As the Electric Distribution industry enters the Smart Grid era, it is deploying a variety of new technologies (including distributed energy resources) and communications infrastructure to enhance the performance of the distribution grid, improve customer satisfaction and reduce the carbon footprint. On the one hand, these new Smart Grid investments look as though they will pay off as customers...

With the growing penetration of the electric vehicles to our daily life owing to their economic and environmental benefits, there will be both opportunities and challenges to the utilities when adopting plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) to the distribution network. In this paper, a thorough analysis based on real-world project is conducted to evaluate the impacts of electric vehicles infrastructu...

Abstract Utility engineers faced with the challenges of integrating new generation into existing power systems, clearing faults more quickly or finding an alternative to SF6 breakers will soon have a new product to meet all of their needs: a solid state current limiting circuit breaker. Electric utilities have long wished for a practical, reasonably priced, solid state circuit breaker which cou...

In theory, regulators concerned about inequality will deviate from efficient two-part tariffs, charging lower-than-efficient fixed monthly fees and higher-than-efficient per-kilowatt-hour prices. To quantify that relationship, we develop a measure of the redistributive extent utility tariffs: “electric Gini.” Utilities with higher electric Ginis shift more costs households using relatively litt...

(ABSTRACT) This study presents a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) framework in support of strategic resource planning of electric utilities. Study efforts have focused on four technical issues identified to be essentially important to the process of strategic resource development, i.e., decision data expansion, MADM analysis with imprecise information, MADM analysis under uncertainty and ...

Integrated resource planning (IRP) helps utilities and state regulatory com missions assess consistently a variety of demand and supply resources to meet customer energy-service needs cost-effectively. Key characteristics of this planning paradigm include: {a) explicit consideration of energy-efficiency and load-management programs as alternatives to some power plants, (b) con sideration of env...

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In this paper we have examined the scale and cost inefficiency of a sample of Swiss electricity distribution utilities. To do so, we have considered estimation of a stochastic frontier average cost model using the approach suggested by Schmidt and Sickles (1984) for panel data. A translog cost function was estimated using panel data for a sample of 30 municipal utilities over the period 1992-19...

The variation of household attributes such as income, travel distance, age, household member, and education for different residential areas may generate different market penetration rates for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). Residential areas with higher PHEV ownership could increase peak electric demand locally and require utilities to upgrade the electric distribution infrastructure ev...

The conventional value chain that has underpinned utilities for so long is today undergoing disruptive changes. One way flows of energy and digital information are evolving into multi-directional flows of real time data spanning various aspects of operations. A major driver of this dramatic shift is the increasing penetration of consumer centric technologies, such as distributed generation and ...