Smart electrical grids: technological challenges and measurement tools

Over the last hundred years, the power grid has changed little. The production, transmission and distribution of electrical energy has remained largely unchanged: centralized. The multiplication of electricity uses, combined with new environmental considerations (reducing the impact of our activities) and societal concerns (in terms of opening up the electricity market to competition in particular) have revealed the limits of this approach. The system is on the verge of saturation. Profound changes are necessary.

The deployment of smart grids offers the possibility of using information technology and new (decentralized) network infrastructures to control the production, transmission and distribution of electrical energy. Real-time monitoring of the state of the network enables us to determine its stability and the quality of the energy supplied, and to plan the management of its balance.

New concepts are emerging in response to these new challenges: energy demand must match supply from available sources at all times. And the network must be reliable, even during periods of heavy load, and remain robust to faults.

However, the success of this venture depends on the measurement resources that can be deployed on the network. In this article, we present both the individual measuring devices (and the physical principles associated with them), and the large-scale monitoring and control systems. The choice of a particular technology must be dictated by the quality of the result envisaged and the information sought.

Finally, the environmental challenges posed by the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and climate change have generated a variety of challenges, with the integration of renewable energies into the overall energy balance. These aspects are also discussed. Similarly, the prospects of a new economy generated by massive investment programs undertaken around the world are explored.