T&D Grid

Conversations with Power Systems Manufacturing President Alex Hoffs, S&C Electric CEO Anders Sjoelin, and Itron CEO Tom Deitrich.

“Globally, we are the fourth largest renewable supplier in the world. In the U.S., we have more than 8 GW of operational utility-scale wind and solar capacity. That’s almost 5% of the entire market. Both are growing exponentially year-over-year.”

“We always start with the customer and find ways to enhance that experience through the cloud. Utilities look to the cloud because they can quickly spin up resources as they need them and only pay for what is used, similar to a pay-as-you-go model.”

“We’ve made investments to ensure our reliability is essentially top quartile and, in some instances, top decile, for example as we have at ComEd. We know the grid is ready to accept levels of electrification.”

“Though it’s a small percentage of the norm, we must strengthen the grid to plan for those extreme cases, which in the past we never had to do. This is a paradigm shift for the industry.”

“The distribution companies are first looking at our products to be as clean as possible, but when operations folks realize they can avoid the hassle and operating expenses that come with those permits, notifications, and leak response truck rolls, there’s a real cost savings too.”

“We’re seeing increased congestion leading to increased costs and reliability challenges in the last couple of years. The issue has ripened.”

“We have an immediate opportunity and a responsibility to prepare our next generation workforce for a future that will require them to maintain and prepare the grid for major changes including new loads and new technologies. We also must educate our customers and regulatory agencies.”

“Enabling the adoption of HVDC technology for offshore transmission is critical for achieving a cost-effective and less environmentally impactful offshore grid. Most important is the increased coordination that’s needed to deliver on all the recommendations.”

“While many updates and improvements have been made to these funding opportunities, they are grounded in the original legislation from 2007.”