Huawei Technologies recently joined up with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water, Irrigation, and electricity to host a power summit entitled “Better Connected Smart Grid, Greater Energy Efficiency”. While the focus of this conference was based around ways in which Ethiopia could benefit from technological advancements designed to improve energy safety and conversion efficiency through the reduction of losses in long distance transmission, as well as the use of ICT sensors and control tech, the principles discussed during the summit can be applied across the globe, namely here in the US.
The primary reason for holding this summit was to address the unprecedented changes that today’s power suppliers and utility companies are being faced with. Energy demands are constantly on the rise, making it impossible to ignore the looming energy crisis. Nations across the globe are actively attempting to create balance between the competing demands being placed upon them for energy security, energy equality, and environmental sustainability. At the same time, there’s still much room for improvement with regards to energy conversion and usage efficiency.
Huawei’s Jerry Ji addressed these concerns during one of the summit’s keynote speeches. It was during this speech that he introduced Huawei’s “fully-connected smart grid solution”, which is based upon an ICT infrastructure. This solution enables companies to construct safe, reliable, eco-friendly, and sustainable grids that will boost overall operational efficiency and make improvements to energy efficiency. According to Ji, channel partners need to be plugged in and involved with contributions as a means of creating an even more connected smart grid that will have the ability to adopt an open architecture. Ultimately, the solution works by enabling Huawei to fully collaborate with its various partners in areas including technology, software, hardware, and services which enable joint innovations to aid customers within the electric power industry to realize success.
Another keynote speaker, Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering’s Liu Jianming also shared his insights upon the value of ICT in smart grid construction for China and the global power sector. Jianming noted Chinese innovations designed specifically for smart grid construction, which allow for the adoption of intermittent energy sources in the vein of high-voltage/large-capacity/long-distance transmission, wind power, electricity consumption data gathering, real-time interaction capabilities amongst customers and grids, intelligent scheduling, power distribution automation, and more. His belief is that innovations like these have already proven that production safety and power grid intelligence can be improved and that we could further benefit via smart grid deployment and global energy internet.
Attendees from Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) are expressing interest, especially considering that despite an abundance of natural energy sources, the nation’s wind and solar energy accounts for less than 5% of its energy generation. As a result, 10 national officials will be attending a two-week training seminar in China. The goal is to educate these officials on changes that can be made to the Ethiopian infrastructure, which would allow for improved efficiency and better use of existing resources. ICT and smart grid will be a primary focus of this “Telecom Seeds for the Future” training program put on by Huawei.
This is certainly an exciting opportunity, as the capabilities of Huawei’s Fully-connected Smart Grid Solution were showcased during the summit so as to demonstrate exactly how innovated ICT infrastructure is able to empower electric power companies to construct reliable, safe, sustainable, and environmentally friendly grids to boost efficiency and effectiveness.
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