On Possibilities of Using Smart Meters for Emergency Grid Management- Analysing the Effect on Power Quality
Paper i proceeding, 2016
Electricity grids worldwide are continuing to be
severely constrained and stretched to capacity. Certain grid
conditions e.g., peak load crisis or loss of generation may lead to
severe under frequency situations. Load shedding can then be
useful to prevent the national grid from being overwhelmed.
Typically, load shedding is done from medium voltage
substation level and all customers including emergency service
providers under that substation lose power. However, it is
beneficial for a society to exclude emergency service providers
from load shedding. Smart Meters (SMs) are generally equipped
with remotely accessible switch which gives a unique
opportunity to exclude prioritized customers during emergency
load shedding. Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are
currently using remote SM switching typically for one customer
at a time. However, the SM switching technique has not been
fully investigated with regard to multiple customers. In order to
fulfill the gap, this paper presents results obtained from field
tests on simultaneous multiple SMs switching with a main focus
on the impact of multiple SMs switching on Power Quality (PQ).
The results show that impact on PQ might be negligible for
small number of SMs switching. Moreover, faster SMs switching
and reliable communication system is found as an important
prerequisite to use SMs for emergency load shedding.
Electrical Distribution System
Smart Meter
Remote Switching
Power Quality
Smart Grid