Aug. 18, 2025
Mechanical Parts & Fabrication Services
The winter storm Uri hit the heart of Texas in February , knocking out power for roughly 4.5 million residents. 210 citizens died as a result of the storm and the financial losses are estimated at $80 to $130 billion. There were many causes for the disruption in power, ranging from generation unit outages to troubles in transmission and distribution, including a maximum load shed and the lowest grid frequency ever experienced in the state. Uri is just one example that underscores the importance of a resilient energy infrastructure. As extreme weather conditions become more common, continuity of service during system stress is never more important.
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One weak link in the energy grid infrastructure can disrupt power access for millions of households and businesses.
Today’s power grids are complex with a wide mix of energy sources, including gas, coal, nuclear, wind and solar. This is overlayed by a dizzying array of technologies involved in power production, storage and transmission and distribution. These technologies and the data signals moving through them must be precisely synchronized. One weak link in the energy grid infrastructure can disrupt power access for millions of households and businesses.
To better ensure reliable power access, the power grid is becoming smarter. Cutting edge sensors, processing power, advanced communications and more are enabling more efficient and resilient power grids. This article focuses on how timing devices are critical components of a smart energy grid to keep the power flowing.
The power grid is fragile due to aging infrastructure, centralized design and an inability to meet modern energy demands. Built decades ago, many components are deteriorating and prone to failure. A centralized structure creates single points of failure, where issues at major nodes can trigger widespread outages. External threats like extreme weather and cyberattacks targeting outdated systems increase the fragility. Additionally, the grid struggles to integrate renewable energy sources like solar and wind, highlighting its inability to adapt to modern energy needs.
Demand figures into a power grid’s resilience. Operators must maintain grid frequency within a narrow tolerance (e.g., ±0.050 Hz from 60 Hz in North America or 50 Hz in Europe). The Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization who manages the Texas grid, warns that prolonged frequency deviation can rupture AC connections and damage equipment. In fact, high demand exceeding supply causes frequency drops, forcing power plant shutdowns or blackouts, while low demand with high supply raises frequency, requiring supply cuts. These vulnerabilities leave the grid ill-equipped for a more electrified future.
In the case of Uri, the demand for power was up due to the freezing temperatures. The frequency of the grid on February 15 was below 59.4 Hz for four minutes and 23 seconds. “The entire system was within minutes of collapse, which would have required a ‘black start’ that could have taken days if not weeks (or even months) to implement. To restart would require a slow process of starting individual plants and then building the grid back up gradually,” states the paper Cascading Risks: Understanding the Winter Blackout in Texas in Energy Research & Social Science.
A smart grid is an advanced energy network that integrates modern communication and automation technologies to optimize the generation, distribution and consumption of electricity. Unlike traditional grids, it enables two-way communication between energy providers and consumers, allowing real-time monitoring, demand management and fault detection. Smart grids support the integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, enhancing sustainability and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. They also improve energy efficiency, reliability and resilience by quickly identifying and addressing outages or imbalances. By leveraging sensors, data analytics and control systems, smart grids create a more adaptive and intelligent energy infrastructure tailored to meet evolving energy demands.
Timing chips are crucial in a smart grid because they provide precise synchronization for communication, data processing and control across the grid. Accurate timing ensures that distributed energy resources, such as renewable energy systems and energy storage, can seamlessly integrate and coordinate with the grid’s operations. They enable real-time monitoring, fault detection and load balancing, which are essential for maintaining grid stability and efficiency. Furthermore, timing chips support secure and reliable communication between electronic devices, reducing latency and minimizing errors in critical grid operations, making them a foundational component of smart grid infrastructure.
Timing chips are essential for:
Grid Data Synchronization: Precise synchronization of data transmission across the grid, enabling seamless coordination between energy generation, distribution and consumption.
Frequency Stability: Precise frequency of the grid (e.g., 50 Hz or 60 Hz) ensures stability even during fluctuations in energy supply and demand.
Fault Detection and Response: Accurate timing is critical for identifying and responding to faults in milliseconds, preventing outages from cascading through the grid.
Integration of Renewable Energy: Timing devices help manage the variable output of solar and wind energy by synchronizing storage systems and grid operations.
Real-Time Data Communication: Precision timing supports real-time monitoring and control, allowing utilities to make quick, informed decisions.
Energy Efficiency: Timing chips enable efficient load balancing by aligning energy delivery with real-time demand, reducing waste and improving overall grid performance.
Energy Storage: Timing chips enable precise synchronization and communication in energy storage systems, optimizing performance, efficiency and integration with the power grid.
Cybersecurity: Timing devices are essential for securing communication protocols and ensuring the integrity of data across smart grid systems.
SiTime precision oscillators incorporate MEMS resonators and advanced analog circuitry, superseding traditional quartz-based oscillators for smart energy grid applications including advanced sensors that monitor grid performance, voltage fluctuations and other critical parameters. Timing devices are critical in communication networks transmitting data between various grid components, enabling real-time control and optimization. They are also optimal solutions for storage applications such as, energy storage systems (ESS) and battery management systems (BMS).
SiTime precision timing devices are highly robust and more resistant to environmental stressors than competing quartz devices. These stressors can include temperature fluctuations, vibration and mechanical shock, which are common in field-deployed grid equipment. MEMS durability enhances the reliability of smart grid systems, especially in outdoor or harsh environments. Additionally, MEMS timing devices are smaller, lighter and more energy-efficient than quartz oscillators, aligning with the design goals of compact and energy-conscious grid equipment. As smart grids evolve to become more complex and interconnected, the growing adoption of MEMS precision timing technology is expected to drive greater efficiency and resilience in timing-critical smart energy grid systems.
The business aspect of an electric utility, or any utility for that matter, is the customer paying a bill based upon how much of a service the customer consumed for a specific period. Logically, a metering device is necessary for that measurement.
For years, on the sides of homes, a meter socket hung on a wall with a big electrical conduit going into it. A device in a clear cylinder was mounted to the box. The clear cylinder housed a mechanical device with a metal wheel that would spin driving mechanical dials. They were basic and required a person to walk from meter to meter and read and record the numbers on the dials. That reading formed your bill for the period. Makes sense right?
Once upon a time, there was a keen interest in grid modernization. Phrases such as “Smart Grid” rose to the occasion for federal policy writers and legislators to look like they were doing something. Let’s dial this back to what really happens, rather than intended results. Anything policy oriented has intended results but policy also has unintended consequences. What policy development can also produce is new technologies, or at least technology that is new to the policy, to enter the conversation.
Enter the Smart Meter. Utilities were told they could turn the smart meters on and off remotely, provide how the power was being used in the home, and reduce response time. Utilities quickly found out the limitations of the Smart Meter and have been slow to implement them due to cost and lack of features.
From soup to nuts, electrification of society involves the production or generation of electricity, transmission over distances, and distribution to homes and businesses ending with metering at the home or business. What has changed is the increased desire for data and control of how energy is used as well as billed, because the utility company needs to be paid, and in some states, the power resellers need to be paid.
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Let’s go back to that device mentioned above, the Smart Meter. Smart meter vendors promised, “real time” data collection and reporting, remote usage reporting for billing, the ability to remotely turn off and turn back on meters for the purpose of load shedding. Hmm, well, the truth is this, they have failed to meet expectations. This was painfully clear during the Texas winter storm, named Uri.
To address the need for the grid operator to shed load due to a demand incident, the signal strength of a smart meter was too weak to be turned back on if a meter was shut down remotely. As a result, entire grids were shut down and there was property damage ($195B) as well as a loss of life.
Did deployment of Smart Meters directly cause this damage and these deaths? No, but had it worked as intended, it is reasonable to state that many of the deaths and much of the damage, not caused by ice and broken power lines but due to forced load shedding, would have been mitigated. Yet, the Smart Meter is the tool grid operators and utilities had in order to effect load shedding, and that tool did not work.
Smart Meter data collection is not real time. Data collected by a smart meter only reflects load. A utility can reasonably interpret load draw and suggest what an HVAC system or perhaps a refrigerator would do. The real time aspect isn’t that either, with data collection downloads by 15 minutes to an hour. Yet, we are expected to deal with information which does not directly calculate how much power an aging air conditioning compressor is using compared to a newer version.
As a consumer, one of the fees on your bill goes to pay for the metering system being used to tabulate your bill but with that payment, there is also a license fee paid to the vendor who sold the smart meter to the electric utility. The utilities are behind the proverbial 8 Ball on this. Federal and state regulators are requiring utilities to deploy smart meters to satisfy the concept of a “Smart Grid Infrastructure” with a piece of technology which does not perform as promised, cannot collect data “real time,” and costs utilities and consumers more to use.
There is a portion of society, most of it, that believes government should know very little about what we do in our homes. I agree with this principle but at the same time, we invite corporations into our homes, our conversations, our private thoughts, how we invest and spend money, our communication with friends and relatives, our interests and questions, and our entertainment preferences.
Smart meters are already collecting some form of usage data whereby utilities and grid operators are interpreting the data as they see fit. Your broadband company knows your search history on your and computer. Your smart knows when you sleep, and it listens to your conversations.
Are we REALLY concerned about privacy? No, we are selective with our concerns but indignant when we aren’t given the choice about how to manage our privacy. We can opt out anytime by turning off our phones, tablets, smart watches and cutting the cord to our broadband service.
Let’s apply this concept to metering. What if the data collected by a metering device actually was a benefit to the consumer? Think about it for a moment. Data collected by a metering device could analyze the performance and relative “health” of your air conditioning compressor, your refrigerator or your oven.
Maintenance service companies could be alerted through monitoring subscriptions that your HVAC system needs a repair or service which can be preventative and save you money from more costly repairs. The sky is the limit, but the value add would be very real to the consumer.
Smart meters do not provide value to consumers (although these meters are new, their technology is old, or legacy). In fact, these meters now calculate reactive power you cannot use, which the utilities were not included before and now your bill increases.
As demand for electricity continues to grow, grid managers will be forced to institute load shedding activities to preserve the integrity of the grid in cold and heat. These smart meters cannot be reliably turned on or off remotely. Furthermore, they cannot support soft startups which protect grid equipment and systems as well as consumer equipment and systems.
The forced load shedding practice disrupts power to entire grids until demand and supply stabilizes. All this means your home and business no longer have grid supplied power. If you have a generator, batteries, or solar, perhaps the impact is minimal. For most people, the impact is dire. Many families have someone who needs constant life sustaining support from durable medical equipment. When the lights go dark, so do these devices.
Load shedding can be accomplished, with little or no difference in cost, at the circuit level. Individual circuits can be prioritized so that circuits powering an in-home respirator will always have power and circuits powering life sustaining heating systems will as well. Perhaps, in the extreme case, when power has to be disrupted, we are only talking about in-home lighting.
The practice that electrical utilities stop at the meter outside the home has persisted because they never had the need to go beyond the meter. A utility lobbyist suggested this was a policy concern. It isn’t a policy and never was, it is the practice of “we’ve never done this before.”
This business model is 70 years old, or more. In fact, the grid design is at least that old. Now, we are dealing with higher demand from smart home systems, growth in domestic manufacturing, EV charging systems, data centers, and a society centered around broadband. Until capacity satisfies demand without load shedding events being necessary, there will be more load shedding events and unplanned blackouts.
As a society, we need to change how we consider the consumption of electricity, the measurement and metering of that consumption and how consumption is controlled and regulated. Right now, we are expecting 21st Century results from a barely 20th Century infrastructure. This is a point of failure.
Yes, we should expect a degree of privacy, but absolute privacy has never been possible. If a grid were to offer circuit level grid management services and there were consumers who did not want the grid operators or utilities to have access beyond the meter, these consumers could opt-out and perhaps they pay a different rate and they are responsible for themselves when forced load shedding events occur, because they will.
Smart meters have not performed as promised. We can theorize that policymakers decided that something had to be done about consumer controls with grid infrastructure in order to have a “Smart Grid”. This is how policymakers work when something must be done, they do things that are not always thought through clearly, completely, or with consideration of other possible solutions. The proverbial knee is jerked. The technology they knew existed was the smart meter and that is what they used. It remains the Achillies heel of the electrical grid.
Smart meters were not a terrible idea at the outset. They were available but other technologies exist now which exceed the abilities, capacity, and value to society of the smart meter. Yet utilities, regulators, grid operators, and policymakers are doubling down on a middle to late 20th Century technology and expecting it to be able to meet the demands of the 21st Century.
There is a better technology which can eclipse the ability of smart meters but US domestic utilities are afraid to embrace real innovation that would be immensely helpful to them. Proper innovations can easily solve considerable current problems for utilities and the customer and also make more income for utilities, so they can take care of all needs for grids and large bottom-line income.
Please think, what important system is only on or off? Eeverything should be able to be throttled yet our grids are not sadly!!
You will also create the ability to supply everyone with power when there are shortages of power instead of them being turned off and able to restore power when there is heavy load instead of turning off power to customers. This can be achieved all for the same or nearly the same cost we are spending today. I can count more than a hundred benefits to smart sound innovation.
Recently, Texas’ grid manager, the Electric Reliability Corporation of Texas or ERCOT stated they believe they will have enough power capacity to deal with a colder winter for Texas. Texas, as a southern state, is not really configured or funded to deal with winter storms. ERCOT has said Texans will be fine this winter. I hope so but as a realist and an engineer, I also know the vulnerabilities of the electric grid.
We are one moment away from people wishing they had invested in real product and sound secure innovation, and I am afraid this moment will follow a significant loss of life and property damage. If the grid fails as with Uri, people will come out of the woodwork and cast blame on anything, everything, and everybody instead of lack of real innovation, which is where blame needs to be placed. The damage from Uri was avoidable, I can assure everyone that is true but, without a more intelligent approach to innovation and recognition that good money has followed bad with weak links such as the Smart Meter, a future Uri will come again.
Stephen E. Williams is the Founder and President/CEO of CoolWaters Energy Technology.
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