In its endeavour to accelerate the ‘New World of energy’, Schneider Electric, global leader in digital transformation of energy automation and management has stressed on the need to reinvent electrical transmission and distribution ecosystem by leveraging digitisation. In a strategy talk on ‘Grids of the Future’ during the Innovation summit 2021, the company said that smart, sustainable and digital power is the new standard for the next-generation network and uninterrupted, quality power supply is a pre-requisite for an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.
Speaking during the event, Sanjay Sudhakaran, Vice president Power Systems Schneider Electric India said, “In order to keep up with the energy demand, it has become inevitable to reinvent the electrical transmission and distribution model for an affordable and reliable supply of electricity. This has sparked the need to embed digitalisation in the entire energy ecosystem comprising smart grids, intelligent substations and smart meters. Further, the integration of smart grid technologies, sustainable energy resources, and low-carbon emissions in power systems is an important route for sustainable development of the nation. At Schneider Electric, we aim to deliver solutions to make our future sustainable, efficient, and resilient.”
India is making consistent efforts and strides in renewable energy, providing access to energy and mitigating climate change. Given that India’s power sector is at the cusp of critical transformation, transmission and distribution needs to be more agile, reliable and efficient. Hence it is important to leverage smart technologies in order to intelligently respond and adapt to changes in the grid, thereby making them key to sustainable transformation. Further, smart grid technology enables effective management and distribution of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydrogen.
While India has achieved universal access to electricity, strengthening power distribution in the in the supply chain will help DISCOMs reduce losses. Smart meters play a significant role overall evolution of the power sector and enhancing consumer experience. They help the DISCOMs sharply cut their losses, by investing digital technologies to significantly improve operational and financial efficiencies.
Highlighting the importance of smart meters, Amit Kumar, Vice President & Head, MPS, L&T Electrical & Automation, said, “Data-driven decision making will be the key to handling future energy needs and smart meters herein are critical to achieving this goal. smart metering offers facilities that include elimination of manual meter reading, tamper and features comprising the failure alerts, remote connect-disconnect and prepaid metering, which enable improved efficiencies for utilities as well as better consumer satisfaction through faster response and higher transparency. They also have a critical role to play in grid stability as power generation from renewable sources picks up momentum.”
‘Grids of the Future’ need intelligent network made up of intelligent substations. Digital transformation empowers the electrical substation engineer to be smarter, operate better and drive sustainable efficiency and make the most of the latest available technologies.