power grid

ABB won an order worth $450 million to link the power grids of the United Kingdom and Norway. The order was placed by Statnett, the state-owned network operator in Norway, and National Grid, an international electricity and gas utility from the UK. ABB will supply HVDC converter stations at both ends of the North Sea Network (NSN) Link between Norway and the UK. The NSN link will have the capacity to transmit 1,400 MW of power.

Duke Energy, LG Chem and Greensmith teamed up to build a battery-based energy storage system in Ohio, designed to enhance reliability and increase stability on the electric power grid. The new 2-MW storage project will assist in regulating electric grid frequency for PJM, the transmission organization that powers much of the eastern U.S. The system will be built at Duke Energy's retired W.C. Beckjord coal-fired power plant in New Richmond, Ohio, and is expected to be operational by late 2015.

Waverley Labs and the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) developed a risk management solution based upon a research and technology collaboration focused on modeling relationships between cyber-attacks and the electric and physical infrastructures associated with the power grid. During the past year, researchers in EPIC’s Duke Energy Smart Grid Laboratory working with Waverley Labs conducted a systematic analysis of risks and associated threats to power transmission systems to identify critical points of failure.

ABB won orders worth $45 million from Svenska kraftnät, the Swedish National Grid operator, to supply three 400 kV substation to strengthen the Swedish power grid. The substations are scheduled to be commissioned in 2015. ABB's project scope includes the design and supply of engineered packages for the high-voltage air-insulated switchgear (AIS) substations.

The Northern Pass, a proposed transmission line carrying renewable hydroelectric power to New Hampshire and New England, cleared a regulatory milestone by securing 'I.3.9 approval' by ISO New England, the operators of the region's power grid. The I.3.9 process determines whether Northern Pass can reliably interconnect with the New England grid.

After more than two years of planning and training, MISO integrated a four-state region of the electric grid across the South into its existing footprint in the Midwest. The change in control, or "cutover," extends MISO's operational and market footprints from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Manitoba, Canada.