SP Group rolls out world's first smart grid index

It has been validated by the Energy Research Institute of NTU.

Singapore's SP Group launched the world’s first smart grid index aimed to aid utilities measure and advance in key dimensions of grid development, an announcement revealed.

The new smart grid index provides a framework of the key dimensions of an electricity grid including supply reliability, monitoring and control, data analytics, integration of DER Distributed Energy Resources (DER), green energy, security, and customer empowerment and satisfaction.

“We created this index as we wanted a simple, quantifiable framework to advance our own grid development. It has been useful for us and we would like to contribute it to the wider utilities community,” SP Engineering Council chairman Sim Kwong Mian said.

According to the firm, the framework has been well received and accepted when previewed earlier in 2018 to industry experts and fellow utilities at the International Utility Working Group meeting in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur. Moreover, the index’s methodology and benchmarking studies were also validated by the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).

“Smart grids are a critical infrastructure that supports economic growth while improving the quality of life in a city,” Prof.Kam Chan Hin, deputy provost (Education), and former chair of the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University said.

“It [SP Group’s smart index] will provide important data points, aids healthy industry discourse and enables utilities to deliver sustainable solutions for the future,” the professor added.