RENEWCONNECT - All about renewables & power sector

  Fully automated outage restoration—where the grid detects faults, isolates them, reconfigures feeders, and restores service without human intervention —is no longer sci‑fi. Utilities are already deploying FLISR (Fault Location, Isolation and Service Restoration) on top of ADMS/OMS platforms, integrating AMI meter signals, and augmenting restoration with autonomous inspections (e.g., drones) and microgrid islanding . Evidence from vendors and case studies shows seconds‑to‑minutes restorations, 50%+ reductions in customers interrupted and minutes lost, and marked SAIDI/SAIFI improvement. [selinc.com] , [blog.se.com] Globally, security of supply is under stress amid extreme weather and rapidly changing load and generation; operators are investing in digital grids and resilience mechanisms. Automation is a cost‑effective lever to contain outage impacts and accelerate recovery. [nbcconnecticut.com] , [aemc.gov.au] Our position: End‑to‑end automated restoration is feasible toda...

  Distributed energy resources (DER)—rooftop and community solar, behind‑the‑meter batteries, EVs as flexible load/storage, microgrids, demand response—are no longer peripheral. They are reshaping how electricity is produced, traded, and consumed, and in some jurisdictions they already supply bidirectional power flows and grid services at scale. The International Energy Agency (IEA) documents both the opportunity (lower bills, resilience, decarbonization) and the risks (unprepared grids, inadequate market design). [iea.org] , [iea.org] Thought experiment: assume DERs become the primary way we generate and balance power, with central assets reduced to bulk balancing/backstop. What would change? In short: planning shifts from “build‑and‑dispatch” to “coordinate‑and-orchestrate”; distribution grids become the system’s brain; utilities transform into platform operators and aggregators rather than monopoly suppliers; and regulation pivots from volumetric recovery to service-based ,...

Power theft —the non-technical portion of losses (meter tampering, illegal hookups, billing fraud)—erodes utility cashflows, inflates tariffs, and constrains investment. Globally, transmission & distribution (T&D) losses average ~5% in the U.S. ; many emerging markets are 10–20%+ . India’s national losses are ~14% (2023, IEA/World Bank), with several states historically well above that. Eliminating theft would: (1) reduce required generation and fuel costs, (2) lift AT&C recovery and utility creditworthiness, (3) lower tariffs or fund capex, and (4) cut emissions tied to “making up” lost electricity. [eta-public...ns.lbl.gov] , [eia.gov] Under current electrification and grid expansion trajectories (IEA), zero-theft grids would unlock tens of billions of dollars in net present value across a decade through avoided energy, improved financeability, and accelerated modernization (smart meters, automation). In India, aligning RDSS smart metering, feeder analytics, legal enf...

Premise. Today, no room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure superconductor has been independently verified. High‑profile claims (e.g., lutetium hydride and LK‑99) were retracted or debunked after replication failures and data concerns. Thought experiment. Assume, however, that a stable, manufacturable, room‑temperature superconductor (RTS) is commercialized—no cryogenics, no ultra‑high pressures, wire/tape forms scalable to tens of thousands of km/year—what changes? [nature.com] , [sciencenews.org] , [phys.org] , [nature.com] 1) Executive summary Economic step‑change: RTS would erase resistive losses and unlock orders‑of‑magnitude higher current densities across cables, machines, and power electronics—shrinking footprints and capex while slashing opex (losses) globally. Today’s grids lose ~5% in the U.S.; ~14% in India; 3–9% typical across many systems —RTS drives that toward near‑zero where deployed. [eia.gov] , [data.worldbank.org] Grid architecture reset: Urban transmission/distrib...