What about SEL? Their products have always been developed towards Smart Grid for over 25 years. SEL was doing Smart Grid applications long before it became the latest buzz. SEL products have already been applied on Smart Grid applications accross the country including Smart Grid City.
Jim Murray - 03/25/2009 - 07:35
comparable categories of service or product?
It's evident that permanent load shifting versus on demand shifting (which requires less communication) is favored in the scoring. Rather than a single SGN Scorecard perhaps it should be clear that only products that are comparable to each other should be relatively ranked. Else there's danger that someone who has already invested in communications and two-way response would be looking at permanent load shifting solutions though they provide little or no advantage over a more flexible system that's only shifting on demand and reliably reports it has done so. Also somewhere should be a single list of all the accredited formal standards a product meets (IEEE notably).
Craig Hubley - 03/25/2009 - 18:27
Cristopia thermal storage & load shifting
Could you evaluate the Cristopia Energy System against the SGN Smart Grid Scorecard? This seems to be similar to Ice Bear Energy, but has numerous references and relies on Phase Changing Materials. It is distributed by CIAT.
http://www.cristopia.com/
http://www.ciatozonair.co.uk/
Tom Grand - 04/24/2009 - 06:31
Evaluation of Tropos GridCom
I'd be interested in having you review the Tropos GridCom architecture and products to include in your smart grid scorecard. Specifically, our solution fulfills the WAN aggregation network piece for smart grid communications and provides a number of benefits vs alternative approaches.
Denise Barton - 04/28/2009 - 10:10
How about Landis+Gyr?
I currently work for Landis+Gyr's flagship Command Center product, and would like to know how it ranks up there with SEN & Co.
Ty Terrell - 05/06/2009 - 23:52
How is an application chosen for eval?
How are applications chosen to be evaulated and included in the score card?
M Habibi - 07/01/2009 - 14:25
SOLAR CARS & V2Grid
If this isn't one of the best ideas on the planet, will someone tell me why I've been working on it by myself for 11 years and could win $2.5M via the Progressive Auto Xprize? www.xlr8sun.com
Larry Wexler - 09/17/2009 - 07:30
Deep understanding of Automation, Power, and Utility
I highly respect the Smart Grid Scorecard as a great approach and tool to evaluate products to be used on a power grid. However, please, let us look into the term products and take it for a bit under the loop.
In a hydro utility and power transmission business, products used on power grids are classified under three categories: Major, Non-major, and ancillary equipment.
Major equipment is devices or apparatuses that are critical to grid operation, for example in a hydro utility business, major equipment could be transformers, switchgears, cables, poles, arresters, and so on.
Non major equipment are supportive to major equipment such as connecting elbows, lugs, washers, hardware, brackets, cross arms, and so on.
Ancillary equipment is all other equipment that is operating on low voltage (for example below 750V in Ontario), and constitute not an integral or critical part of the bulk system. Examples are Scada systems, monitoring systems, controls, RTUs, relays, metering equipment, sensors, and so on.
80% of the discussions about Smartgrid equipment fall under ancillary category and 20% under major equipment category.
Equipment energized on the grid today is evaluated on safety issues but also its technical features shall fulfill first and foremost the required application in the field.
Perhaps a helpful suggestion is that to view a equipment of issue for evaluation from two different perspectives:
1.
Bilal Khashfe - 10/04/2009 - 10:35
Deep understanding .... continue previous comment
Continue previous comment:
Perhaps a helpful suggestion is that to view a equipment of issue for evaluation from two different perspectives:
1.
Bilal Khashfe - 10/04/2009 - 10:42
continue previous comment
Perhaps a helpful suggestion is that to view a equipment of issue for evaluation from two different perspectives: first) Application approach. Second) System approach.
A equipment shall fulfill its specified function. A feeder transfer control system shall transfer the load within 30 seconds upon occurrence of a permanent outage, for example.
On the top of that, the system shall be smart grid capable. And here will then the EPRI checklist kick in and can be applied for additional evaluations and observations.
Is the system open enough for future expansions? Protocols? User friendliness? And so on.
Another example: evaluating Transformers. A transformer shall be stepping down the voltage at minimum losses possible. After selecting the right equipment for the application, the question should be: is this transformer smartgrid capable?
By doing so, we are helping the army of working specialists and managers in power utility industry to start applying smartgrid concepts in their daily practice and that smart grid is a vivid reality and no more a buzz word in the news.
The above suggested approach is a very simply way to link current antiquated real world applications (the practice) to the new fancy and complex world of smart grid (Theory).
From fires in Philadelphia to firearms in Texas, smart meter associated flare-ups make the news weekly. And it makes us wonder: If you could turn back the clock and rethink the whole smart grid rollout, would you do it differently? And if so how? That's this week's topic in our discussion forum. Please join in.
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