EP-4736289-A1 - A SYSTEM FOR MANAGING A POWER GRID

Abstract

A system comprises a plurality of devices connected to one or more circuits in a power distribution grid; a head end system (HES) configured to communicate with the plurality of devices; a controller configured to receive data from the plurality of devices and to communicate with the HES via one or more HES application programming interfaces, APIs, wherein the controller is configured to request and receive, via the one or more HES APIs, device information relating to the plurality of devices, and wherein the controller is configured to manage one or more services relating to the one or more circuits in the power distribution grid based on the device information.

Inventors

• DAVIS, Ian Jackson

Assignees

• Landis+Gyr Technology, Inc.

Dates

Publication Date

20260506

Application Date

20240627

Claims (20)

1. 1. A system comprising: a plurality of devices connected to one or more circuits in a power distribution grid; a head end system, HES, configured to communicate with the plurality of devices; a controller configured to receive data from the plurality of devices and to communicate with the HES via one or more HES application programming interfaces, APIs, wherein the controller is configured to request and receive, via the one or more HES APIs, device information relating to the plurality of devices, and wherein the controller is configured to manage one or more services relating to the one or more circuits in the power distribution grid based on the device information.
2. 2. A system according to claim 1 , wherein each device of the plurality of devices is an electric meter configured to measure a power consumption of an end consumer.
3. 3. A system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the controller is configured to manage power flow and/or voltage by automatically controlling voltage regulator and capacitor bank switching operations and/or wherein the controller is configured to manage a distributed energy resource, DER, and/or to manage battery charge and discharge at an end user associated with a device of the plurality of devices.
4. 4. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the device information comprises, for each device, one or more of location information, relating to the physical location of the device and/or a distance between device and other devices of the plurality of devices, circuit information for identifying one or more circuits to which the device is connected, load information, relating to the power consumption of the end consumer associated with the device, phase information, relating to the electric phase of the device, quality of supply, QOS, information, supply impedance, temperature, communication congestion, communication latency, communication throughput, communication route, acceleration, vibration, supply voltage, load current, power, sound, and light exposure.
5. 5. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to select a master device of the plurality of devices based on the device information, wherein the master device is configured to facilitate communication between the plurality of devices.
6. 6. A system according to claim 5, wherein the controller is configured to transmit an activation message to the selected master device to activate an appropriate application on the master device to act as a master device.
7. 7. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to request from the HES a list of devices comprising a set of properties, and wherein the HES is configured to, in response to receiving the request, provide a list of the plurality of devices filtered based on the set of properties.
8. 8. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to update the set of properties based on a response from the HES.
9. 9. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the plurality of devices and the HES are comprised by an advanced metering infrastructure ,AMI, and wherein the HES and one or more of the devices are configured to communicate using the AMI and independently of the controller and the HES APIs.
10. 10. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to group devices of the plurality of devices based on the device information.
11. 11. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to identify a problem meter based on the device information and, in response to identifying the problem meter, transmit an activation message to the HES via a HES API to cause the HES to activate an application in each device in a same group as the problem meter.
12. 12. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the HES is configured to provide a mechanism for peer-to-peer communication between devices of the plurality of devices.
13. 13. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the plurality of devices is configured for peer-to-peer communication in an application layer of an Open Systems Interconnection model.
14. 14. A method of controlling a power distribution network, the method comprising: at a controller, requesting device information from a head-end system, HES, wherein the device information relates to a plurality of devices connected to one or more circuits in a power distribution grid; at the HES, transmitting device information to the controller via one or more HES application programming interfaces, APIs; at the controller, managing power flow and/or voltage in the one or more circuits in the power distribution grid based on the device information.
15. 15. A method according to claim 14, wherein the step of managing comprises automatically controlling voltage regulator and capacitor bank switching operations, and/or wherein the step of managing comprises automatically controlling a distributed energy resource, DER, or battery charge or discharge at an end user associated with a device of the plurality of devices.
16. 16. A method according to claim 14 or 15 further comprising, in the controller, selecting a master device of the plurality of devices based on the device information, wherein the master device facilitates communication between the plurality of devices.
17. 17. A method according to any one of claims 14 to 16 further comprising, in the controller, transmitting an activation message to the selected master device to activate an appropriate application on the master device to act as a master device.
18. 18. A method according to any one of claims 14 to 17, wherein the step of requesting device information comprises requesting from the HES a list of devices comprising a set of properties, and wherein the HES, in response to receiving the request, provides a list of the plurality of devices filtered based on the set of properties.
19. 19. A method according to claim 18, in the controller, updating the set of properties based on a response from the HES and sending a new request with the updated set of properties.
20. 20. A method according to any one of claims 14 to 19 further comprising, facilitating communication between the plurality of devices and the HES over an advanced metering infrastructure, AMI.

Description

A SYSTEM FOR MANAGING A POWER GRID Technical field The invention relates to a system for managing a power grid. Background Power distribution networks supplying power to end users comprise a network of electric meters that need to communicate with a control system to monitor consumption and other local parameters and to provide appropriate services to the end user. For managing grid performance it may be necessary for multiple electrical devices, to communicate with each other. Exchanged parameters may include voltage, frequency, power, disturbance events and statistics, these parameters can be used by control systems to maintain grid stability. Often communications must be low latency, high throughput, or high reliability. This can be challenging in communications networks where a message must traverse multiple routers or hops, or where radio frequency spectrum and therefore throughput is limited, especially in a mesh network. Often there is a plethora of devices in a system and any single device can act as an electrical proxy for other nearby devices. Hence, improved systems and methods of communication in power distribution networks are desirable. The choice of which devices need to communicate with each other to achieve a particular goal are many and may be optimised. If a system factors in electrical connectivity, geographical distance and communication link quality, an optimal solution can be computed. A system that can provide this functionality is described herein. Aspects of the invention provide a method and system of controlling a network of devices (typically electric meters) to manage grid performance and provide reliable services to end consumers. According to a first aspect there is provided a system comprising a plurality of devices connected to one or more circuits in a power distribution grid; a head end system, HES, configured to communicate with the plurality of devices; a controller configured to receive data from the plurality of devices and to communicate with the HES via one or more HES application programming interfaces, APIs, wherein the controller is configured to request and receive, via the one or more HES APIs, device information relating to the plurality of devices, and wherein the controller is configured to manage one or more services relating to the one or more circuits in the power distribution grid based on the device information. The HES to controller interface may comprise typical AMI data, circuit information, communications routing information, geospatial information (GIS e.g. map coordinates) and a direct pass-through communications path to an application on a device. The pass-through communications path provides a tunnel through the AMI communications infrastructure. The application may relate to a service managed by the controller and may for example relate to the voltage in general, harmonics, frequency, average power, phase identification, topology detection, supply impedance, DER, batteries, theft detection, energy trading etc. Each device of the plurality of devices may be an electric meter configured to measure a power consumption of an end consumer. The controller can be configured to manage power flow and/or voltage by automatically controlling voltage regulator and capacitor bank switching operations. The controller may be configured to manage the voltage in terms of magnitude, phase, harmonics, inter-harmonics, and/or frequency. The controller may also be configured to manage a distributed energy resource, DER, and/or to manage battery charge and discharge at an end user associated with a device of the plurality of devices. For example, based on device information transmitted to the controller and received via an API, the controller may cause a battery to stop charging. A device can belong to multiple circuits simultaneously and a circuit may comprise the entire grid or may only include a conductor immediately connecting two geographically close devices (e.g. on the same switchboard). A long run of a single cable may be divided into multiple circuits due to the inherent impedance. The device information may comprise, for each device, one or more of location information, relating to the physical location of the device and/or a distance between device and other devices of the plurality of devices, circuit information for identifying one or more circuits to which the device is connected, load information, relating to the power consumption of the end consumer associated with the device, phase information, relating to the electric phase of the device, quality of supply, QOS, information, supply impedance, temperature, communication congestion, communication latency, communication throughput, communication route, acceleration, vibration, sound, and light exposure. The controller can be configured to select a master device of the plurality of devices based on the device information, wherein the master device is configured to facilitate communication between t