By Roy L Hales

Modern grid operators have a more complex task than their counterparts did a generation ago. There was very little intermittent energy twenty or thirty years ago and little need for sophisticated instrumentation. Now the infrastructure is aging and operators need to deal with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind, energy storage, plug-in electric vehicles, interconnects and increasing demand. They need better information, so they can react to changes fast. National Grid UK selected National Instrument’s CompactRIO platform to increase their capability of seeing harmonic problems on the grid by 400%.