ICT and Power (Electricity)

1
ICT and Power (Electricity)

• Prof. Rahul Tongia
• School of Computer Science
• CMU
• 17-899 Fall 2003

2
Topics for Discussion

• Electricity and Development
• Power for ICT
• ICT for Power

3
Fundamentals

• Electricity is a form of energy (kWh)
• Does not exist in usable forms
• Conversion usually requires prime movers (steam
  turbines, water turbines, etc.)
• Access to fuels (primary energy) is a key issue
  for developing countries
• Electricity is only about 125 years old
• Widespread use is much more recent
• US required special programs
• Rural Electrification Administration (REA) now
  Rural Utilities Service
• TVA
• Electricity from the grid can not be easily
  stored (AC)
• Most electronics use DC

4
Whats Special about LDCs?

• Very low levels of Electrification
• 2 billion lack electricity
• Bad quality, intermittent, and often expensive
  power if available
• Lower Level of Economic Development
• Large rural agricultural sector
• Large quantities of crop residues primary energy
  source
• Special needs for agricultural services (e.g.,
  pumping water 1/3 of Indias electricity)
• Heavily subsidized in many countries
• Industrial-Political Organization
• State-centered economies
• State-owned enterprises (SOEs) handle not just
  power but much of the economy
• Weak formal institutions
• E.g., regulatory institutions, courts, corporate
  governance

5
Energy-Economy Correlation
1996
Calculated from EIA Data
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(Lack of) Access to Electricity
South Asia (India)
Sub-Saharan Africa
East Asia (China)
Source WEO 2002
7
Investments in LDC Power Sector
Source World Bank (2003)
8
Where Does Electricity Go?

• US
• 1/3 residential, 1/3 industrial, 1/3 commercial
• Developing Countries
• Varies significantly by country
• Typically higher shares for non-residential
  (function of large, centralized design)
• Grid penetration to rural areas is very low
• Kenya used to have more homes served by
  Decentralized Generation (DG) than the grid
  (mainly solar)
• In reality, a fair amount is lost along the way,
  or stolen!

9
Electricity in LDCs
Source World Bank (2003)
10
How Much Electricity Does ICT Use?

• Numbers as high as 13 of US electricity were
  claimed
• End users, servers, networking, etc.
• Later debunked
• ICT Energy (Power) linkages
• Greater Service Economy, even in developing
  countries
• But, increased globalization

11
What Consumes Power (ICT Applications)?

• Components of an ICT solution
• Computing
• Display
• CRT 80 W normal 10 W suspend
• LCD 15-25 W normal 5-10 W suspend
• Storage variable
• Uplinking 12 W Wifi 40 W VSAT
• Role of advanced technologies
• Chips (processor is largest component)
• Pentium 4 uses 50 watts!
• LCD screens, OLEDs, etc.
• Wireless
• Cognitive Radios reduce power to lowest
  required level
• But, emitted power is ltlt power drawn from supply
• 100 mW is legal limit for WiFi
• Laptops much less power but less robust (?)

12
Details of Desktop Power
SCSI CD-RW Drive - 17W SCSI CD-ROM Drive - 12W
5400RPM IDE Hard Drive - 10W 7200RPM IDE Hard
Drive - 13W 7200RPM SCSI Hard Drive - 24W
10000RPM SCSI Hard Drive - 30W Floppy Drive -
5W Network Card - 4W Modem - 5W Sound Card -
5W SCSI Controller Card - 20W Firewire/USB
Controller Card - 10W Case Fan - 3W CPU Fan -
3W
AGP video card - 20-30W PCI video card - 20W
AMD Athlon 900MHz-1.1GHz - 50W AMD Athlon
1.2MHz-1.4GHz - 55-65W Intel Pentium III
800MHz-1.26GHz - 30W Intel Pentium 4
1.4GHz-1.7GHz - 65W Intel Pentium 4
1.8GHz-2.0GHz - 75W Intel Celeron 700MHz-900MHz
- 25W Intel Celeron 1.0GHz-1.1GHz - 35W ATX
Motherboard - 30W-40W 128MB RAM - 10W 256MB RAM
- 20W 12X or higher IDE CD-RW Drive - 25W 32X
or higher IDE CD-ROM Drive - 20W 10x or higher
IDE DVD-ROM Drive - 20W
Source FLECOM
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Standalone (DG) Power

• What are the options if If AC power is
  unavailable?
• Backup or primary supply?
• Non-Conventional Sources of Power
• Issues of Scale
• For ICT or more (single point or village level)?
• Local availability
• Solar
• Only 3-5 hours equivalent per day (1 kW INPUT/m2
  of panel 10 efficiency)
• Wind
• Windspeeds vary by location highest efficiency
  for megawatt class turbines
• Biomass
• Conversion options limited, typically require
  tens of kW size
• Microhydel
• Location sensitive, and typically 10s of kW
• Diesel
• Expensive to run, typically AC output

14
Designing a DG system

• Battery Life examples
• Alkaline (from Duracell)
• NOMINAL VOLTAGE (volts) RATED CAPACITY
  (ampere-hours)
• D 1.5 15
• C 1.5 7.8
• AA 1.5 2.85
• AAA 1.5 1.15
• Gets very expensive, quickly, even if
  rechargeable
• Lead-acid batteries give much more power and are
  standardized
• Limits on dischargeability - 20 kWh total charge
• Matching supply to demand
• AC grid infinitely flexible
• Power storage is key
• Else peak capacities must be matched
• Intermittency issues for many DG systems
• Theft is a major concern for DG design (!)

15
Designing a DG system (cont.)

• Solar Systems
• Components
• PV modules (in series, in panel form)
• Power Conditioning Equipment (economies of scale)
• Housing (with or without directionalizing)/mountin
  g
• Batteries most expensive operating costs
• Inverter if AC is required
• Costs
• Capex at small scale is 5/peak watt
• Gives an operating cost around 20-30 cents/kWh
• cell phone example Obsolescence of equipment
  vs. battery

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Designing a DG system (cont.)
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ICT for Electricity Systems

• Two main issues
• Supply ltlt Demand
• Requires investments of billions
• Ability to pay is limited
• Often, power companies are loss-making some of
  that is inefficiency
• Where can ICT contribute?
• Components of power sector vertical
• Generation
• Transmission
• Distribution
• Consumption

18
Conventional Wisdom

• One can not do real-time power flow management
  (transactions and billing) for transmission level
  flows
• Today, pools operate based on historical or
  aggregated information
• One can not measure demand (usage) from all
  consumers in real-time with high granularity
• What has changed to make these outdated the
  growth of IT technology

19
Focus here on Distribution/Consumption

• IT is already extensively used in
  generation/transmission in developed countries
• Other Synergies
• Stringing Optical Fibers along power lines
• Smart Cards (pre-payment)
• Found extensive use in S. Africa in Black
  Townships (12 years experience)
• Can link to other utilities or consumer services
  (pre-paid cell-phone cards are very popular)

20
Using IT to Enable Sustainability

• Sustainability has many components
• Resource utilization
• Efficiency and loss reduction are sine-qui-non
• Economic viability
• Theft reduction
• Management
• IT can improve power sector distribution,
  consumption (utilization), and quality of service
• Requires a change in mindset, and the willingness
  of utilities to innovate

21
Case study on IT for power sector improvement in
India

• India today has the worlds largest number of
  persons lacking electricity
• ? 400 million (equivalent to Africas unserved!)
• Reforms began in 1991
• Vertically integrated government department
  monopolies are being broken
• Initial focus was on generation
• New realization that distribution is the key to
  Indias power sector viability
• Newer entities should be run as businesses
• Many parallels to other developing countries

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Indias Power Sector Overview

• 5th largest in the world 107,000 MW of
  capacity
• But, per capita consumption is very low
• 350 kWh, vs. world average over 2,000 kWh
• 40 of households (60 of rural HH) lack
  electricity
• In very dire straits
• Supply ltlt Demand
• Blackouts are common, with shortfall estimated
  between 10-15
• Most utilities are heavily loss-making, with an
  average rate of return of negative 30 or worse
  (on asset base)
• High levels of losses 25
• Technical losses poor design and operation
• Commercial losses (aka theft) often over 10

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Reasons for the problems

• Agricultural sector
• Consumes 1/3 of the power, provides lt5 of
  revenues
• Pumpsets are overwhelmingly unmetered just pay
  flat rate based on pump size
• Adds to uncertainty in technical losses vs.
  commercial losses and usage
• Utilities lack load duration curves to optimize
  generation and utilize Demand Side Management
• All generation is assumed to be baseload, and
  priced accordingly
• Leads to poor energy supply portfolio
• Doesnt send correct signals to consumers, either
• Utilities end up using just average costing
  numbers, not recognizing the marginal costs

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Idea use IT for power sector management

• Posit If new meters are to be installed, why
  not smart digital meters, which are also
  controllable, and communications-enabled?
• Incremental costs would be low
• Instead of just quantity of power, can also
  improve quality of power
• Analysis presented is based on collaborative work
  with a major utility in India (name withheld for
  confidentiality reasons)

25
Quality of Power

• India is focusing on quantity of power only
• Current shortfall numbers are contrived
• Based only on loadshedding with minor correction
  for frequency
• Do no factor in peak clipping fully
• Do not account for lack of access (e.g., over 60
  of rural homes lack connections)
• Quality norms are often missed
• Voltage often deviates by 25
• Frequency often deviates by 5 (!)
• Even farmers pay a lot for their bad quality
  power (around 1 cent/kWh implicit, even higher in
  some regions)
• Use of voltage stabilizing equipment
• Additional capital costs (in the multiple percent
  range)
• Efficiency losses (2-30 lost!)

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Power Quality ITI CBEMA Curve
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Why the Focus on Distribution?

• Its where the consumer (and hence, revenue) is
• High losses today
• Technical losses, 10 in rural areas
• DSM and efficiency measures possible
• Use of standards required
• Use a combination of technology, industrial
  partnership, and regulations
• Learn from experiences elsewhere
• Bulk of India's consumption is for just several
  classes of devices
• Pumpsets
• Refrigerators
• Synchronous motors
• Heating (?)

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US Refrigerator Efficiency Standards
Similar standards can be established for smart
appliances
Source www.standardsasap.org
29
Future of Appliances and Home Energy Automation
Networks

• Incremental cost of putting networking and
  processors into appliances approaching a few
  dollars
• Could allow time of use and full control (utility
  benefit/public good/user convenience)
• Link to a smart distribution system
• Micro-monitor and Micro-manage every kWh over the
  network
• E.g., refrigerators dont operate or defrost
  during peaks (5 of Indian electricity usage)
• 5 peak load management could lead to a 20 cost
  reduction
• Feasible, as most peak loads are
  consumer-interfaced
• Bimodal peaks in India, residential driven
• Italy is already implementing such a system (ENEL)

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Objectives and design goals for a new IT-enabled

• Implement a basic infrastructure to
• Micro-measure every unit of power across the
  network
• Allow real-time information and operating control
• Devise mechanisms to control the misuse and theft
  of power through soft control
• Which would
• Reduce losses
• Improve power quality
• Allow load management
• Allow system-level optimization for reduced costs
• Increase consumer utility, satisfaction, and
  willingness to pay

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Additional Benefits

• A system which will offer
• Outage detection and isolation
• Remote customer connect disconnect
• Theft and tamper detection
• Real time flows
• To allow real time pricing
• Suitability for prepayment schemes
• Load profiling and forecasting
• Possible advanced communications and services
• Information and Internet access
• Appliance monitoring and control
• Managing such extra power (from theft) is
  enough to give subsistence connectivity to the
  poor
• Requires ICT to determine and manage the margin
  effectively
• Telecom is special very short-run low marginal
  cost in electricity it is much more difficult

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Network Schematic
Data Center
Last Few Hundred Meters
20 km
Couple
Coupler
Uplink
r
Coupler
House
Secondary
LV Concentrator
Distribution
House
Voltage
Coupler
Distribution Transformer (pole or ground)
Sub-Transmission and Transmission
Substation
Users
Smart Meter (Can be off-site outside
user Control Is partly a modem)
(gt 11 kV)
Access (440, 220, or 110 V) Low Voltage
Distribution (11 kV) Medium Voltage
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Components of the solution

• One segmentation locational
• At consumer
• Meter/Gateway
• Meter could be pole-side if required
• In home network
• Needed connect to enabled devices (appliances)
• Eventually, homes would also have Decentralized
  Generation available (?fuel cells, flywheel
  storage, etc.)
• Access (low voltage distribution)
• From gateway to a concentrator, on user side of
  distribution transformers Using PowerLine
  Carrier (PLC)

34
Solution Components (Cont.)

• Concentrator upwards
• Concentrator Each Distribution Transformer (aka
  Low Voltage Transformer) feeds on the order of
  100-200 homes in India (as in Europe). In
  contrast, US Distribution Transformers feed 5-10
  users.
• Communications medium
• Over Medium Voltage PLC to the Sub-station
• or
• Wireless
• Limited Coverage in Developing Countries
• Substation upwards (uplinking)
• Usually based on leased lines or optical fiber

35
Technologies for various segments

• In-Home Network
• Appliances
• Emerging Standards are talked about by appliance
  companies (Maytag, Samsung, GE, Ariston etc.)
• Using Simple Control Protocol (or other
  appropriate thin protocols)
• Meters
• Solid-State meters exist, but not yet the norm in
  developing countries
• Most have communications capabilities for
  external ports
• Lowest cost solution (if feasible) PLC target
  5 incremental cost

36
Technologies for various segments (cont.)

• Access
• Low Voltage PLC is available today
• Being explored for Internet access, in fact
  (Megabits per second)
• MV
• Crossing through transformers remains a technical
  challenge
• Going long distances an issue
• Uplinking
• Availability of optical fiber or leased lines can
  be met through planning

37
Technologies vs. Capabilities
Accuracy Theft Detection Communications Control Capabilities
Electro-mechanical Meter low (has threshold issues for low usage) poor expensive add-on nil
Digital (solid state) high Node only external Limited Historical usage reads only
Next Gen. Meter (proposed) Arbitrarily high High (network level) Built-in (on-chip) Can do much more than Automated Meter Reading (AMR) Full (connect/dis-connect) Extending signaling to appliances Real-Time control DSM
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Design Model and Business Case

• Only target specific users
• All agricultural (almost one-third of the load)
• All Industrial and larger commercial users
• Only the larger-size domestic users
• Estimated 2/3 of homes only use lt50 kWh per month
• Include every network node that needs monitoring
  and/or control
• Substations
• Transformers
• Capacitor banks
• Relays
• etc.

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Design Model and Business Case (cont.)

• Investment in long run only a few thousand rupees
  per targeted user (Target lt75 capex)
• When amortized, implies requirement of
  improvements in system of only a few percent!
• Savings will come from
• Lower losses/theft
• Increased sales possible
• Lower operational costs
• Load management
• Better consumer experience (and hence,
  possibility for higher tariffs)
• Future interaction with smart appliance and smart
  home networks
• Possibly new services

40
Economics of case system

• Estimated System (Rural-centric)
• 62 Consumers (all classes) per Distr. Transformer
• 98 Distribution Transformers per Sub-Station

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Economics (cont.)

• 6-7 year payback on investment (conservative)
  possible with just 3 improvement in system
• Savings will come from
• Theft Reduction
• Time-of-Day and DSM measures (peak reduction)
• System Quality, reliability, and uptime
• Higher Collection

42
Challenges

• Protocols
• Use of thin protocols to reduce capex for
  embedded systems
• Security PLC can be a shared medium
• PLC
• How to couple around transformers or other
  obstacles
• How to go long runs with low errors (and high
  enough bandwidth) Shannons theorem provides a
  limit
• Noisy line conditions in many developing
  countries
• Appliances
• Need for standards to bring down costs and ensure
  inter-operability
• Design Should the PLC signals pass through the
  meter/gateway directly to appliances?
• How active or passive should consumer behavior
  modification be?
• Costs (as always)

43
Challenges Implementation and Management

• Utilities are typically risk-averse
• They face increased regulatory uncertainty
• Without some portions of a market, how do they
  benefit?
• Will they (should they) pass all pricing
  information on to the consumer?
• Developing country management issues
• Utilities were typically State Owned Enterprises
  (SOEs)
• Utilities were run with social engineering goals
• Increased automation, control, and sophistication
  (and theft detection) poses risks to the large
  cadre of current employees

44
A New World for Power Systems

• Includes smarts for significant improvements in
  efficiency
• New services can be enabled once the appropriate
  infrastructure is in place
• Segmentation of development allows independent,
  modular innovation, e.g., home automation and
  appliances
• Developing countries (esp. Asia) can lead the way
  through leap-frogging