Smart Grid Technology

Utilities are increasingly turning to smart grid technology to address many of the energy challenges of 21st century municipalities. While the existing power grid is considered an engineering marvel, it’s also decades old and barely able to keep up with demands that a growing population requires.

Smart grid technology uses IoT sensors and two-way communication technologies to gather and transmit data about the health of the electrical system, where problems are occurring, when demand spikes and dips, and where energy efficiencies can be achieved.

Smart grid technology offers a host of benefits that include:

• More efficient distribution of electricity.
• Better balancing of peak demand.
• Faster restoration of electricity after outages.
• Reduced costs for operations and management of utilities, which translate to lower costs for consumers.
• Greater integration of renewable energy systems and customer-owned power generation systems.
• Heightened protection against cyberattack.
• Improved tracking of usage and efficiency, enabling utilities to optimize performance.

Additionally, smart grid technology provides consumers with power monitoring tools to make more informed choices about their energy use. Consumers can get real-time information about energy usage and energy pricing, enabling them to take steps to use less power at times when electricity is most expensive. Consumers may even allow utilities to automatically manage their electricity use, delivering less electricity when energy costs are highest and more electricity when prices drop.

What is smart grid technology?

A smart grid typically uses a variety of technologies that include:

• Internet of Things (IoT) sensors known as Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) that help to assess stability of smart electrical grids.
• Advanced digital meters that provide consumers with more detailed information and that automatically report outages.
• Relays placed in substations that sense and recover from faults automatically.
• Automated feeder switches that reroute the flow of electricity around issues in the grid.
• Batteries that store extra energy for use when demand rises.

In addition to these technologies, a smart electricity grid requires a high-performing network that can handle and transmit all the data produced by a host of smart grid IoT sensors. Smart grids also require an analytics platform that can aggregate and process data, and interfaces that give utilities administrators access to actionable intelligence.

Spectrum Enterprise delivers critical infrastructure for smart grid technology

To support smart grid technology, cities need a robust and reliable infrastructure of connectivity that can handle the data produced by sensors throughout a smart energy grid. Spectrum Enterprise has already invested billions of dollars in a nationwide fiber network to provide municipalities with the foundation of communications infrastructure they need to power smart grid technology.

Already present in many cities throughout the country, Spectrum Enterprise offers:

• A two-way, fully interactive digital network with more than 840,000 miles of networking infrastructure.
• Symmetrical connection speeds up to 100 Gbps for government and enterprise clients.
• Gigabit connections for homes and businesses.
• One of the nation’s largest LTE cellular networks.
• Over 350,000 Spectrum WiFi hotspots that will soon have 802.11ax and 5G technology, delivering wireless speeds up to 1 Gbps.

Spectrum is continually investing in communities to increase the capacity and capabilities of our network, enabling us to meet the growing needs of smart grid technology and other smart city initiatives. With Spectrum Enterprise, cities have a trusted technology partner that can provide the connectivity solutions for smart solutions today and tomorrow.

Learn more about Spectrum Smart Cities at www.spectrumsmartcities.com.