What you will learn

• Electric industry jargon and basic electrical principles
• Generation types and sources and their advantages and disadvantages
• The purpose, function, and components of the transmission system
• The purpose, function, and components of the distribution system
• How service connections are provided to customer facilities
• How electricity is delivered into and metered at the consumer’s facility
• How the physical system is structured and operated to deliver electricity
• How the physical system impacts costs and services to customers

Who can benefit from this seminar?

• Entry-level engineers without a power background
• New hires at a utility, transmission company, generation company, system operator, energy marketer, renewable firm, technology vendor, or any company providing services to the electric industry
• Employees with industry experience in business areas who need a better understanding of the physical system
• Employees with customer contact, sales, or marketing responsibilities
• Regulatory employees who need to understand physical system opportunities and constraints
• Professionals in the legal, finance, accounting, PR, and communications fields who provide services to the electric industry
• Virtually any energy employee with limited experience in how electric systems are designed and operated

Course Agenda

Electrical Definitions

• Electricity, volts, amps, watts, kilowatts, kilowatt-hours, kilovolt-amperes
• Conductors and insulators
• Voltage (volts), resistance (amps)
• Direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC)
• Basic electrical relationships (Ohms Law, Watts Law)
• Circuits (functions and types)
• Real power, apparent power, reactive power
• Power factor
• Calculation examples

Generating Electricity

• The electrical system
• Types and sources of generation
• Advantages/disadvantages/costs of each generation type
• Single vs. three phase power
• Station transformers and switchyards
• Functions of power control
• Load forecasting
• How units are dispatched
• The role of storage in supply

The Transmission System

• Purpose and function
• Components (substations, transformers, switchyard, transmission lines)
• Interconnections
• North American electrical grids
• Power flow and control
• NERC regions, RTOs, ISOs, Transcos
• The evolution of transmission operations with the growth in renewables

The Distribution System

• Purpose and function
• Components (substations, distribution lines, lightning arrestors, voltage regulators, fuses, reclosers, capacitor banks)
• Distribution circuits (types and voltages)
• Lines (wye and delta; overhead and underground)
• Primary and secondary distribution

Electric Services to Customers

• Services (overhead and underground, single phase and three phase, voltage)
• Components (service transformer, service drop, meter loop, meter, main disconnect, service/breaker panel, branch circuits)
• The smart grid

Meters and Metering

• Types of meters
• Current transformers (CTs) and potential transformers (PTs)
• Location of meters
• Registers
• Smart meters and automatic meter reading (AMR)

The Future

• How the electric grid is evolving with gas generation, renewables, storage, and distributed resources
• Key issues for the future