The role of the embedded power supply industry in the development of Smart Grid infrastructure

I don't think that I'm alone in struggling with defining the role that the traditional power supply industry plays in the emerging "smart grid" infrastructure. This is not meant to imply that the power supply industry is not contributing to the smart grid, but that the terminology and concepts are too broad and expansive to be meaningful without added context. I recently participated in a Smart Grid workshop organized jointly by Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). A clever workshop title helped. It asked: "Are you smarter than the smart grid?" The message that I wanted to deliver was two-fold. The first was in regards to the state of the art in power supply technology and how far it has advanced in recent years - they're already smart; they already communicate with other devices and systems in their environment; and, they're already conserving energy when compared with performance levels of a few years ago. The second part of the message was that it's not obvious to me (and many in the industry, I believe), whether there are additional expectations on the power supply industry and what it should be doing to advance the goals of the smart grid. Consider a power supply used in modern communications or computing equipment today and compare it with its counterpart five to ten years ago. From an energy-efficiency perspective, losses have been cut by a factor of three, i.e. the same power can be produced while generating approximately thirty per cent of the waste energy or heat that would have been generated previously. If one of the goals of the smart goal is to reduce the stress on the modern grid by reducing losses, our industry has contributed tremendously. But, the modern power supply barely resembles its predecessors in many ways. It monitors and reports line status, energy consumption, temperature effects and load conditions. It adjusts its thermal environment, both independently and in response to system needs. And it modifies its own internal operating modes to maximize efficiency depending on external system conditions. Put simply, it is "Smart". So, what are the future expectations in an area that is so vast in scope? Are large changes in store, or is it simply a matter of allowing these technologies to evolve based on the particular applications in which they are used? Efficiency will continue to increase incrementally, but cost-performance remains a constraint. Similarly, accuracy of reporting will probably continue to improve, but again within the constraint of cost. Perhaps the biggest changes will be in the integration of the power supply into the communication and networking methods associated with both the equipment and the grid? Whatever it may be, - the nexus of the Smart Grid and the Internet of Things and the Power Supply Industry - it won't be boring! Emerson Network Power