Smart Sensors for Smart Grids (Essay for ET4248)

BY DALI ZHANG

Supervisor: Kofi Makinwa

Student Number: 4219058

Abstract
With increasing electricity power consumption and approaching fossil fuels exhaustion, both new power-saving technologies and new power sources are introduced to power grids for higher efficiency and more power. Well known as smart grids, next generation electricity power grids consist of distributed power plants and large amount of smart sensors. In this essay, current research on smart grids and smart sensors for smart grids is briefly described, a new structure of future smart grids is designed, and trends for future smart sensors development are predicted. Index termSmart Grids; Smart Sensors

Introduction
According to International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2009, electricity power consumed in the world was 16760065 GWh, and about 10.1% of the power was lost.[1] To produce and save more power in the future, both new energy sources and efficient power grids become indispensable parts of future electricity power systems. To improve energy efficiency and access more power sources, smart grids are introduced to current electricity power systems. And it is clear that it will play an important role in future electricity power distribution. Smart grids are electricity power grids that can acquire and react on information collected from power producers, power distributors and power consumers. With its participation, efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the whole electricity power system will be improved.
[2]

To gather

information from grids, smart sensors and smart sensors networking become necessities for smart grids. And to react to information, smart controllers and smart actuators will also be in need. This essay will focus on current and future smart grids and smart sensors for those smart grids.

Current Smart Grids

Most smart grids under construction or being used today are based on traditional down flow power systems, as shown in Fig. 1. In those power systems, electricity power is generated by large power stations, such as thermal power plants, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power plants, etc. Afterwards, the power will be transmitted to final power consumers through large capacity transmission line with large numbers of converting stations and transformers.
[3]

For smart grids, on the one hand, information

will be collected with the help of sensors and related sensors networks. On the other hand, instructions from control centers will be sent to smart actuators on the grids to optimize the performance. To summarize, smart grids nowadays are more likely to be a combination of traditional power grids and modern control & information technology.

Fig. 1. Down Flow Grid

1

[3]

Smart sensors for smart grids are essential part of current smart grids. In general, they can be divided into on-grids sensors and consumer sensors. The so called on-grids sensors here refer to sensors applied to the power generators, transformers and the power transmission lines. Their duty is to detect real time on-line information, including current, voltage, frequency, temperature, faults, etc.. The consumer sensors are defined as sensors set at the power entrance of power consumers, most likely to be smart meters. The most important function of them is to detect real-time power consumption of the user and send information to users and power distributors. Communication technology for smart sensors on grids is also an important part of smart grids. Especially for on-grids sensors, their output information needs to be transmitted for a long distance, under strong electromagnetic interference, facing outdoor unpredictable environment. On current smart grids, power line communication (PLC) and wireless communication are being widely used. PLC on grids can transmit information at a low speed of 64kbps on high voltage power lines. PLC is used in transmission of speech, protection signals, control signals, monitoring states, etc., especially for HV power line protection. Wireless communication offers the most flexible and also the easiest interconnection between devices without relying on any physical connection.
[4]

At the end of smart grids, or for consumers,

communication is also a significant factor. Most consumer sensors nowadays are at less connected to one network. Wireless communication technologies such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, WiMax, etc. are being widely applied. PLC networks and Local Area Networks (LAN) are possible choices as well. Another important technology for smart grids is energy harvesting, especially for those on-grid sensors and actuators. They are always set outdoor and very likely to be up on towers, near power transmission line. As a result, those sensors and actuators should be low power consuming and their power supply should be either long lasting or self-rechargeable. For energy harvesting technology today, H-field energy harvesting is in common use. Some state-of-art H-field energy harvesters can produce 90 mW at 800 A conductor current by using an x-shaped open core (XFC). However, power supplied by XFC will decrease when the conductor current decrease. So in low current situation, power supply such as solar cells become a better choice. [5]

Current Smart Sensors

As discussed in previous section, smart sensors for smart grids can be divided into on-grid and consumer sensors. Some of the most popular on-grid sensors being utilized nowadays are on-line voltage sensors, on-line current sensors, temperature sensors, tension monitors, laser distance sensors, transmission line fault location sensors, etc. Among them, transmission line fault location sensor is one of the most special ones. A transmission line fault location sensor is used to detect on-line fault location. Modern electricity power grids are delivering power through power transmission lines for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers. For such a long distance outdoor, any random incidence can happen, like lighting, animal
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contact, power stealing, etc.. It will be expensive for people to find those faults manually, and it will cost even more if faults cannot be detected immediately. So transmission line fault location sensors are invented and being implemented widely on todays smart grids. A transmission line fault location sensor is actually a smart sensors system with distributed sensors, sensors communication, data processors, and special algorithms. Information is collected either at one end or both ends of the transmission line under test, which are often known as substations on transmission line or power distribution centers. At those ends, in general, faults will be located by utilizing frequency component analysis, impedance measurement, or travelling wave detection. However, information is not always available on one or both ends of the transmission line. In such cases, unconventional techniques based on wide area measurements are preferred. [6] According to recent research, fault location error on a 220 kV level power grids in a distance of 15 km is less than 1%, with a detection time at microsecond level. [7] For consumer smart sensors, one of the most widely used ones is domestic smart meter. It is becoming more and more popular under todays energy-saving social environment among publics. Unlike old fashion electromechanical meters, which can only tell people how much power they have consumed since the meter was reset, a smart meter can tell people how much power they are using every day or even every minutes. And with the help of non-intrusive load monitoring, it can also identify and locate the position of the power user, which can provide people with real-time detailed power consumption information of each application in their house.
[8][9]

Furthermore, all these detail information can be

shown, stored and sent digitally, automatically, and safely. As shown in Fig.3, a common domestic smart meter contains several sensors, one or more controllers, user interface and one or more communication modules. Sensors are used to measure real-time information on grid. For voltage measurement, high voltage on grid will be converted to lower testable voltage and measured afterwards. With the help of subtractor operation amplifying and other techniques, voltage sensors with an accuracy of 0.1 volt are available for domestic smart meters.[10] For current measurement, sensors are supposed to measure AC current on grid. Hall effect based linear current sensor is a good choice in this case. Commercial products with 1% output error and micro second level response time are being employed for smart meters today. [11] Frequency response is the most special part that distinguishes smart meters from tradition meters. It is known that frequency of an AC power system is determined by the balance between generation and demand. Since load of the system is always changing, the governors of the power system should adjust power generation so that frequency of the system is kept stable. Otherwise, either frequency of the system will vary out of acceptable range or large amount of power on grid will lose.
[12]

With the help of smart

meters, frequency of the whole power system can be monitored distributedly. Furthermore, governors can control and smooth load variance with smart meters. As a result, power will be generated more efficiently. Microcontroller units (MCUs) and communication modules are also important sections that make smart meters smart. MCUs serve the system as central processors. On the one hand, they control all the

sensors mentioned above, process digital output of those sensors, display selected data on user interface, and send required data to communication models. On the other hand, they acquire instructions from user interface and communication modules and send instructions to the power grid. Communication modules were discussed in previous section, smart meters are becoming much more user friendly and automatic with them.
Smart Meter

Voltage Measurement

User Interface

Power Grid

Analog

Current Measurement

Digital Microcontroller Unit

Instruction

Power Grid

Frequency Response

Communication Module

Higher Level Controller

Fig. 3. Smart Meter Architecture

[10]

Future Smart Grids and Smart Sensors

It is obvious that future smart grids should adapt to future power system, and future smart sensors for future smart grids should meet the need of future smart grids. Important parts of future power sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, etc. are renewable sources depends on the nature, so any changes of the weather or other natural conditions will affect their output. In other words, they cannot provide electricity power constantly and stably. Furthermore, these power sources can be constructed with a very low-level of power output, every family or every building may have their own power plants, and output of these tiny power generators will show up on future power grids. They provide people with more power, while at the same time, provide engineers with more challenges. To deal with all problems raised by distributed inconstant future power sources, buffer-like elements (BLE) are needed in future smart grids, as shown in Fig. 4. On large power generators side, BLEs (GBLE) will store energy generated by inconstant power plants, and accumulate the power until an output enable instruction is received. On power transformers side, BLEs (TBLE) will be placed at the end of the main power line, they are used to detect and amortize the changes of final power consumption. On the power
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consumers side, BLEs (CBLE) will collect power provided by small generators nearby and supply its energy directly to the consumers. Actually, GBLEs-like products are already used by solar power stations and CBLEs-like products are widely used by banks, telecommunication stations, etc. They are large low cost rechargeable storage stations, like huge batteries. Product of 4 MWh power storage station is now already available. [13]
Small Power Supplies 1 Large Constant Power Plants

CBLE1

Consumer1

Small Power Supplies 2 TBLE Large Inconstant Power Plants CBLE2 Consumer2

GBLE

Small Power Supplies ... CBLE... Consumer...

Power Line: Information Path:

Fig. 4. Future Smart Grids Structure

For the smart grids designed above, new smart sensors will be in need. They are used to measure and predict power demand of the BLEs. And all the on-grid and consumer sensors will be updated in the future as well. For the on-grids sensors, magnetic field sensors, optic sensors and radiation sensors will be widely used. The most important advantage for these sensors is that they can measure electrical quantities such as voltage, current and instantaneous power consumption in distance, which will provide lots convenience for equipment installation and maintenance. Also, MEMS sensors for electrical quantities measurement will be introduced to future smart grids. MEMS sensors are in smaller size, with lower power consumption and lower cost. And with MEMS technology, energy harvesting will be achieved on chip. [14] Also, a revolution in smart grids sensors systems communication will occur. With the development of wireless communication, on-grid sensors data transmission will be all wireless one day. And standards like IEEE P1777(TM), "Using Wireless Data Communications in Power System Operations", are showing a bright future for future wireless networks on grids. For the consumer sensors, they will not only measure detail information of power consumption, but also detect power generated by local small power plants and predict the power consumption of the user.

And with the booming development of modern commercial electronics, interaction with users will be necessity for future smart sensors. Future consumer sensors would need to be connected to the internet with WIFI or other technology, and send their information to user s smart phones or email automatically. Also, users will be able to send orders to their sensors from their smart phones or computers, so the sensors will play a role as controllers as well. Furthermore, future consumer sensors should be able to protect privacy. In the future, power consumption information with details of every plug in the user s house will be measured and sent to the internet, which may content lots of private information. Technologies such as Anonymous Credential, 3rd Party Escrow, Load Signature Moderation, Smart Energy Gateway, Privacy-Preserving Authentication, etc. will be introduced to future consumer smart sensors and sensors network. Lows on constitutional protection, data-specific protection, contractual protection will also be in need for future smart sensors application.
[15]

For BLE sensors, they are mainly used to measure the output power of the BLE and the power storage situation of the BLE. According to information they collect, BLEs will be able to compute and predict their own power output and decide when and how to recharge and how much power to store. Furthermore, lower level BLEs will send their information to higher level BLEs, and finally to the large power plants to help the power plants decide how to generate power, which can help optimize efficiency of the whole power system.

Conclusion
With the description of current smart grids, it is clear that people will benefit from the high efficiency and sufficient sources of smart grids. With simple analysis of current smart sensors for smart grids, important characteristics of modern smart sensors are discussed, including which communication and power harvesting are regarded as the most significant future development directions of smart sensors. The design of future smart grids with a new concept of buffer-like elements (BLE) shows the future trend of smart power systems and provides the basic environment for future smart sensors for future smart grids. Three kinds of future smart sensors are discussed, with three important fields of communication, power harvesting and privacy protection.

References
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[11] AllegroTM, 2013, High-Side Hot-Swap Hall-Effect-Based Current Monitor IC,

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