DONG Energy is at the forefront within the development of future intelligent power consumption and distribution. The so-called Smart Energy.
In 2008 we became known for our work and as the first European power company we were invited to participate in the "Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition which is a group, established by IBM, of innovative utility companies who want to accelerate the use of smart grid technologies. Today the group has 14 members from all over the world.
Flexible power consumption
The Smart Grid project holds out great prospects for the consumer and the economy, as it will help us to manage and utilise our electrical distribution grid better. DONG Energy sees opportunities in changing the pattern of the power consumption in the future. This would have an immense, positive impact on our climate, because in this way we can ensure that consumption is at its highest when generation of wind energy is at its highest and vice versa, without our customers having to change their way of life.
Automation of the grid enables flexible power consumption
In order to control the power consumption so it adjusts to the production we must supervise and control the grid in much more detail than we do today. Therefore we will increase our focus on developing communication systems for the customers so they may contribute to flexible power consumption.
Experiences made - reducing power cuts significantly
We have already reduced power cuts by installing automatic monitoring and switching equipment in selected 10 kV transformer stations in Greater Copenhagen and Northern Zealand in Denmark. Thereby, some faults in the grid will be detected immediately, and it will be possible to isolate the failure within a small area to ensure that as few people as possible will get affected.
DONG Energy is taking automation a step further, so the network can not only tell us what is wrong, it can also redirect power to the customers and in some cases they might not even notice the disruption. In addition, we have implemented a state estimator, which makes it possible to estimate the power flow in the distribution grid. This will be an important link in the control of the power consumption, because we can avoid load peaks that exceed the capability of the existing grid.