Ingenieur Vol. 75 ingenieur July 2018-FA | Page 44

INGENIEUR
Impact of Disruptive
Technologies on Electricity
Grid Infrastructure
By Ir. Dr Amir Basha Ismail
S
ince the start of the Industrial Revolution
more than 250 years ago, the global
economy has been on a steep growth
trajectory propelled by a series of advances in
technology, as shown in Figure 1.
From steam powered engines that replaced
water mills, to electricity, telephones, automobiles,
airplanes, transistors, computers and the internet,
each new wave of technology has brought about
surges in productivity and economic growth,
enabling efficient new methods for performing
existing tasks and giving rise to entirely new types
of businesses. General purpose technologies such
as steam power can be applied across economies
which have massive and disruptive effects, as do
internal combustion engines, electricity and the
Internet.
In the context of this article, the science,
engineering and technology platform underpinning
the electricity supply industry (ESI) has been
steadily powering growth and transforming
economies of most nations. The ESI powering
the growth of a nation, including Malaysia,
has been achieved through conventional, well-
planned, centralised large-scale fossil-fuelled
electricity generating stations and the associated
high-voltage national power grid comprising
the transmission and distribution network. The
national power grid is highly robust, secure and
reliable in terms of demand (load), dispatch and
delivery to industrial, commercial or residential
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consumers. The ESI has not experienced any real
disruptive business environments in the past, even
though the electronic data processing/number-
crunching power of computer technologies
has become extremely powerful in an inverse
relationship to its physical hardware size.
However, today many rapidly evolving
potentially disruptive technologies are appearing
on the horizon. For the energy/electricity sector,
the disruptive technologies that can significantly
impact the future ESI business environment are:
• Renewable and Distributed Generation
(high variability and uncertainty)
• Energy Storage System (high efficiency)
• Smart Grid
• Internet-of-Things
Electricity, which is electromagnetism-based,
at the point-of-use will undoubtedly continue to
be numero uno in terms of energy use in the 21st
century and beyond, compared with other forms
of hydrocarbon-based energy usage. Electricity
delivers a precision that is unmatched by any other
form of energy and it is almost infinitely versatile
in how it can be utilised. Electricity has a unique
characteristic however, once it is generated it
has to be consumed, at the same point in time,
the demand for it must be balanced exactly and
simultaneously by its generation so that the 50
Hertz system frequency is maintained at all times.
Future energy/electricity grid systems including
those in Malaysia, will need to have high levels