Week 3

Question 1

What is meant by peak load?

Answer 1

The time of day when the demand for electricity is highest, usually late afternoon or early evening.

Question 2

Define cascading as it applies to the electrical system.

Answer 2

Cascading is when an outage on a circuit causes outages on interconnected circuits due to the inability to handle additional loads.

Question 3

Provide two examples of “renewable” energy.

Answer 3

Hydro
Solar
Wind

Question 4

How does “automation” contribute to a smarter grid?

Answer 4

It reduces the effect of outages because equipment can sense and automatically react to situations without human interaction.

Question 5

What is meant by self-healing?

Answer 5

Uses automation to trigger key operations when disturbances on the system occur.

Question 6

What is “Demand-Side Management”?

Answer 6

Methods of reducing consumption by the customers, especially helpful during peak loading.

Question 7

How does pumped-hydro storage work?

Answer 7

Water is pumped to an upper reservoir during low demand, and allowed to flow through a turbine back to a lower reservoir during high demand.

Question 8

Provide an example of smart grid concepts used on transmission systems.

Answer 8

Composite core conductors
Wide area management systems
Thermal monitoring (infrared cameras)
OPGW

Question 9

What is a micro-grid?

Answer 9

When larger portions of the electrical system begin islanding, or operating independently from the traditional grid.

Question 10

What makes a recloser smarter?

Answer 10

Electronically controlled
Bi-directional energy flow for self-healing
SCADA
Limits fault current
No oil, uses vacuum