Weathering the Storm

If you were feeling the heat this summer, you were not alone. By all accounts, summer 2023 was a scorcher, identified as the hottest on record by NASA and other respected organizations. And rising temperatures are also having other consequences, as they are believed to be contributing to increasing wildfires, drought and other extreme weather conditions. On the flip side of the coin, a number of other geographies experienced atypical weather of a different kind – extreme cold.

The public is not alone in bearing the brunt of these extremes. Utilities are also feeling the heat, as these widely fluctuating conditions have been known to hinder energy production and elevate electricity demand. The result? Utilities face greater challenges in delivering reliable, resilient and affordable power. The notoriously unpredictable nature of renewable, distributed energy (after all, the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow) further exacerbates the weather-related challenges as power producers continue to diversify their energy mix.

To help them weather these storms, utilities are leveraging new technologies that put them in the best position to continue providing reliable power and maintain grid stability throughout increasingly frequent and impactful weather events. Sustainable grid solutions, for example, are helping to transform renewables into predictable, reliable power by using real-time demand forecasting, operational visibility and analytics across the power network.

Integrated Insight

Key to transforming the unpredictable into the predictable is a broad, integrated view of all assets. But this is easier said than done, as owners and operators of diverse renewable generation and energy storage assets often have limited access to production, environmental, maintenance and performance data. Without this view, it can be difficult to optimize operations, especially when dealing with the stress of extreme conditions. Full data access, along with a holistic view of operations, improves operator situational awareness, which helps ensure that power producers are better prepared for hard-to-predict events, especially as they continue to navigate fleet transitions to greener energy.

Here's a brief overview of three advanced solutions that can help utilities proactively address impending issues and, in turn, reduce service disruptions as well as the time and expense of servicing damaged equipment.

• Renewable asset management and SCADA software: Renewable asset management and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software plays a significant role in providing a unified view of unfiltered real-time operational data — accessible from anywhere at any time. Implementing a scalable, asset management software solution that is independent of original equipment manufacturer technologies and integrates data from any system regardless of supplier or vintage with intuitive visualization eliminates complexity and provides greater insights into equipment health. Full access to operations information puts the power of maintenance and optimization opportunities back into the hands of owners or operators, enabling quick and confident decision making to avoid costly problems.
• Asset condition monitoring and health analysis: Asset condition monitoring and health analysis deliver vital operating and maintenance information to key personnel, helping to proactively manage assets for improved reliability. With automatic and continuous monitoring of equipment operations, power producers can quickly and efficiently identify, diagnose and resolve a problem before it escalates.
• Advanced analytics: Advanced analytics can transition power producers from a reactive operations and maintenance approach to a predictive or prognostic strategy. This actionable intelligence — which can be built directly into the automation platform — unleashes efficiencies that improve operational situational awareness across a fleet of renewable assets. Expert-system-based predictive analytics at the local renewable asset or site level enable immediate resolution of short-term impending process or equipment anomalies while augmenting centralized remote operation and monitoring and diagnostic (M&D) center capabilities for longer term, strategic analysis.

Boundless automation opportunities

Power and renewable solutions, such as those offered by Emerson, provide “boundless automation” opportunities for the power industry to manage increasing complexity with an integrated ecosystem that moves contextualized data across the grid and throughout an organization. This approach helps to optimize energy management for greater grid reliability; enable the integration of more renewable generation, energy storage and distributed energy resources into the grid and provide better data for improved decision making; and drive continuous performance improvements.