Electric Utilities 101
Live Streaming Online June 23-24, 2022
A BankWebinars.com Program
Click Here to register ($1295)
If you are unable to attend at the scheduled date and time, we make recordings available to all registrants for three business days after the event
This course is targeted toward increasing the knowledge of non-technical staff who work or have an interest in the electric utility industry. Participants who are not familiar with utilities and electric power systems can significantly benefit from attending. Since this is a basic seminar, a prior background in electric utility systems or engineering is not expected or required.
The program unpacks basic concepts related to the history of the industry, how electricity works, generation, transmission, distribution, substations, balancing, storage, and ancillary services. It will review the different types of generation and how they work, the Grid, common acronyms, underground vs. overhead distribution, and the components of a substation. Attendees will gain a full understanding of balancing authorities and energy markets, as well as energy storage technologies and distributed energy resources. All will leave with an appreciation of renewable energy, goals, challenges, and new mechanisms to balance its variability with reliability.
The seminar is presented in a professional manner which is not stressful. No one will be called on to participate; however, it is delivered in a way which encourages questions and interactive discussions between the attendees and the instructor on the issues they are facing and the things they want to learn. Come with questions and leave armed with a solid foundation of the intricacies of how Electric Utilities work.
Learning Outcomes
- Review the history of the industry and the fundamentals of electricity
- Appreciate the diversity of electricity generation and the reasons for the use of each in the electric system (i.e., solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, gas, coal, and what’s next)
- Discuss transmission and distribution, including differences between underground and overhead, right-of-way, outage causes, and more
- Explain what substations are used for and their components
- Analyze the major technological changes occurring with bulk storage, distributed energy resources, resiliency, and more
- Study renewable integration goals, challenges, tools, and mechanisms to achieve the goals
- Identify the different organizations to generate and sell electricity such as Direct Access, Electric Service Suppliers, Qualifying Facilities, and Independent Power Producers
Agenda
THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2022
9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Central Time
History of the Electricity Industry
- AC vs. DC and “The Battle of the Currents”
- How the grid evolved
- Why was electricity adopted almost overnight as an energy source?
- Types of Electric Companies
- Voltage, current, and resistance
- Electricity measures
- Real and reactive power; power factor
- Single phase and three phase
- How a generator makes electricity
- Frequency; why 50/60 hertz?
- How energy is converted to make electricity
- Energy vs Power, kilowatt-hours vs kilowatts
Electricity
- How Solar, Wind, Nuclear, Gas, and Coal plants work
- Baseload vs peaker plants
- Future types of power generation
- Renewable integration
- Decoupling incentivizes renewable energy goals
- Direct Access, Electric Service Suppliers, Qualifying Facilities and Independent Power Producers
- Vertically integrated utilities
- Integrated resource plans
- Community choice aggregates
Generation, Renewable Energy
- How Solar, Wind, Nuclear, Gas, and Coal plants work
- Baseload vs. peaker plants
- Future types of power generation
- Renewable integration
- Decoupling incentivizes renewable energy goals
- Direct Access, Electric Service Suppliers, Qualifying Facilities, and Independent Power Producers
- Vertically integrated utilities
- Integrated resource plans
- Community choice aggregates
Balancing
- Balancing Authorities
- How energy markets balance a grid
- Demand curves and system peak demand
- Duck curve, surplus capacity and ramp rate
- Who and what are FERC, NERC, ISO (Independent System Operators), PP (Power Pools), BA (Balancing Authorities), RTO (Regional Transmission Operators) and Interconnections?
Energy Storage, Resiliency, and Ancillary Services
- Different energy storage technologies. ie, pumped hydro, batteries, electrolysis, etc.
- Distributed Energy Resources and decentralized generation
- Frequency response
- Microgrids and resiliency
- Flexible renewable generation and flexible load.
FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2022
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Central Time
Transmission & Distribution
- What is ‘the Grid’, ‘the Smart Grid’ and the current advancements towards ‘Grid 2.0’?
- What is the difference between ‘Generation’, ‘Transmission’, ‘Distribution’?
- Acronyms of transformative and new tech and concept behind them (ADMS, SCADA, EMS DR, DER, VAR, PV, HVDC, QF, DG, RPS, AMS)
- Primary vs Secondary
- Underground vs Overhead
- Right of way vs easements
- Bluestaking
- Type of overhead and underground conductors.
- Recognizing the nuts, bolts, parts and pieces of the distribution grid that is all around us.
- EMF’s (electromagnetic fields and their effects)
- Outages causes and restoration
- The use of helicopters and drones.
- How breakers, fuses, switches, reclosures, and other new protection schemes protect the grid
- Harmonics
- How and why do homes have 120V and 240V.
- What are transformers and induction?
- How 120 and 240 gets to a home wiring
- What is Power Factor and VARs, and why do we install capacitors
Substations
- What are substations used for?
- What are the components of substation?
- Different types of circuits.
- Looped, radial and networked feeders.
- What is a feeder load profile?
- How transformers work & are made.
- What is phase imbalance?
- Delta / Wye transformers and systems.
- Capacitor banks and power factor
- What is Real, Reactive and Apparent Power?