As extreme weather events become more frequent, Schneider Electric is offering innovative new software solutions designed to enable greater grid flexibility through clean, distributed renewable energy (Electricity 4.0); maximize reliability and resilience; and improve the operational efficiency of grid management. Decentralized generation is the future, and a report by Schneider Electric and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reveals that solar power represents a huge untapped opportunity, with the potential to enable 167 million homes and 23 million businesses worldwide to generate their own clean energy by 2050. These deployments will deliver significant decarbonization benefits, but policy and pricing will be critical.
Paving the way for the decade of electricity.
All decarbonization pathways depend on Distribution System Operators (DSOs) managing the essential infrastructure for the energy transition. Only a data-driven grid renewal will enable the "prosumer revolution"—the ability of consumers and businesses to generate their own renewable energy through photovoltaic panels and microgrids and sell the surplus back to the grid—which we all rely on to decarbonize the biggest CO2 emitters,such as buildings, homes, and personal vehicles. With EcoStruxure Grid software and services, Schneider Electric aims to equip distribution companies with data collection and management capabilities and advanced analytics solutions that enable digitalization to accelerate the hard work of decarbonization. “The next ten years will be known as the ‘electric decade,’ promising a low-carbon future powered by reliable and resilient supplies of clean, smart, renewable electricity—what we call Electricity 4.0. However, this will only be possible if we invest in bidirectional smart grid infrastructure that can meet the growing demand for clean electricity and ensure the grid is supplied with energy from renewable and decentralized generation,” said Frederic Godemel, Executive Vice President for Power Systems and Services at Schneider Electric. “Today, distribution network operators (DNOs) are truly at the heart of a successful energy transition. We need to ensure they have the means and incentives to invest in digital grid solutions. A data-driven grid overhaul will unleash the prosumer revolution needed to decarbonize our economy and society, and will bring flexibility to distribution network operators from a demand perspective—not just for the grid itself, but for everything it powers, including buildings, industries, and mobility.”
Networks of the future: Powered by digitalization and software. Schneider Electric is pleased to announce powerful new capabilities that help network operators minimize the risk of outages, manage supply and demand flexibility, and improve operational and energy efficiency.
Mitigating major events: The latest version of Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure™ ADMS provides DSOs with new capabilities to address the most lasting effects of climate change: reduced reliability, increased costs, and more outages. EcoStruxure™ ADMS now offers more tools to improve response time to outages and the ability to anticipate incidents and proactively ensure consistent power quality through greater network automation. These new capabilities prepare operators' systems to mitigate major events and maintain the safety of their customers and communities, while ensuring a high-quality and reliable power supply.
Network flexibility and active network management: EcoStruxure DERMS offers active network management with the ability to identify and coordinate the upper and lower operating limits of distributed energy resources (DERs) to enable greater network flexibility. The latest version of Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure™ DERMS analyzes whether the scheduled DER production or export and import limits align with short-term network capacity. DERMS checks the planned operation of DERs against network and transformer section thermal limits, permissible reverse flux, and voltage level restrictions (undervoltage or overvoltage). If a violation is detected, the application calculates a new DER rescheduling or new energy import/export limits to mitigate potential network problems and maintain its ability to guarantee good quality and service to all customers.
Advanced operational efficiency: The EcoStruxure energy automation system provides serviceability for more efficient operating and maintenance programs, collecting condition-based and predictive maintenance data for cloud-based applications, and leveraging advanced inventory management and system foundation capabilities. These new capabilities are part of Schneider Electric’s comprehensive, integrated portfolio of software and services that help grid operators manage the grid lifecycle to ensure digitalization, optimization, and automation for flexibility, efficiency, resilience, and risk mitigation. In addition, Schneider Electric recently expanded its award-winning range of green and digital switchgear with RM AirSeT™, a revolutionary solution for decarbonizing the grid and contributing to the global fight against climate change. This “Grids of the Future” solution replaces the greenhouse gas SF6 with clean air and vacuum cutting.
