The Amp Hour

The Smart Grid with Paul Zawada

Listen Later

This episode is brought to you by Mouser Electronics. This week we hear about Digital Therapeutics. Go to TheAmpHour.com/digitalhealth to learn more.

Welcome, Paul Zawada of Syntonous LLC!

  • Paul was nice enough to respond when we said we were hoping to talk to someone about the grid/smart grid. He is an "operations technology engineer", which means he straddles the line between the power side and the technology side of things.
  • What are grid operators' appetite for new tech?
  • SCADA
  • How do blackouts happen?
  • Generation, transmission, distribution
  • i2r losses are why they operate long distance transmission at 765 kV.
  • China's grid has newer tooling, which allows it to go at higher voltages.
  • You can tell the voltage of transmission lines by "counting the bells". It's roughly 15kV per bell and they do odd things to the shapes of insulators to prevent arcing.
  • Video about the Ohio blackouts in 2003 we talked about last week
  • Where does control happen for "the grid"?
  • PJM
  • Frequency determines the health of the grid
  • Bike analogy
  • Tesla battery - Hornsdale Power Reserve
  • Moving to a renewable grid has some potential issues
  • Grid has "inertia" due to the spun up generators. They're working on modeling "Synthetic inertia" for a more renewable grid.
  • "A disturbance in the electromotive force" (I'm sorry Dave, that title was too long)
  • Dave asks why does the voltage go up on his setup?
  • RMS voltage vs Vpp
  • The Power Triangle
  • ELI the ICE man, CIVIL
  • 99% of the time, loads are inductive
  • The role of reactive power in the grid
  • VARs
  • VAR tends to control the voltage
  • Real power determines the frequency
  • Hawaii example of a local grid with a lot of solar (and that's kind of a problem)
  • Capacitors help to balance the grid when it there are too many inductive loads.
  • "Grid Following inverter" (vs "Grid Forming")
  • Dynamic inverter
  • 4 quadrant inverter 
  • "Don't call it imaginary power"
  • IEEE1547
  • Inverters have to be able to deal with frequency changes and take setpoints from the grid
  • The 50.2 Hz problem
  • Smart Grid
  • California Rule 21
  • Smart meter and Power Line Carrier Standard (PRIME)
  • Communication with meters
  • WISUN
  • COSIM
  • PLC
  • Private LTE
  • Brokers
  • Pool analogy
  • Stability of the grid wasn't built for two way flow
  • Managing a wide range of inverters is difficult
  • Standard for comms by SunSpec (Smart Inverter Standards)
  • Control systems with SCADA
  • While analyzing hte grid, they use a state estimator (which is a mathematical model of the various sources in a grid system) and then do real time contingency analysis
  • Spinning reserve
  • Rolling blackout is when the grid systematically takes different parts of the grid offline to preserve the overall ability to deliver power.
  • Texas example
  • Dave asked about available power on the grid
  • Steel recycling takes a TON of power.
  • Different wires from generation (in Texas)
  • Community Energy Storage ("Backyard Batteries" w/ Four-Quadrant Inverters)
  • Wind turbine go to DC first (because of variable wind speeds), but are then feed to an inverter
  • Proposed Soo Green HVDC Link [Underground]
  • Grain Belt Express: Proposed Kansas-Missouri-Illinois HVDC Transmission Line
  • Pacific DC Intertie
  • Silicon transformer
  • Paul's pet peeve is people asking him about "exploding transformers". It's almost always a fuse or a cable shorting to ground.
  • Expulsion Fuse Blowing (NSFW Language)
  • Another Expulsion Fuse Blowing
  • DC vs AC arc
  • 250VDC control of relax elements in power plants
  • Air Blast Circuit Breaker
  • "(The grid is) the most complex machine we 've ever built"
  • Consulting and day job AND he is working on a Doctorate of Technology at Purdue. We're grateful he found time to talk to us as well!
  • Follow Paul on Twitter! @engineerz
    • ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    The Amp HourBy The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)
    • 4.9
    • 4.9
    • 4.9
    • 4.9
    • 4.9

    4.9

    226 ratings

    More shows like The Amp Hour

    View all
    The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source by Changelog Media

    The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

    289 Listeners

    This Week in Tech (Audio) by TWiT

    This Week in Tech (Audio)

    3,061 Listeners

    Security Now (Audio) by TWiT

    Security Now (Audio)

    2,009 Listeners

    Software Engineering Daily by Software Engineering Daily

    Software Engineering Daily

    626 Listeners

    Talk Python To Me by Michael Kennedy

    Talk Python To Me

    583 Listeners

    SpyCast by SpyCast

    SpyCast

    1,534 Listeners

    SANS Internet Stormcenter Daily Cyber Security Podcast (Stormcast) by Johannes B. Ullrich

    SANS Internet Stormcenter Daily Cyber Security Podcast (Stormcast)

    648 Listeners

    Embedded by Logical Elegance

    Embedded

    190 Listeners

    Smashing Security by Graham Cluley

    Smashing Security

    317 Listeners

    Darknet Diaries by Jack Rhysider

    Darknet Diaries

    8,051 Listeners

    Physics World Weekly Podcast by Physics World

    Physics World Weekly Podcast

    77 Listeners

    Practical AI by Practical AI LLC

    Practical AI

    208 Listeners

    Hackaday Podcast by Hackaday

    Hackaday Podcast

    64 Listeners

    Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by Latent.Space

    Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

    101 Listeners

    Robinson's Podcast by Robinson Erhardt

    Robinson's Podcast

    265 Listeners