New York follows suit with Massachusetts, sets smart grid plan in motion

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently announced the state's own plan for modernizing and improving its power grid and hardening the system to natural and manmade disasters. According to Smart Grid News, the announcement, which followed a recent, similar one from Massachusetts, is a $17 billion strategy that would transform New York's energy infrastructure. Efforts include deploying terminal servers, serial toEthernet converters and smart meters to optimize the network and ensure the state is meeting expectations for energy supply, eco-friendly initiatives and peak demand needs.

"We are going to expedite the building of our energy super highway; we still have a problem getting low-cost, clean, renewable power up from downstate to upstate, which is costing ratepayers $600 million a year," Cuomo said in the announcement. "Let's incentivize smart projects that locate within state-owned or existing transmission rights-of-way so that they are not interfering or spreading into local communities, and let's offer those smart projects an expedited approval process."

The improvements are inspired by the growing number of storms that New York sees every year, and a growing need to be prepared for whatever the weather brings. According to the news source, New York has been hit by nine presidentially declared disasters since Gov. Cuomo took office, and a high number of non-official weather crises as well.

Included in the state plan is new infrastructure to protect coastal power grids, a statewide gas-powered backup grid in critical areas of the state and creating independent "microgrids" in various communities to boost resilience.

"Our plan completely transforms the way we build and protect our infrastructure, safeguard our energy supply, prepare our citizens and first responders, and provide fuel and electricity," Cuomo stated.

The optimization of power infrastructure with smart grid deployments isn't localized to New York either. More states are embracing similar plans in order to enhance the delivery of energy and stability of their networks. These efforts can help boost the efficiency of the nation's power infrastructure, reduce the costs of electricity and work to eliminate common worries of brownouts, blackouts and other energy crises along the way.

Perle offers a range of cost effective serial-to-Ethernet converters to help meet NERC-CIP compliance for the protection of critical cyberassets in substations. The IOLAN SDS HV/LDC Terminal Server is designed to meet harsh environments associated with Power Substations with attributes such as support for substation AC and DC voltage ranges, extended operating temperatures and meeting emission, immunity and safety approvals associated with substation IT equipment.