Cybersecurity, Reliability & CIP

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The trouble with treating grid projects as market players in New York’s capacity auction.

Transmission is not generation. Yet New York ISO makes grid projects qualify as competitive, like gen plants, to get to play in its capacity market.

What Price, Resiliency?

Evaluating the cost effectiveness of grid-hardening investments.

As with any investment, resiliency upgrades can reach a point of diminishing returns. Analyzing the costs and benefits can help guide upgrade strategies.

Modeling Storm Outages

New tools for enhancing utility preparedness and response.

Sandy and other major storms have raised the bar for outage management. New modeling systems help utilities predict effects and plan their response.

Manpower Strategy for Mutual Aid

Superstorm Sandy showed that when it comes to manpower, resources to execute normal operations are becoming scarcer. A new strategy is required to coordinate disaster response and recovery.

Where Did My People Go?

Today’s talent deficiency is tomorrow’s imperative.

The utility talent gap is widening. New technologies and evolving markets call for a more proactive approach to building the future workforce.

Walking the Ports and Services Gauntlet

An approach to complying with NERC’s new cybersecurity standard, CIP-007 (R2).

NERC’s new standards require utilities to lock down network ports and services. Compliance calls for a systematic approach to cataloging and tracking.

Low Tech Resilience

Portable small-scale generators could keep vital services on line during a major power outage.

High-voltage generation reserves cost more than would portable, small-scale units to keep critical services on line during a major power outage.

Reliability by the Barrel

New England turns to fuel oil for the coming winter.

Burning oil when gas supplies are tight increases costs for customers. Is it also discriminatory?

Big Data, Big Change

Analytics chart a path for industry transformation.

“Without integrating operational data with traditional IT data, I don’t think the industry would be any further along than it was five or 10 years ago.” ~Steve Ehrlich, Space Time Insight

Toward a Self-healing Smart Grid

Advanced distribution management technology promises to revolutionize operations.

Building blocks of the self-healing grid are taking shape. End-to-end integration will enable the grid to achieve 21st-century resilience.