1st Step toward Meeting the Need of Digital Society VI

EPRI is responding to this need by launching a bold, two-phase plan aimed at mobilizing all stakeholders in a unified endeavor to improve overall power system reliability – from generator to end-user – in the most cost-effective manner.

The first phase of the plan, called the Power Delivery Reliability Initiative, is well underway and has focused on making immediate, clearly needed improvements in utility transmission and distribution systems. Already, the Initiative has supplied new tools to transmission system operators to help avoid the spread of regional disturbances, and distribution system owners are benefiting from identification of common problems that can contribute to local outages.

The second phase will commence early in 2001 with formation of the Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society (CEIDS), a broadly based effort to find long-term solutions to the challenges of reliability. Specifically, CEIDS will focus on three reliability goals:

1. Preparing high-voltage transmission networks to have the increased capacity and enhanced reliability needed to support a stable wholesale power market.

2. Determining how distribution systems can best integrate low-cost power from the transmission system with an increasing number of local generation and storage options.

3. Analyzing ways to provide digital equipment, such as computers, with an appropriate level of built-in protection.

EPRI has pioneered many of the advanced technologies that are now being considered for widespread deployment on transmission and distribution networks and in end-use devices as a way to increase overall system reliability.

By promoting judicious use of these technologies, CEIDS can make a significant contribution to electric reliability in ways that could potentially contribute billions of dollars in increased productivity to the American economy.

With this in mind, the authors believe that DOE should join EPRI in supporting this public/private consortium, to develop the technologies necessary to support the electric reliability needs of a rapidly expanding digital society. Specifically, EPRI hopes to fund CEIDS by raising $20 million a year for four years from utility sources and high-tech companies concerned about the future of electric power reliability.

Matching funds from DOE could provide the support needed to make CEIDS a truly national effort – an important public-private consortium addressing one of the most critical energy issues of our time.

Part I: Transformative ERA of Digital Society and Power Requirements I
Part II: Requirement of Electricity in Digital Society II
Part III: Creating the Needed Electrical Infrastructure for Digital Society III
Part IV: Infrastructure Convergence of Digital Society IV
Part VI: Technology Considerations of Digital Society