Smart Grid: Communication-Enabled Intelligence for the Electric Power Grid

3

Transmission

Like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams of my motor. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally I would have given for that one which I had wrestled from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence.

—Nikola Tesla

3.1 Introduction

This chapter covers the process of transporting electric power from the generator, discussed in Chapter 2, toward its path that ultimately leads to the consumer. This is the first step in terms of power transport within the power grid; many fundamental components and concepts used throughout the book are first introduced in this chapter. Remember that this section of the book is an introduction to the power grid as it existed prior to the notion of a smart grid. The transmission system takes large amounts of bulk power from the generator, typically a large, centralized generator in a power plant located in a less-populated area, and transports the power, typically over long distances, to a distribution system located near the consumer in more densely populated areas.

As we continue, keep in mind the relationships between the power grid and communication. One way to classify communication networks is to divide them into field-area networks (FANs), wide-area networks (WANs), metropolitan-area networks (MANs), and home-area networks (HANs), as shown in Table 3.1. One way to think about how communication networks are classified ...