Asset Management, ROI, Risks, Resilience and Security: Critical Power & Energy Infrastructures, Transitions, Modernization, and Options for Addressing Challenges

Presented by: Dr. Massoud Amin, Chairman, IEEE Smart Grid

This series of recorded tutorials are now available for purchase on the IEEE Smart Grid Resource Center. Scroll down for detailed session agendas.

Session prices vary based on IEEE membership. Each 80-minute session will be available for streaming for 1 year from purchase date. In addition, CEUs/PDHs will be available for purchase. To see all recorded tutorials and corresponding slides, please visit the IEEE Smart Grid Resource Center’s Education tab.

Tutorial overview:

Virtually every crucial economic and social function depends on the secure, reliable operation of power and energy infrastructures. Energy, electric power, telecommunications, transportation and financial infrastructures have become increasingly interdependent, posing new challenges for their resilient and efficient operation. All of these interdependent infrastructures are complex, geographically dispersed, non-linear, and interacting both among themselves and with their human owners, operators and users.

The end-to-end electric power network, grid communications and control systems are often thought to be much more securely protected than is actually the case, especially to malware and intrusions. Over the last two decades, power outages in the United States have increased in size and frequency. This trend is likely to continue as the number of energy consumers increase while infrastructure investment remains stagnant.These circumstances have highlighted the need to update the nation’s electric power grid to provide secure and reliable electricity for the future.

Both the importance and difficulty of protecting power systems have long been recognized. In the electricity sector, outages and power quality disturbances cost the economy more than $80 billion annually on average, and sometimes as much as $188 billion in a single year. Since 1995, the amortization and depreciation rate of old transmission investments has exceeded new construction expenditures. It has been apparent for over a decade that the grid is increasingly stressed, and that the carrying capacity or safety margin to support anticipated demand is in question.

The age of our power infrastructure – particularly underground city networks – is a major issue that should not be viewed in isolation. Instead, the power industry’s focus should be on a holistic asset management approach to address grid resilience. That focus should weigh the relative risks and benefits of maintenance, repair and replacement or retirement of the infrastructure’s various elements. These elements include thousands of transformers, line reactors, series capacitors, and transmission lines. A holistic approach also requires viewing the utility fleet of capital equipment as critical strategic assets impacted by age and external forces, possessing capabilities and characteristics that can be leveraged to improve reliability.

In addition, we’ll discuss selected material from the IEEE Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) report for the U.S. DOE, which are pertinent to these discussions and potential actions with the various stakeholder groups. The cost of developing and deploying a modernized stronger, more secure and smarter grid for the country is cost effective and should be thought of as an investment in the future – in a secure, reliable, and entrepreneurial future – that will pay back over many decades to come as the energy backbone of our 21st century economy.

This online tutorial will cover the following topics in each session:

Session 1

  • Asset management -- Overview/discussion of Chapter 4 of the IEEE QER Report
  • Aging Infrastructure Aging Infrastructure Upgrade/Retrofit Approaches – ROI with Risk Management
Session 2
  • Clean-slate Designs: Options and cost-benefits (including Micro-grids, district energy, CHP and more)
  • Energy Transition: Local to global changes and options forward

Session 3

  • Security (Cyber-physical, IT, OT and CI)
  • Security Methods/Approaches
  • Case studies

Session 4

  • Resiliency and assessments – broad array of destabilizers and countermeasures
  • Pertinent IEEE Standards
  • Case studies for Demand Response – innovative and unique programs
  • Holistic Systems’ Integration
  • Road Ahead, Recommendations and Next Steps

 

 

About the Presenter

Dr. Massoud Amin is the Director of the Technological Leadership Institute (TLI), holds the Honeywell/H.W. Sweatt Chair, is a professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor Award Recipient at the University of Minnesota.

He is Chairman of the IEEE Smart Grid, a Fellow of the IEEE and ASME, and a member of the Board of Directors of two utility industry regional entities that oversee reliability and security of the North American grid: the Texas Reliability Entity and the Midwest Reliability Organization.

Before joining the University of Minnesota in March 2003, Dr. Amin was with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, Calif. He pioneered R&D in smart grids in 1998, led the development of 24 technologies that transferred to industry. After 9/11, directed all security-related R&D for U.S. utilities. He has led research, development and deployment of smart grids, and the enhancement of critical infrastructures’ security during this period and is considered the father of smart grid.

At EPRI he received several awards including six EPRI Performance Recognition Awards for leadership in three areas, the 2002 President’s Award for the Infrastructure Security Initiative, and twice received the Chauncey Award, the Institute’s highest honor.

Dr. Amin holds B.S. (cum laude), and M.S. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and M.S. and D.Sc. degrees in systems science and mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He has been recognized by his alma maters, receiving the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award at Washington University, and the 2013 Outstanding Senior Alumni Award at the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, editor of seven collections of manuscripts, and serves on the editorial boards of six academic journals.

Attendees will be eligible to receive Continuing Education Credit (CEU).