Presentation: Technology Trends at the Grid Edge in an Ever Changing Industry

Deploying IT in the existing grid infrastructure is not an easy feat as the technology is constantly evolving and not initially designed for such environment. This presentation addresses key IT concepts to improve grid operations and recommendations on how to deploy them cost effectively. Three key concepts are presented. First, we discuss how the use of the Industrial Internet of Things to monitor legacy distribution assets in real-time is the most scalable concept for grid operators; second, we describe the types of analytics that can be applied to both structured and unstructured data to unveil opportunity to better manage and extend the life of assets; last we outline the distributed computing architecture including virtualization and edge analytics to accelerate the integration of DER in everyday grid operation. Along these concepts, the author will also present the state of the art in cybersecurity.