Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation

Markus StaebleinGeneral Manager, Smart GridTexas Instruments

Kripa VenkatIndustrial Systems & Solutions Manager, Smart GridTexas Instruments

Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation 2 June 2014

Advanced electronic technologies allow the intelligent power grid to embrace renewable forms of energy generation, bringing greater efficiency and a greener world.

Grid parity will soon be upon us, bringing power from renewable sources that costs the same or less than power from fossil fuels and other traditional sources. We will achieve these low renewable energy costs through a continued investment in solar and wind turbine technology development and manufacturing, but also by investing in an intelligent power network, the so-called smart grid. As a leading supplier of analog and embedded processing technologies, Texas Instruments (TI) is closely involved in developing the smart grid, providing integrated circuit solutions that enable power equipment manufacturers to introduce greater measurement, control and communication in their products. The result will be an intelligent, efficient network that supports more extensive generation of energy from renewable sources, with a safer and more efficient energy grid for generations to come.

After years of work on solar- and wind-collecting

technologies, we are now approaching the break-

even point where using renewable energy systems

will be competitive in cost with generating power

from fossil fuels. We have long anticipated that

alternate sources of energy will provide reliable

power and avoid contributing to atmospheric

changes through carbon release. Soon these

renewable sources will also become economically

advantageous, and it makes sound business sense

to invest in power generation from sunlight and wind

instead of coal, oil and natural gas.

Calculating the relative costs of different forms of

power generation is complex. Costs vary among

countries, regions within large countries, and even

individual utility companies. As a result, we won’t

see an overnight changeover to what is being

widely referred to as grid parity, when the cost of

power delivered from renewable sources is equal

to or lower than that from traditional sources.

Rather, a gradual transition will occur during the

next decade or more. Government subsidies will

aid in the transition, but cost-reducing advances

in technology and manufacturing are already

overtaking subsidies as the primary growth driver.

Today, in fact, some wind farms that employ

the latest multi-megawatt turbines have already

achieved grid parity—that is, when the wind is

blowing. Solar panels will take longer, though

they promise to introduce an even more radical

change in energy-gathering than windmills. While

wind farms usually require large investments in

infrastructure to operate efficiently, solar generation

can be used effectively at almost any scale, from

a handful of panels on the rooftop of an individual

dwelling, to a field of panels covering acres. Both

forms of energy gathering, but especially solar, will

significantly change the topology of the power grid

by introducing more widely distributed sources of

power generation. As grid parity is achieved, it will

accelerate this trend dramatically.

Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation 3 June 2014

The smart grid enables decentralized power generation

Today, the momentum carrying us toward grid parity

is strong, but issues remain before the promise

can become a reality. One set of challenges we

face today is around how to keep driving down

the cost of sun- and wind-collected energy. This

will require continued investments to develop

new technologies and manufacturing techniques.

Today’s improvements focus on materials used in

panels to increase sunlight conversion to electricity;

increasing the scale and efficiency of wind turbines;

and sophisticated algorithms to help solar and wind

farms gather the maximum energy from continuously

changing environmental conditions. Energy storage

improvements are also crucial to help even out the

supply of power when the wind dies down or the

sun doesn’t shine. Despite the issues remaining,

numerous developments in these and other areas

have already brought down costs significantly and will

continue to do so in the years ahead.

Another set of challenges toward achieving grid

parity lies in adding intelligence to the larger

utility structure to make it operate more reliably

and efficiently. Referred to as the smart grid,

the intelligent power network aims to include

measurement, communication and control at every

stage, from the power generating station to the end

appliance. Everything in the grid -- every generator,

substation, relay, transformer, meter, machine,

transmission line— and all that is attached to it can

potentially be measured and observed to ensure

that power is delivered effectively where it is needed

and used without waste.

In addition to cost savings and reliable delivery, the

smart grid will provide an essential infrastructure for

the distributed generation of power from renewable

sources. In the future, a utility grid must be capable

of managing the bidirectional flow of electricity

to customers who sometimes consume power,

and at other times generate their own. Therefore,

the grid must be able to manage demand versus

creation in real time, relying on the varied types

of decentralized power generation and new

capabilities of energy storage.

The increased electricity generation from renewable

sources also means utilities will have to rely

on power lines that transport energy over long

distances and distribute across regions. This is

because the sun shines brightest and the wind

blows consistently in places that are often far from

cities and industrial districts.

Figure 1 shows the topology of the future smart

grid. Along with the top-down flow of electricity from

traditional large generating plants, there is now input

from large solar and wind farms, and bidirectional

flow from producer-customers of various sizes.

Only an intelligent grid can integrate such

widespread electricity generation from renewable

sources, along with outputs from traditional large

generating stations, and supply power effectively

to all connected customers. The economies of

scale required to achieve grid parity can only come

about through the extensive application of solar

Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation 4 June 2014

panels and wind turbines in decentralized energy

generation, as represented in the figure, which can

happen only through the smart grid.

It is difficult to not overstate the significance of smart

grids in the years ahead. By some estimates, the

world wastes as much as 40 percent of the power it

generates. Intelligent, efficient grids can avoid much

of that waste, saving us money and cutting deeply

into the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten

to destroy the earth’s climate equilibrium. With a

gradual changeover to renewable forms of energy

production, made possible in large part by investing

in smart grids and enabling grid parity, we can reduce

waste and environmental damage even more.

Intelligent electronics for the decentralized smart grid

The intelligence that makes the power grid “smart”

comes from advanced electronic technologies

that sense, monitor, measure, and provide

communication and control. These technologies

serve as the foundation for a range of equipment

used in the grid infrastructure, including protection

relays, power quality monitors, circuit breakers

and substation automation systems. Beyond the

infrastructure are inverters for solar and wind power,

smart meters at consumer sites, and a potentially

limitless number of switches, sensors and other

monitoring units that feed environmental information

into the power grid.

The specific requirements for these applications

vary widely, according to equipment usage,

industry and proprietary standards, and regulations

of different countries. As a result, designing circuits

that bring intelligence to these functions can be

demanding, forcing designers to look for integrated

circuit (IC) solutions that provide flexibility while

keeping costs down.

Centralgenerating station

~800MW or more Extra high voltagetransmission line

Subtransmission

Medium-sized power plants150MW

Factories

Distribution grid

City network~5MW substations

Secondary distribution460V – 220V

Farm

Rural network

City power plants150MW

Industrial customer~2MW

Solar farm

Wind farm

Offshorewind farm

Figure 1. The future smart grid with decentralized generation of energy from renewable sources.

Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation 5 June 2014

Despite the variation found among smart grid

applications, the underlying electronic technology,

especially in grid infrastructure equipment, can be

generalized as shown in Figure 2.

In the measurement block on the left of the figure,

inputs come from external sensors in the form of

analog signals such as voltage or current levels.

Analog components condition the inputs and

convert them into digital signals that are fed into the

analytics and control block. Here a microcontroller

(MCU), microprocessor (MPU) or digital signal

processor (DSP) analyzes the digital signal data to

determine, say, usage of electricity, quality of service

or a potentially dangerous condition. The processor

then orders an action by, for example, a circuit

breaker or relay, if such an action is necessary.

Then the processor notifies control nodes in other

equipments and possibly a central control computer

via specialized modules in the communication

block, through which it also receives messages

from the other units. These blocks all require low-

voltage power to operate, which is supplied through

separate power management and isolation circuitry.

Since these functions will appear in many

applications following different standards, integrated

circuit solutions must include options to allow

equipment designers to select the capabilities they

need. A high level of analog and digital system-

on-chip (SoC) integration can help keep costs low

and support multiple channels, though in some

cases design requirements may dictate the use of

separate ICs for functions such as op amps and

analog-to-digital converters (ADCs).

On-chip communication solutions such as Industrial

Ethernet and Industrial Fieldbus can also provide

both economy and flexibility. The processor complex

at the heart of a solution should be completely

programmable and scalable, supporting multiple

CommunicationsAnalytics/

ControlMeasurement

IsolationAmplifier

CTCurrent

Transformer

PTPower

Transformer

AnalogInputs

OperationAmplifier ADC Processor Complex

A/D

A/D

LCD

Wireless Transceiver

Wireless Transceiver

Ethernet PHY Ethernet Port

DifferentialLine Drive

ParallelPort

Isolation Wired InterfaceTransceiver

DSPSample

RateConversion

FFT

Ethernet

Serial Interface

Parallel Interface

Wireless Interface

Display

CPUProtocolStack

ControlMonitor

Power Management

1.2V 1.8V 3.3V 5.0V

Smart grid control system functional blocks

Figure 2. TI’s product portfolio provides solutions for all IED blocks

Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation 6 June 2014

protocols with the same hardware to help reduce

system cost and complexity and eliminate the need

for custom-designed logic. Software frameworks

can speed and simplify development along with

tools, reference designs and other support.

Providing solutions for smart grid design

Recognizing the importance of the smart grid and

decentralized power generation, TI is working

to solve energy problems through innovative

technologies, and ongoing research and

development. As a leading semiconductor provider

for intelligence in the power network, TI has a

dedicated smart grid team that develops solutions

and participates in international industry standards

committees and alliances to understand and drive

collaboration to solve future challenges.

TI is driving development in a number of areas,

including smart meters, automated substations and

solar inverters. These types of systems illustrate the

use of electronic intelligence to produce power, to

measure power consumption instantaneously for

more efficient usage, and to automatically regulate

the production of power from different sources and

supply it safely to customers.

TI technology is making grid parity a reality by

enabling the conversion from traditional one-

directional grids into bidirectional smart grids. Using

its long-term experience in power inverters, the

company enables fast development of renewable

generating systems to help achieve grid parity.

Its solar inverter and micro-inverter solutions

are cost-effective and provide high efficiency by

enabling more power output, reducing detrimental

heat dissipation and increasing system longevity.

The company’s solutions allow systems to extract

greater power through advanced conversion and

maximum power point tracking (MPPT).

TI technology is also at work in smart energy

meters, or e-meters, which are rapidly changing

the knowledge of electrical consumption patterns.

Smart meters use low-power RF or power line

communication (PLC) technologies to report

customer energy consumption data to utilities.

The meters can deliver useful energy consumption

information into the home or office through an on-

site display or a gateway, allowing consumers to

adapt their energy behavior and lower utility bills.

To aid system developers, TI’s three-phase and

one-phase metering SoCs and a fully integrated

Smart Meter Board combines all of the technology

required for measurement, communication and

control. A smart grid data concentrator aggregates

data supplied by local meters and other grid

devices before sending it to utilities. It also supports

multiple communication standards and various

communication interfaces on a single board.

In the power network infrastructure, TI is driving

substation automation with new protection relays,

circuit breakers, and monitoring systems to

control and manage the grid, along with backhaul

communication to utility control centers. A broad,

scalable portfolio of complementary analog and

embedded processing components, covering the

full range of functions shown in Figure 2, provides

flexibility and ease of development for designers

of substation equipments. The company’s readily

available hardware, software, tools, expertise and

reference designs enable customers to easily solve

complex measurement, control and communication

problems. TI can support multiple worldwide grid

deployments, while simultaneously leading field

tests with local utilities and manufacturers to ensure

the reliability of the grid and interoperability with

various standards.

Enable smarter, cleaner power through technology innovation 7 June 2014

A vision for clean, reliable energy

As the world looks ahead to a growing population with greater energy needs, we must do all we can to conserve and efficiently use power. We must strive to add renewable resources that can generate energy without releasing greenhouse gases or impacting the environment. Smart grids with decentralized energy production from solar panels and wind farms, enabled by advanced electronic technology, can help us reach these ends.

As a leading supplier of analog and processing IC solutions to the power industry, TI plays an important role in developing technology in the changeover to more intelligent, efficient power networks. The company’s flexible, high-performance solutions for applications such as solar inverters, smart meters and automated substation equipment are crucial to developing the smart grid with distributed power generation. TI technology advancements help introduce the intelligent measurement, communication and control that is rapidly transforming worldwide energy grids to provide cleaner, more reliable energy in the future.

For more information, visit www.ti.com/corp-ino-ind-mc-lp

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