People hear a lot about the decline of bees, about the lack of pollinators, but what are pollinators? more importantly, what do they do for us and what do we do for them?
The group of pollinators is very wide, not only honey bees, which belong to one specific family. In fact, in Spain we have more than 1,000 species of bees from six different families, 75% of bees are solitary and live on the ground and with more than 20,000 species of bees in the world they have evolved and are organised in many different ways.
Other pollinators are birds, mammals and reptiles because plants are very clever – they have been on earth for many millions of years longer than we have! And that results in greater evolution and adaptation. Plants have developed sophisticated methods of attraction to achieve their reproductive purposes because the pollen has to reach its destination! They use everything from lizards to flies and bats, not forgetting air and water, which also help in pollination.
But if there are so many means for pollination, why are pollinators, in particular bees, so important? Well, at least, in this case, size and shape matter! There are all kinds of insects, small, fat, long, with very long tongues, in short, many sizes! Just as there are many shapes and sizes of flowers and pollen grains because plants are very sybaritic.
Plants have evolved in such a way that each one has developed its own system, some of them very exclusive, to avoid pollen from other plants, that is why there are so many smells, to make a first selection of “be my guests!”; and many sizes, some bees have to stick out their proboscis or “tongue” up to 20mm to get to the food; some, like the passionflower, have very large stamen and pistils, and can only be pollinated by large bumblebees; others are complicated, like the snapdragon flower, where the bee has to get inside as if it were a cave; and others are smaller, likedaisies, which need a small insect and are therefore pollinated, for example, by small black and yellow striped flies, which are the hoverflies. The sunflower is a large daisy and therefore needs a larger pollinator such as the honey bee. There are thousands of families of bees of different sizes, ranging from 4-5 mm to 30-35 mm (honey bees measure between 15 and 20 mm).
Both flowers, sunflower and daisy, have large yellow or white “petals” around them (which are actually ligule) and a bunch of little yellow flowers in the centre from which the seeds come out (which in sunflowers we call pipas). Next time you pass by a park, pick up a daisy and look closely at the yellow part, they are all little flowers! With their stamens, stigmas and all the parts of a flower that we hardly remember from when we studied them at school!
Cut of solitary bee nest. Source: Luis Óscar Aguado
Colours are another attraction mechanism for pollinators to detect them from far away! With our eyesight, all colours look the same to us, but with their special vision, they see the colours of the flowers differently. In the end, plants have made insects and pollinators evolve as pollen carriers, and in return, they provide delicacies in the form of fruit, seeds, pollen, nectar, etc. As you can see, there are numerous mechanisms to attract the right pollinator, so if the population of one disappears in a short period of time, the plant cannot adapt and even less reproduce.
Bee laying an egg on a bamboo cane. Source: Maria González
Many pollinators obtain food rewards from plants, but they do not feed exclusively on them like reptiles or birds, but bees do, they depend exclusively on plants for food. Both their larvae and the adult insect feed on floral products such as nectar and pollen. And as we have seen, not all flowers feed all pollinators.
So how can we help pollinators?
We can build them a shelter, depending on the family of bees they have different forms of housing or social grouping. Some build galleries in the ground where they live, so placing a pot in the window is enough; others in holes in logs or pieces of wood, even shells!. So a simple and space-saving way is to put up a hotel for solitary bees. It is very simple, consisting of a bundle of cut bamboo canes or a piece of wood with holes of different diameters between 5-25 mm, with a base, that is, that does not go through the wood and without cracks, as these are possible entrances for parasites and predators. There the bees will lay their eggs, which they will leave with the nectar or pollen collected and cover it up, and after a year the new bees will leave and go and look for another hole. So there is no danger of being stung. Bees don’t live there, they just lay their eggs, they are solitary, they don’t form hives, they don’t form communities, they sleep on flowers and branches.
Solitary bees don’t sting! Well yes, but not like honey bees, I mean, many bees die when they sting you, solitary bees do not form communities, as they do not have to defend it, they are not aggressive, they do not attack, they do not sting, this makes it a good idea to install this type of shelters in schools, children can get close and see how many holes are plugged, and count the bees they have helped.
Also, these bees only collect food for their own food and larvae, so they don’t need to collect so much, others need food to raise all their offspring, and others need food for the whole colony and humans, so if you disturb them with your hand, most of them leave, they don’t want trouble, attacking you costs them their lives, but others are more insistent because they need a lot of food and the closer you are to the hive, like the honey bees, the more aggressive they can become and attack.
Bee hotel with two holes fulfill located in CARTIF. Photo: María González.
This is why there are special regulations for keeping beehives, which are considered a type of livestock farming (beekeeping or honey farming) and have to comply with requirements regarding distances to populations, etc. It even has to respect the distance between them, since, if there is little food, it attacks other pollinators, such as solitary bees, as they are competing for food.
It is also important to have flowers all year round, for them and for us, there are many native plants with different flowering periods so that they have food all year round, in different sizes for bees of all sizes.
How do they help us? The best-known part of the work of pollinators is that of pollination. 80% of plants depend on them, and many of them are responsible for providing us with food. 75% of crops currently need pollination, and this includes the crops needed to feed livestock, so the production of livestock by-products also depends on them.
Pollinators module, module with flowers during all the year located in CARTIF. Source: María González
Pollinators are therefore our allies, and it is thanks to them that a large part of natural and urban plant communities and our food is maintained. Climate change, pesticides, agricultural intensification, the continuous clearing and mowing of parks and fields, including the proliferation of beehives, are causing their population to decline rapidly. Moreover, we still have a lot to learn about them, so it is very necessary to help them consciously and rationally, and not only at the level of experts, but also at the social level, all of us can help their conservation, taking care of pollinators and cultivating more flowers around us, since without flowers there are no pollinators and vice versa.
Bibliography: Curro Molina & Ignasi Bartomeus. 2019. Guía de campo de las abejas de España. Esditorial Tundra, Castellón. 250pp. 19’5 x 12’5 cm. ISBN 978-84-16702-77-0.
Although sometimes we forget it, forests provides huge benefits to the planet in general and to the human being in particular. They help us to mitigate climate change effects acting as carbon sinks and eliminating huge quantities of carbon dioxide of the atmosphere. The forests nourish the ground and serve as a natural barrier against ground erosion, ground movements, floods, avalanches and strong winds. Forests host more than three quarters of global terrestrialbiodiversity, and represents a source of food, medicines and fuel for more than one thousand million people.
But forests are seriously threatened by deforestation, climate change and fires. The advance of the agricultural frontier and the unsustainable logging causes 13 million hectares of forest to be lost every year. Climate change is allowing that plants and invasive insects species have advantages over the native species increasing their negative effects. It also exists a direct relationship between fires, deforestation and pandemics: the destruction of forests, specially the tropical ones such as the Amazonia, Indonesia or the Congo, makes possible that human beings get in touch with wildlife populations carriers of pathogens.
With regard to forest fires it has been noted that fires are becoming less frequent, but more destructive. Some of them, the most terrible, are the called “sixth generation fires“, and are ravaging the forests of the planet. This type of fires can´ t be fight and also they have the capacity to modificate the metheorology of the place where the fire is located. Against this type of fires it only works a defensive strategy, trying to direct it to non-populated areas and hope that the rain will help to control it. Not even areas that have hardly had any fires are not spared from this tragedy: 5.5 millions of hectares have burned in the Artic Circle in recent years. The Artic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and, as a result, high intensity fires are starting.
It is clear that is fundamental to prevent fires and for that reason it is necessary to consider strategies that allows reducing forests vulnerability. Having a look at our nearer context, the European Unionforest strategy promotes the forest sustainable and respectful management with climate and biodiversity, intensifying the surveillance of forests and giving a more specific support to silvicultures. Becomes evident that is needed a better forestry management with emphasis in the protection and sustainable regeneration. However, we have a steady decline in forest mass as the “reforestation” process cannot compete with the deforestation rate in Europe. Furthermore, in Europe, data shows a large increase in forestry exploitation in recent years, which reducing the continent´ s CO2 absorption capacity and possibly indicating wider problems with the EU´ s attempts to fight agains climate crisis. Another paradox regarding forests within the EU is that a large part of them are privately owned by timber companies. As a result, the regular logging of these forests, coupled with the private nature of their ownership, makes public awareness and greenning even more difficult to achieve. Biomass loss from 2016 to 2018, in compared to the period from 2011-2015, has increased by 69%, according to the satellite data.
Spain, as it occurs to all the countries of the mediterranean area, is specially vulnerable to fires, given the scenario of drought and desertification, accelerated by the climate change. In Spain we have a large experience putting out forest fires: we collaborate in a international level and we achieve the extinction of 65% of fires in their outbreak phase (less than 1 hectare), although this sometimes produces the effect called “the extinction paradox” (which means that we lose the opportunity for small fires to clear undergrowth and thus encourage large and dangerous accumulations of fuel. In Spain 1,000 million euros per year are destiny to fire extinction, however, only 300 millions euros to their prevention.
The extinction is necessary and positive but isn´ t enough, it is necessary to invest in other measures (prevention, detection and recovering) that allows facing forest fires from a more wide and complete perspective. In this sense is very important to take advantage of new tools that offers recent technologies and scientific advances.
For example, the use of images obtained with drones and satellites and sensor grids joint with artificial intelligence techniques allows to detect fires faster and more accurately and is already underway several research projects in various countries: Bulgary, Greece, Portugal, Lebanon, Korea and much others. Even there are challenges planned for the European Spacial Agency for using satellite images and artificial intelligence in the detection of fires and other similar challenges of the NASA, H20.ai and Cellnex. Another interesting initiative is ALERTWildfire, a consortium of several northamerican universities that provides cameras and tools against fires to discover, locate and monitor forest fires. There are also commercial systems to detect forest fires, such as this one of Chile, that use Artificial Intelligence and several types of sensors or this one of Portugal.
Already in Spain, the Ecology Transition and Agriculture ministries have developed Arbaria project able to “predict” with a considerable hit rate where fires will break out.
Looking for a global approach in the prevention and management of fires the european project DRYADS have been launched, in which participates CARTIF. This project has as an objective the development of a fire management holistic platform based in the optimization and reuse of last generation socio-technologic resources. These techniques will be applied in the three main phases of forest fires:
In the prevention phase, DRYADS proposes the use of a real-time risk assessment tool that can receive multiple ranking inputs and work with a new risk factor indicator driven by a neuronal network. To create a community model adapted to fire, in parallel to the previous activity, DRYADS will use construction materials activated by alcali that integrates post-fires wood ashes for buildings and infrastructures resistant to fire. DRYADS will also use a variety of technological solutions, such as the Copernicus european satellite infrastructure and swarms of drone for a precise forest supervision.
In the detection phase, DRYADS proposes several technology tools that can be adapted to much of the needs of the project: use of virtual reality for the training, portable devices for the emergency services protection team, vehicles without driver -UAV (drones), UAG and aircrafts- to improve the capacity of temporary and spacial analysis, as well as to increase the coverage of the inspected area.
Finally, DRYADS will construct a new forestry restoration initiative based in modern techniques, such as agrosilviculture, drones for spreading seeds, IoT sensors that can adapt the seeding process in function of the ground needs and at the same time with the help of the AI to determine the risk factors after the fire.
The results of DRYADS project will be demonstrated and validated in real conditions in several forestry spaces of Spain, Norway, Italy, Rumany, Austria, Germany, Greece and Taiwan.
To sum up and as a conclusion, to fight against the forestry fires we have not only to focus in their extinction but also in a good sustainable management of the forest based in the prevention and introduction of modern techniques is essential to reinforce their resilience, the utilisation of the resources and their recovery capacity. This will lead to new opportunities for the rural environment, the biodiversity conservation and the fight against climate change. Let us hope that for once a time trees let us see the forest and we could avoid their destruction.
It is undeniable that the coming decades will be crucial for both the society and the Earth´ s environmental health, so it will be determined if our Planet is able or not to support all the world population. Nowadays, it seems that the situation is more than complicated, and it is becoming worse day by day.
Taking into account this situation, the creation of new policies focused on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is more than needed, fizing a set of clear objectives from now to 2050. In this sense, the main objective of the Estrategia de Descarbonización a Largo Plazo (ELP 2050) created by the Spanish Government calls for a 905 reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in relation to 1990, considering that the other 10% will be absorbed by carbon sinks.
Sustainable mobility plays a very important role within all the objectives defined in the aforementiones ELP 2050, so it will be essential to work together to try to change the way we move (specially travelling to and from work). Encouraging the use of electric vehicles and alternative means of transport will be key of achieving a much more sustainable mobility, and it will be also necessary to inform the citizens (e.g. the employees) using the proper information and reasons to do so.
The number of transit journeys on working days surpassed 123 million in 2007, according to the Mobility Survey of the People Resident in Spain of Movilia. Approximately 83% of the Spanish population carries out at least one journey each working day and more than a 16% of these journeys were to go to the workplace. Considering the aforementiones data coming from Movilia (please, note that Movilia does not consider the latests crisis and COVID19 effects due tot he fact that the study was done before), the number ofin itinere transit journeys in 2006-07 was around 37 million out of a total of 123 million (so, around a third), and around a 63% of these in itinere transit journeys were made by private vehicle as indicated in the E-Cosmos project.
As it has been detailed before, in Spain, the labor mobility has a very important influence on collective mobility, according to data from the Observatory of Logistic and Transport in Spain, having a big environmental, social and economic impact specially when those journeys are done by private vehicle.
Additionally, using the private vehicle to go to work is a very important health hazard. In Spain, traffic accidents have become the primary cause of death for accidents at work (around an 11,6% of the accidents at work were related toin itinere traffic accidents according to the Job, Migrations and Social Security Ministery, Spain Government. The amount of sleep time loss to try to avoid traffic jams, the stress caused by driving in peak hours or by being thinking and thinking about being late increases a lot the risk of traffic accident.
To solve these issues, a very good collaboration between companies, public entities and mobility providers (among others) is extremely needed. The establishment of frameworks of collaboration between the aforementioned entities will make possible the creation of real and effective employee´ s sustainable mobility plans taking into account employee´ s needs. These sustainable mobility plans will lead to real and fruitful interventions focused on reducing the amount of in itinere transit journeys done by private car.
Given the great need of encouraging sustainable mobility, from CARTIF we are collaborating with multiple entities with the main aim of developing real sustainable mobility plans. In this sense, we are working with some enterprises (and with all the involved stakeholders) in order to make more sustainable the in itinere transit journeys of their employees.
It is responsibility of everyone to try to take the leap and to actively contribute to Planet decarbonization, so… let´ s fight all together to make an effort to not continue damaging our planet in order to let the new generations to develop themselves in the same (or better) conditions than us.
CARTIF has the know-how to accompany the institutions in thei path to contribute to pur planet decarbonization, and not only concerning sustainable mobility plans, but also in a lot of other actiones that can be carried out in this sense. It´ s now or never.
Climate change is an increasingly visible reality on our planet, affecting millions of people around the world. These changes in climate are clearly recognizable by the increase in temperatures, the decrease in water resources, the sea level rise or the increasingly irregular and torrential precipitation events. The consequences, effects and impacts of these changes in the weather are becoming more frequent and relevant every day, inducing damages of great magnitude and generating a displacement of the population by making the areas in which they lived uninhabitable, with examples such as extreme droughts, floods or desertification. In our day to day, we can see how these changes in the climate manifest themselves. A clear example is the winter that has just started with softer than normal average temperatures and unusual high maximum temperatures for the period of the year.
In this context of climate change, the thermometer continues to break records of increase and it is estimated that in Spain the average temperatures are increasing around 0.3ºC per decade, which gives us an idea of the high rate o warming to whom our country is being subjected and the planet in general. In addition, it must be taken into account that although we manage to reduce the emissions that generate climate change by trying to avoid the consequences it produces, the change trends reflected in the climate variables will continue in the coming decades due to the inertia of the climate system. Faced with such a negative outlok, it is necessary to ask ourselves the following question: how can we contribute to mitigate and reduce the impacts of climate change or adapt to them by generating more resilient territories?
To help us in this fight, mitigation and adaptation strategies are of huge relevance. Mitigation strategies seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, which are ultimately the food of anthropogenic climate change. For their part, adaptation strategies seek to limit the risks derived from climate change, reducing our vulnerabilities. Both strategies are complementary in such a way that, if we do not take mitigation into account, the capacity for adaptation can easily be overwhelmed and developing an adaptation that is not low in emissions is meaningless.
But, what can we do as citizens? We can contribute with small measures such as recycling, the use of public transport or bikes, local commerce that minimizes transport, ecological and sustainable products, all of them helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, adaptation requires great responses that generally must be promoted by the public administrations or organizations that are in charge of land management. Therefore, we must not overlook that the fight against climate change must be an effort of all (citizens, administrations, companies,etc.) integrating as many agents as possible and covering a multisectorial and systemic approach that not lose the social perspective of the problem.
Under this climate change perspective and to promote adaptation, the European Union has launched the Climate Change Adaptation Mission that aims to promote and support the transition towards resilience in Europe at the individual level, cities and regions, both in the private and public sectors as economy, energy, society, etc. Its main objective is to support at least 150 European regions and communities towards climate resilience by 2030. To this end, the mission will help regions and communities to better understand, prepare for and manage their climate risks, seek opportunties, as well as facilitate the implementation of innovative and resilient solutions providing information on the different additional sources of investment.
In a complementary way and to respond to the adaptation needs generated by changes in the climate, it is necessary to provide the entities with a common framework that guarantees a homogeneity of criteria in the conception of climate change. In this sense, the public action against climate change in Spain is coordinated and organized through the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC), which establishes the framework of reference and national coordination for impact assessment initiatives and activities, vulnerability and adaptation. Its main objective is to avoid or reduce present and future damages derived and to build a more resilient economy and society.
This plan that covers the needs at national level establishing the starting point for the development of more detailed strategies at regional or municipal level helping the territories in the acievement of their objectives through the implementation of priority lines of action against the impacts caused by climate change. As a starting point for any adaptation strategy, it is necessary to know in detail how the current and future climate variables (temperature, precipitation, wind, etc.) will be like in order to be able to assess the vulnerability of our territory and promote measures that make it more resilient to climate impacts. As a starting point, the AdapteCCa climate scenario viewer developed by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAMA) in coordination with the Spanish Office for Climate Change (OECC) and the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET) together with the IPCC Interactive Atlas, provide us with relevant data to understand the future climate through different climate projections. All the information they collect allows to obtain an idea of the magnitude of the changes in the future climate to establish the baseline for the evaluation of vulnerability and risk, as well as for the definition of measures for each priority sector identified in each territory. Finally, the implementation of the identified and selected measures must be associated with a monitoring and a follow-up system that enables the achievement of the proposed adaptation objectives to be evaluated.
At CARTIF, we work to help the different public administrations in the development of adaptation plans and strategies in the face of climate change. We must highlight the projects in which we recently work together with GEOCYL Conultoría S.L. in the development of adaptation strategies to climate change for the municipality of Valladolid (EACC_Val project) and the region of Extremadura (EACC_Extremadura project), respectively.
In addition, the RethinkAction project, coordinated by CARTIF will allow us to advance over the effects generated by adaptation and mitigation measures through the development of integrated assessment models that allow the evaluation before implementation of measures in relevant climatic regions of Europe.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Smart Devices, terms that we are constantly bombarded with in the media, making us believe that these technologies are capable of doing anything and solving any problem we face. Nothing is further from reality!!
According to the European Commission, “Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are software (and possibly also hardware) systems designed by humans that, given a complex goal, act in the physical or digital dimension by perceiving their environment through data acquisition, interpreting the collected structured or unstructured data, reasoning on the knowledge, or processing the information, derived from this data and deciding the best action(s) to take to achieve the given goal.”1.
AI encompasses multiple approaches and techniques, among others machine learning, machine reasoning and robotics. Within them we will focus our reflection on machine learning from data, and more specifically on Intelligent Data Analysis aimed at extracting information and knowledge to make decisions. Those data (historical or streaming) that are stored by companies over time and that are often not put into value. Those data that reflect the reality of a specific activity and that will allow us to create statistical and mathematical models (in the form of rules and/or algorithms) that contain information about what reality is. Then, how to “cook” the data to obtain relevant information? What are the main actors involved? First the data, which will be our “ingredients”; second the algorithms capable of processing these data, which will be our “recipes”; third computer scientists and mathematicians, who will be the “chefs” capable of correctly mixing data and algorithms; and forth the domain experts, who will be our private “tasters” and whose task will be to validate the results obtained.
First one the data. Those data from which we want extract information in order to generate models or make predictions. Through a continuous learning process of trial and error, based on analysing how things were in the past, what trends there were, what patterns were repeated,etc. we can build models and make predictions that will be as “good” as data are. It is not a question of quantity, but of quality data. What does that mean exactly? It means that if we want to teach an AI system to multiply (giving it examples of correct multiplications) the system will know how to do that task (multiply) but it will never know how to subtract or divide. And if we give it ‘wrong’ examples (3*2=9 instead of 3*2=6) the system will learn to multiply, but in the wrong way. Therefore, as fundamental ingredient of our recipe, data must be well organized, be relevant and quality
On the other hand, the AI algorithms. Our “recipes” that tell us how to mix the “ingredients” correctly, how to use the available data to try to solve our problem. Algorithms that allow us to build computer systems that simulate human intelligence when automating tasks. However, not all algorithms can be used to solve any type of problem. On the “inside” of these algorithms there are mainly mathematical and statistical formulas proposed decades ago, and whose principles have advanced little in recent years, but which are now more effective thanks to (1) the increase in the amount of data and (2) the increase in power computer calculation (which is allowing much more complex calculations in less time and at low cost). However, skills such as intuition, creativity or consciousness are human abilities that (for now) we have not been able to transfer to a machine effectively. Therefore, our “chefs” and our “tasters” will be in charge of contributing these human factors in our particular”kitchen”.
That is why not all problems can be solved using AI. Because neither data are capable of “speaking” by themselves (they are not “carriers” of the absolute truth) nor are algorithms “seers” capable of guessing the unpredictable. What data and algorithms really know how to do is answer the questions we ask them based on the past, as long as the questions asked are the right ones. After the failure of a machine, how is the data provided by the sensors that monitor the machine mathematically related to the failure produced? When an image is analysed, how similar is it to images that have been previously analysed? When a question is asked of a virtual assistant, what answer has been given (by humans) more frequently in the past to that same question? It is therefore about questioning the data in the correct way so that they reveal the information we want.
Over the last century, AI has survived several technological ‘winters’ with lack of funding and research, mainly caused by the uncontrolled enthusiasm put into technology in the previous years2. It´ s time to “learn” from our hisorical data and not make the same mistakes again. Let´ s acknowledge AI for the capabilities it really has, and leave to wizards the ability to make the impossible come true. Only in this way AI will enter in its perpetual spring.
The energy sector is undergoing a deep transformation to respond to the need to combat climate change and thus contribute to the sustainability of life onour planet. This is being articulated through the so-called “Energy Transition”, which involves two big transformations in the electricity grid. On the one hand, traditional centralised generation is being replaced by an increasing number of distributed renewable generation plants located closer to the final consumer. In addition, the number of “self-consumers”, i.e. consumers capable of producing renewable energy, mainly photovoltaic, for their own use, is increasing. Secondly, we are witnessing a growth in the demand for electricity, with new needs such as electric vehicles and the air-conditioning of buildings.
All this results ingreater complexity of the electricity grid, especially the distribution grid, but also the transmision grid, because the flow of electricity is no longer unidirectional, but bidirectional. A more flexible management system is essential to make the transmission and distribution of electricity more efficient. Grid operators also need new technologies and tools to ensure a reliable and high quality service. These changes, which are already part of the present, are made possible by the evolution of traditional electricity grids towards smart grids.
The smart grid concept refers to a new feature of the electricity grid: in addition to transporting energy, it also transports data. To achieve this, digital technologies are needed to facilitate two-way communication between the user and the grid, IT and home automation tools to manage demand flexibility and distributed generation and storage resources, as well as the necessary technology and equipment capable of responding to volatile renewable generation.
One of the threats to guaranteeing an adequate and quality supply to the different players in the medium and low voltage network is faults. It is necessary to have the necessary means to locate them quicklly, givinig continuity of supply after a reconfiguration of the network, provided that this is useful to alleviate the effects of the fault, in the shortest possible time.
There are two indices for measuring the quality of supply in an electricity system: SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) and SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index). The SAIFI index takes into account the number of unavailabilities per user, while the SAIDI index takes into account the cumulative time of unavailability. These unavailabilities are generated as a result of various types of faults, the most frequent of which are earth and phase faults, the former being the most frequent.
When an earth fault occurs in a medium-voltage distribution network, the circuit breaker of one of the outlets of the high-voltage to medium-voltage transformer station shall trip by menas of the earth fault protection.
Subsequently, and in order to rule out that the fault is transient, the reclosing function shall operate, closing the circuit breaker. If the fault persists, tripping shall be repeated until the number of reclosings provided has been exhausted. If the fault is permanent, the affected part of the network will be out of service and it will be necessary to locate the fault and reconfigure the network in order to continue providing service to as many users as possible.
Traditionally, follwing the detection of a permanent fault by the telecontrol equipment, it is possible to carry out a remote reconfiguration operation from the control centre. This operation is carried out by an operator, following a defined protocol,and can take several minutes at best.
A modern, automated network will allow this protocol to be carried out without operator intervention, automatically between the telecontrol equipment. This network feature is known as self-healing, and allows the network to reconfigureitself autonomously in the event of a permanent fault, without the manual intervention of the control center. This significantly speeds up the time it takes to restore the power supply.
CARTIF has developed, within the framework of the INTERPRETER project (H2020, GA#864360), an assistance tool aimed at medium and low voltage grid operators. This tool, known as GCOSH-TOOL, helps to evaluate different scenarios by applying diferrent action protocols in the event of the appereance of one or more faults in the network. Its operation is based on proposing a seqeunce of optimisation problems with different constraints and objective functions, which allows the power to be delivered to each customer to be calculated, ensuring that the demand is met. To do this, a reconfiguration of the grid will be necessary to ensure electricity supply to the largest possible number of users in the scenario chosen by the operator based on technical and economic objectives.
The smart grids of the future will be more flexible and reliable than traditonal grids and will provide a higher quality of electricity supply to users. They will be connected in real time, receiving and providing information that will allow them to optimise their own electricity consumption and improve the operation of the overall system (active demand management). On the other hand, the trend towards distributed generation from renewable sources leads to a structure in the form of interconnected microgrids that will have the capacity to automatically reconfigure themselves in the event of any breakdown. The rapid evolution of technology is allowing these changes to take place very quickly, so that the so-called energy transition is becoming a reality, and we already have the infrastructure in place to reduce CO2 emissions, thus helping to curb climate change.
