65.6 F
San Diego
Monday, Mar 18, 2024
-Advertisement-

Making an Aging Electrical Grid ‘Smarter’ Is the Goal

Locating the cause of a power loss in underground electrical circuits is fragmented, event-based and reactionary and can be a very time-consuming process.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy says that outages, brownouts and blackouts cost Americans at least $150 billion each year, or $500 for every adult and child in the country.

San Diego-based On-Ramp Wireless Inc.’s proprietary technology for connecting and monitoring sensors in the underground grid can minimize the duration and economic impact of electrical power loss to a business or residence, said Joaquin Silva, co-founder and CEO and recently named one of the 15 most influential people in the energy industry by FierceMarket’s energy newsletter.

“About 50 percent of the power lines in San Diego are underground,” Silva said. “To find and then repair the problem, utility crews must lift manhole covers and go underground to inspect the vaults that contain the utility’s equipment. If water is present when they lift the manhole covers, they have to first bring in a hazmat team to pump it out and a crew may have to inspect several vaults to identify the cause of the outage.”

On-Ramp is expected to announce soon the results of a two-year demonstration project to determine the effectiveness of the company’s technology to quickly detect and pinpoint the source of power failures in San Diego’s electrical grid.

On-Ramp’s demonstration project, conducted with both San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, was funded by a $2.1 million grant awarded by DOE as part the government’s campaign to transform the nation’s aging electrical grid into a smart grid, which Silva defined as the “application of information technology to the delivery of power.”

Early Warning

Silva said that On-Ramp’s technology eventually may be part of an early warning system to alert utilities about potential outages.

The DOE sponsored project is not the first test of On-Ramp’s technology in San Diego. In 2011, On-Ramp reported that it had built a wireless network that collected data from 40,000 smart meters spread over 2,000 square miles of San Diego County.

Four mountaintop access points were used. The meters collectively used less than 20 percent of the network’s capacity, according to Silva.

“Collecting from 40,000 meters with just four access points was always our theoretical claim, but we just proved it,” Silva said. Using conventional technology, about 35 access points would be needed to cover the entire 4,000-square-mile county, he said.

On-Ramp’s wireless system is now being paired with Taiwan-based Gemtek Technology Co. sensors, which are located on hills, to provide an early warning system of a potential landslide.

“Think of our technology as a cellular system designed from the ground up to communicate with many devices and communicate small amounts of information,” Silva said.

Detects Weakest Wireless Signals

The company’s technology is based on proprietary algorithms for transmitting and decoding data signals from battery-operated and powered sensors. Because the technology can detect wireless signals that are almost 10,000 times weaker than those that can be picked up by other methods, Silva said that On-Ramp’s system can reliably monitor the grid in large, hard-to-reach areas.

Its long battery-life and low price can reduce infrastructure costs 10 times more than competitors’ technologies and “can radically impact the bottom-line,” Silva said.

Andrew Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm Inc., commented, “On-Ramp has a very effective solution for the many-to-one sensor data communication problem. Based on spread spectrum technology, like that in 3G cellular phones, it has a greatly enhanced sensitivity and consequently the ability to operate in crowded spectrum and from disadvantaged locations.” Viterbi recently joined On-Ramp’s advisory board.

On-Ramp, which began generating revenue two years ago, recently ended its Series C round of funding with a $10 million invested, Silva said. Among the Series C investors is Energy Technology Ventures, a joint project of General Electric, NRG Energy Inc. and ConocoPhillips Co.

The funds will help support On-Ramp’s expansion in the oil and gas industry, Silva said.

“Because of the use of fracking technology, a lot of oil exploration is now occurring in the U.S.,” Silva said. Hydraulic fracturing creates fractures in a rock layer.

“There are pipelines, tanks and wells that can be connected and monitored at low cost by wireless technology,” he said and added that it also could be used for industrial sensing and tracking.

Cathy Yarbrough is a freelance editor for the San Diego Business Journal

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

Oberon Eyes Europe for Renewable DME

Leaders of Influence in Law 2024

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-