All Topics

Smart grid

22 articles tagged with "Smart grid"

Hero image for Troubleshooting Sunny Boy Inverters: A Pragmatic Engineering Perspective
GridHacker Team

Troubleshooting Sunny Boy Inverters: A Pragmatic Engineering Perspective

They rarely mention the reality of field-service: the subtle degradation of internal electrolytic capacitors, the impact of high-frequency transients on comm...

sunny boy inverter
Hero image for The Architecture of Failure: Microgrids vs. Alpha Direct
GridHacker Team

The Architecture of Failure: Microgrids vs. Alpha Direct

But when you are standing in a substation in the middle of a winter storm, staring at a tripped recloser because your DER synchronization logic decided to os...

microgrid alpha direct
Hero image for IEC 61850 vs. DNP3: Stop Pretending They Are Interchangeable
GridHacker Team

IEC 61850 vs. DNP3: Stop Pretending They Are Interchangeable

I have watched senior engineers spend weeks trying to map legacy RTU points into an SCL (Substation Configuration Language) file, only to realize that their ...

iec 61850 dnp3
Hero image for The Entomological Vector: Why Hymenoptera Are the Unsung Nemesis of Field Reliability
GridHacker Team

The Entomological Vector: Why Hymenoptera Are the Unsung Nemesis of Field Reliability

We spend thousands of engineering hours worrying about [grid-stability-and-reliability](/blog/grid-stability-and-reliability) and the nuances of transient vo...

bees wasps hornets
Hero image for The Inertia Problem: Why Your Grid-Tie Inverter Is Not a Synchronous Generator
GridHacker Team

The Inertia Problem: Why Your Grid-Tie Inverter Is Not a Synchronous Generator

If you are an engineer who has spent any time staring at a phasor measurement unit (PMU) data stream during a frequency excursion, you know the reality: the ...

grid stability renewables
Hero image for The Illusion of Inertia: Why Your Grid Stability Models Are Lying to You
GridHacker Team

The Illusion of Inertia: Why Your Grid Stability Models Are Lying to You

When a fault occurs, we expect a massive, sustained surge of fault current—the classic sub-transient current contribution that trips our overcurrent relays.

grid stability reliability
Hero image for Demand Response vs. Virtual Power Plants: Separating Control Logic from Marketing Hype
GridHacker Team

Demand Response vs. Virtual Power Plants: Separating Control Logic from Marketing Hype

You know that a VPP is essentially a highly orchestrated, distributed demand-side management scheme that relies on a level of telemetry and control latency t...

demand response vpp
Hero image for The Reality of HVDC: Why We Are Still Building AC Grids
GridHacker Team

The Reality of HVDC: Why We Are Still Building AC Grids

If you look at the actual physics and the balance sheet of a project, HVDC is a high-stakes engineering gamble that trades simple, passive reliability for co...

hvdc advantages disadvantages
Hero image for The Myth of the "Plug-and-Play" Community Microgrid
GridHacker Team

The Myth of the "Plug-and-Play" Community Microgrid

If you approach a community-scale microgrid project with the same mindset you use for a residential solar array, you are going to end up with a pile of stran...

community microgrid technical
Hero image for IEC 61850 vs. IEC 60870-5-104: Choosing the Right Protocol for Substation Automation
GridHacker Team

IEC 61850 vs. IEC 60870-5-104: Choosing the Right Protocol for Substation Automation

If you are still trying to force a legacy SCADA mindset onto a modern digital substation, you are setting yourself up for a world of pain.

iec 61850 104