{"533911":{"#nid":"533911","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Large-Scale Data Study of Super Storm Sandy Utility Damage Shows \u201cSmall\u201d Failures, Big Impact","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Super Storm Sandy struck New York State in October 2012, the damage to the state\u0026rsquo;s electric utility infrastructure was devastating, overwhelming repair and restoration by the distribution system operators (DSOs). A new study shows the extent of the challenge faced by the upstate New York distribution grid and suggests what might be done to make the system more resilient against future storms.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe study, which required more than three years, examined power failures that affected more than 600,000 customers from four major service regions. The study showed that failures affecting small numbers of customers accounted for more than half the outage impact, defeating efforts to restore service by prioritizing repairs to substations and other major facilities \u0026ndash; a traditional recovery strategy. The research, reported April 29 in the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature Energy\u003C\/em\u003E, is believed to be the largest detailed study of failure reports for distribution grids using real data.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;System failures can affect large numbers of customers even if they occur at the distribution level of the grid and do not cascade,\u0026rdquo; said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff-directory\/chuanyi-ji\u0022\u003EChuanyi Ji\u003C\/a\u003E, an associate professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Electrical and Computer Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u0026ldquo;Together, these local failures can have a big non-local impact on customers. The grid simply cannot respond well to large numbers of failures.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe top 20 percent of distribution grid failures accounted for more than 80 percent of the customers affected. But even failures that each affected relatively small numbers of customers added up. A large number \u0026ndash; 89 percent \u0026ndash; of small failures, represented by the bottom 34 percent of customers and commonplace devices, resulted in 56 percent of the total cost of 28 million customer interruption hours.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;If you are just going after the big failures, the effect will be limited because there are just too many small ones that cannot be restored quickly,\u0026rdquo; Ji noted. \u0026ldquo;Together, small failures were significant in the total down time of customers.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe large-scale study used granular data provided by the Central Hudson Gas \u0026amp; Electric Corporation in Poughkeepsie; National Grid in Waltham, Massachusetts; the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation in Binghamton; Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc., in Pearl River \u0026ndash; and the New York State Public Service Commission in Albany. Overall, the study examined the utility infrastructure serving nearly 51,000 square miles in the entirety of upstate New York.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBeyond the storm damage information, the researchers also examined data from day-to-day operations and studied how routine issues were handled. Those resilience issues included customer service and restoration, in addition to sporadic infrastructure failures. Two Ph.D. students from the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yun Wei and Henry Mei, were instrumental in the data study as part of the research team. The research was supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Our analysis shows that extreme weather does not cause, but rather exacerbates, existing vulnerabilities in the infrastructure and service, which are obscured in daily operations,\u0026rdquo; Ji said. \u0026ldquo;We also saw the issues in daily operations.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers began the work with development of a non-stationary spatiotemporal random process model that linked a large number of infrastructure failures to recoveries and customer impact. The model was chosen because failure and recovery were subject to uncertainty and occurred over widely varying times and locations. The researchers believe their model could be useful to other service regions.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Super Storm Sandy was an unusual event, but we discovered that our findings about the response is broadly applicable to other states and other DSOs when we compared data from daily operations to emergency conditions,\u0026rdquo; Ji said. \u0026ldquo;The infrastructure problem is generic due to the design, and the recovery problem is also somewhat generic because the response follows a similar strategy. This highlights a larger issue of how to make the nation\u0026rsquo;s energy infrastructure and service more resilient to outside disruptions.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBecause the emphasis was on restoring service, not all the records that were obtained from the storm contained information useful to the model. Still, the study is believed to be the largest ever done based on granular failure reports across multiple service regions, and could provide a foundation for future analyses of utility data, Ji noted.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Data analysis can help utilities turn what they collect into knowledge for improving services,\u0026rdquo; she added. \u0026ldquo;The grid can be made more inherently resilient, like communication networks, so a failure in one place doesn\u0026rsquo;t cut off services for many people in the network.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Chuanyi Ji, et al., \u0026ldquo;Large-scale data analysis of power grid resilience across multiple US service regions,\u0026rdquo; (Nature Energy, 2016). \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nenergy.2016.52\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nenergy.2016.52\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Assistance\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-894-6986) or Ben Brumfield (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ben.brumfield@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eben.brumfield@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-385-1933).\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA new study shows the extent of the challenge faced by the upstate New York distribution grid during Super Storm Sandy in October 2012, and suggests what might be done to make the system more resilient against future storms.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new study shows the extent of the challenge faced by the upstate New York distribution grid during Super Storm Sandy."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2016-05-08 18:09:43","changed_gmt":"2017-02-06 15:19:06","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-05-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-05-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"533881":{"id":"533881","type":"image","title":"Researchers study Super Storm Sandy damage map","body":null,"created":"1462892400","gmt_created":"2016-05-10 15:00:00","changed":"1475895317","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:17","alt":"Researchers study Super Storm Sandy damage map","file":{"fid":"88779","name":"utility-recovery_3347.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/utility-recovery_3347_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/utility-recovery_3347_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1600390,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/utility-recovery_3347_1.jpg?itok=f6jTvQd9"}},"533901":{"id":"533901","type":"image","title":"Utility damage from Super Storm Sandy","body":null,"created":"1462892400","gmt_created":"2016-05-10 15:00:00","changed":"1475895317","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:17"}},"media_ids":["533881","533901"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"1316","name":"Green Buzz"}],"categories":[{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"170238","name":"electric utility"},{"id":"436","name":"electricity"},{"id":"213","name":"energy"},{"id":"166855","name":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"id":"170239","name":"Super Storm Sandy"},{"id":"172015","name":"utility failure"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"429491":{"#nid":"429491","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Sol-gel Capacitor Dielectric Offers Record-high Energy Storage","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EUsing a hybrid silica sol-gel material and self-assembled monolayers of a common fatty acid, researchers have developed a new capacitor dielectric material that provides an electrical energy storage capacity rivaling certain batteries, with both a high energy density and high power density.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIf the material can be scaled up from laboratory samples, devices made from it could surpass traditional electrolytic capacitors for applications in electromagnetic propulsion, electric vehicles and defibrillators. Capacitors often complement batteries in these applications because they can provide large amounts of current quickly.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe new material is composed of a silica sol-gel thin film containing polar groups linked to the silicon atoms and a nanoscale self-assembled monolayer of an octylphosphonic acid, which provides insulating properties. The bilayer structure blocks the injection of electrons into the sol-gel material, providing low leakage current, high breakdown strength and high energy extraction efficiency.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSol-gels with organic groups are well known and fatty acids such as phosphonic acids are well known,\u201d noted \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chemistry.gatech.edu\/people\/Perry\/Joseph%20W.\u0022\u003EJoseph Perry\u003C\/a\u003E, a professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chemistry.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Chemistry and Biochemistry\u003C\/a\u003E at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u201cBut to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time these two types of materials have been combined into high-density energy storage devices.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research, supported by the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, was reported July 14 in the journal \u003Cem\u003EAdvanced Energy Materials\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe need for efficient, high-performance materials for electrical energy storage has been growing along with the ever-increasing demand for electrical energy in mobile applications. Dielectric materials can provide fast charge and discharge response, high energy storage, and power conditioning for defense, medical and commercial applications. But it has been challenging to find a single dielectric material able to maximize permittivity, breakdown strength, energy density and energy extraction efficiency.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPerry and colleagues in Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cope.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECenter for Organic Photonics and Electronics\u003C\/a\u003E (COPE) had been working on other capacitor materials to meet these demands, but were not satisfied with the progress. The hybrid sol-gel materials had shown potential for efficient dielectric energy storage because of their high orientational polarization under an electric field, so the group decided to pursue these materials for the new capacitor applications.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing an aluminized mylar film coated with the hybrid sol-gel capacitor material, they showed that the capacitor could be rolled and re-rolled several times while maintaining high energy density, demonstrating its flexibility. But they were still seeing high current leakage. To address that, they deposited a nanoscale self-assembled monolayer of n-octylphosphonic acid on top of the hybrid sol-gel. Less than a nanometer thick, the monolayer serves as an insulating layer.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur silica sol-gel is a hybrid material because it has polar organic groups attached to the silica framework that gives the sol-gel a high dielectric constant, and in our bilayer dielectric, the n-octylphosphonic acid groups are inserted between the sol-gel layer and the top aluminum layer to block charge injection into the sol-gel,\u201d Perry explained. \u201cIt\u2019s really a bilayer hybrid material that takes the best of both reorientation polarization and approaches for reducing injection and improving energy extraction.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn their structures, the researchers demonstrated maximum extractable energy densities up to 40 joules per cubic centimeter, an energy extraction efficiency of 72 percent at a field strength of 830 volts per micron, and a power density of 520 watts per cubic centimeter. The performance exceeds that of conventional electrolytic capacitors and thin-film lithium ion batteries, though it doesn\u2019t match the lithium ion battery formats commonly used in electronic devices and vehicles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve seen a capacitor beat a battery on energy density,\u201d said Perry. \u201cThe combination of high energy density and high power density is uncommon in the capacitor world.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers in Perry\u2019s lab have been making arrays of small sol-gel capacitors in the lab to gather information about the material\u2019s performance. The devices are made on small substrates about an inch square.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we see when we apply an electric field is that the polarization response \u2013 which measures how much the polar groups line up in a stable way with the field \u2013 behaves in a linear way,\u201d said Perry. \u201cThis is what you want to see in a capacitor dielectric material.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe next step will be to scale up the materials to see if the attractive properties transfer to larger devices. If that is successful, Perry expects to commercialize the material through a startup company or SBIR project.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe simplicity of fully solution-based processes for our dielectric material system provides potential for facile scale-up and fabrication on flexible platforms,\u201d the authors wrote in their paper. \u201cThis work emphasizes the importance of controlling the electrode-dielectric interface to maximize the performance of dielectric materials for energy storage application.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to Perry, the research team included Yunsang Kim, Mohanalingam Kathaperumal and Vincent Chen from the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Yohan Park from the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering; Canek Fuentes-Hernandez and Bernard Kippelen from the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Ming-Hen Pan from the Naval Research Laboratory.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research was supported by the Office of Naval Research Dielectric Films Program (Grant N000141110462) and U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, BioPAINTS MURI Program (Grant FA9550-09-0669). The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agencies.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Yunsang Kim, et al., \u201cBilayer Structure with Ultra-high Energy\/Power Density Using Hybrid Sol-Gel Dielectric and Charge Blocking Monolayer, (Advanced Energy Materials, 2015). \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.dx.doi.org\/10.1002\/aenm.201500767\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.dx.doi.org\/10.1002\/aenm.201500767\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contact\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-894-6986)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EUsing a hybrid silica sol-gel material and self-assembled monolayers of a common fatty acid, researchers have developed a new capacitor dielectric material that provides an electrical energy storage capacity rivaling certain batteries, with both a high energy density and high power density.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have developed a new capacitor dielectric material that provides an electrical energy storage capacity rivaling certain batteries."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2015-07-29 20:50:05","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:19","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-07-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-07-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"429461":{"id":"429461","type":"image","title":"Sol-gel solution","body":null,"created":"1449254358","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:39:18","changed":"1475895167","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:47"},"429441":{"id":"429441","type":"image","title":"Sol-gel materials","body":null,"created":"1449254358","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:39:18","changed":"1475895167","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:47"},"429421":{"id":"429421","type":"image","title":"Testing sol-gel materials","body":null,"created":"1449254358","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:39:18","changed":"1475895167","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:47"},"429451":{"id":"429451","type":"image","title":"Sol-gel samples","body":null,"created":"1449254358","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:39:18","changed":"1475895167","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:47"},"429481":{"id":"429481","type":"image","title":"Perry research group","body":null,"created":"1449254358","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:39:18","changed":"1475895169","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:49"}},"media_ids":["429461","429441","429421","429451","429481"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"7564","name":"capacitor"},{"id":"136861","name":"dielectric"},{"id":"213","name":"energy"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"},{"id":"7435","name":"material"},{"id":"169747","name":"sol-gel"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"},{"id":"39491","name":"Renewable Bioproducts"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}