CLASS OF 2015
WORLD-GENERATION FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 V.27 #1
14
WORLD-GEN: SCOTT,WOULD YOU LIKE TO
TELL US ABOUTTHE SMART GRID AND
WHAT YOU’RE DOING AT SCHNEIDER
ELECTRIC?
Scott Henneberry:
We have had a
focus on the smart grid and understanding
what should be Schneider Electric’s unique
value to our customers, and so therefore
we’ve taken a consensus of our business
and our customers and we’ve said that the
smart grid encompasses the use of energy
and the way it’s changing, all the way from
generation to consumption. So rather than
just say, as many companies would, that the
smart grid is limited to utilities, or the trans-
mission of electricity, we say it’s all the way
down to consumption and that means, for
Schneider Electric, that we believe the
smart grid will require new interactions
between supply and demand. There’s now a
market in the US for demand response, as
well as a growing market internationally.
Utility operators and the balancers of the
grid are now focused on putting commercial
plans in place to incent end users to reduce
power during times of peak usage, so that
everyone can save money and improve grid
reliability. For example, we’re seeing the
growing adoption of micro-grids on the part
of end users for the sake of resiliency or for
the sake of carbon reduction or even just for
the sake of economics. Schneider Electric
had been involved in the development, the
implementation and the operation of micro-
grids for a long, long time. We just didn’t
know they were called micro-grids until a
couple of years ago. Depending upon the
type of industry they’re in and the use of
those micro-grids by local utilities to solve
problems on the grid the micro-grid could
be called a virtual power plant.
WORLD-GEN: ONTHE MICRO-GRIDSTHOUGH
THERE’S ISLANDING AND STORAGE, IS
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC LOOKING AT STOR-
AGE?
Scott Henneberry:
Absolutely. We
have a number of pilots currently in pro-
cess both in Europe and the US that look at
how energy storage can be used to smooth
the grid, how it can be used to make more
efficient renewable energy. Intermittent
renewables can use storage to be much
more efficient. We do not have today a busi-
ness around the sale of energy storage and
we are working with a number of partners
in these pilots. We believe that storage will
be an integral part of a number of the solu-
tions that we bring to market, both for utili-
ties and for end users. We may or may not
get into the storage business but that
doesn’t mean that we won’t use storage as
an important part of our solutions.
WORLD-GEN: CAN YOU MENTION WHOM
YOU’RE PILOTING WITH?
Scott Henneberry:
Yes. In Europe we
have signed an R&D agreement with Areva
to develop a new energy storage solution
called a flow battery. We also have some
pilots in Europe and the US with some lithi-
um ion manufacturers. We do have a part-
nership with Saft focused on small commer-
cial and industrial customers to understand
better how a commercial or industrial cus-
tomer, potentially with renewable solar on
the roof for example, could use energy stor-
age to help balance out renewable energy
and take better economic advantage of the
tariffs that are used. That initiative is called
our “Prosumer” initiative.
Through our sub-station automation
business, we have recently released and are
now actively implementing “the renewable
production controller.” It’s basically an
embedded controller that is able to look at
the dynamics on the power system of a lot
of renewable sources. You could have wind,
you could have solar, you could have some
energy supply, and integrate those things
for a better, stable supply.
We also have a big business around
Electric Vehicle charging to help build out
the charging infrastructure and encourage
mass adoption of EVs. So we have several
partnerships around how they can use those
energy storage vehicles to help the grid.
WORLD-GEN:YOU MEANTO RECHARGE
ONTOTHE GRID?
Scott Henneberry:
Yes. There are a
couple of architectures that are proposed
with electric vehicles. One is called “vehicle
to grid”, V2G, in which plug-in EVs can
communicate with the power grid to sell
demand response services by delivering
electricity into the grid or adjusting their
charging rate to the vehicle in order to alle-
viate a grid peak. Another is called “vehicle
to home,” V2H, in which power can be
delivered straight to the home through an
EV battery which could collect power dur-
ing the night when electricity rates are
lower. We have discussions and some pilots
with various folks to explore those options.
We also have some discussions to see if the
batteries that are being used for vehicles
can be used in a separate application, stand
alone stationary batteries to help the grid.
WORLD-GEN: FOR STORAGE?
Scott Henneberry:
For storage, sure.
One of the big problems that the battery
manufacturers have is to scale, and getting
the cost coming down with enough scale.
Well, if you can find another application to
help the grid that will pay for batteries, then
the cost will come down that much faster.
WORLD-GEN: PLEASE TALK ABOUT
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC’S RECENT ACQUISI-
TIONS.
Scott Henneberry:
There’s a couple of
things that are new within the past couple of
SCOTT HENNEBERRY
Vice President, Smart Grid Strategy
Schneider Electric
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