Next up, "A Brilliant Energy Grid for North America." Geek heaven!
Here's the line-up:
- California Energy Commission, Merwin Brown, Director of Transmission Research, PIER (moderator)
- Modern Grid Initiative, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Steve Pullins, Team Leader,
- Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Clark Gellings, VP of Technology Innovation
- IBM, Ron Ambrosio, Global Research Leader -- Energy & Utilities
- Itron, Mike Burns, Senior Product Manager, AMI Applications
What's wrong with the grid?
Gellings: Load is growing about twice as fast as transmission capacity, and has been for over 10 years. Lots of congestion. We've modernized virtually every industry in the U.S. except this one -- it's mechanically controlled, no sensor, no information technology, no digitization. It can't heal itself. We get info about problems too late. And that's just the beginning.
Ambrosio: Utilities are the last to digitize. IBM is eager to take on this computational problem.
Pullins: At the transmission level, on 60% of the network has SCATA, and only 2% of distribution. The grid is operating at the speed of light, but mechanically, with no sophisticated control.
Gellings: Only 7.5% of feeders have tight voltage control. We could save 1% of the nation's electricity by improving that.
Burns: The reason we want to improve all these statistics is for consumers. They need more reliability and better price mechanisms.
What's changed that grid improvements are possible now?
Gellings: Don't things work relatively well? No. The problems are hidden but pervasive. Why spend all the money to improve it? This stuff costs consumers $180 billion a year, but those costs are diffused and hidden. Just now we're seeing dialogue between utilities and regulators about improvements. It would cost about $600 billion to fix it.
Pullins: No, it would cost $0. We already have plans in place to spend over $900 billion on this stuff. We just need to redirect that money.
What is a smart grid?
Pullins: We (modern grid initiative) began in 2004; started with systems analysis. We found seven smart grid characteristics:
- motivate and incorporate consumer: a) utilize assets consumer has, mainly load assets, occasionally generation assets, b) engage consumers in conservation and efficiency efforts
- accommodate wide variety of generation and storage
- accommodate competitive markets
- resist attack
- match power quality to needs
- optimize assets
- self-healing
All the true innovation in the grid is on the margins, with consumer electronics and such, not happening from federal or utility research dollars. We're at a point where our infrastructure is becoming less and less relevant to the electric service the consumer base expects to have.
Ambrosio: Yes, things are happening at the edge, out in operations. There's an analogy with the computer industry. There was a thought in the '80s, '90s that everything was going to be distributed to the desktop. But no: high-performance central computing stayed around, it just became much more sophisticated and integrated with distributed computation. The model changed.
So, we need more processing and analysis in the poles, on the edge, just like distributed programming.
Gellings: Explaining "Galvin." He wanted perfect power that would not fail. People studied it. And ... he completely lost me.
What's the future of the interface between consumers and utilities? (Currently, it's a dumb, electromechanical meter.)
Burns: Smart metering is just about knowing more about what your customers want and need. Smart metering will allow utilities to measure consumption at an almost minute-by-minute basis. You start to understand what customers are really doing.
Smart meters not only communicate back and forth to utilities, they extend into the home, providing information to consumers about their real-time consumption. Smart meters mean smart consumers.
How do you lower emissions?
Gellings: Get more efficient. You need at least 7GW of renewables. You need nuclear and clean coal with CCS. You need plug-in hybrids.
Pullins: Right now we've got single-digit penetration of renewables. Germany, Austria, and Spain are about 13%, with a traditional grid. Denmark, with a smarter microgrid approach, is up to 32%. So that's how you enable renewables penetration: smart grid. You also get energy security, you get lower rates, and you get tons of unanticipated benefits.
Do we need nuclear and coal plants for baseload power?
Obama launches climate push with December goal
Comments
View as Flat
Sean Casten Posted 4:57 am
18 Sep 2007
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David Roberts Posted 5:03 am
18 Sep 2007
grist.org
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:04 am
18 Sep 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:16 am
18 Sep 2007
Building a smarter grid is stupid -- it's just building a better prison.
The effort is to get off the grid.
As a child, my perfect life would include achieving photosynthesis in my body. I wouldn't have to work or make money then, and could just go outside to "eat".
Grids imply dependence (or, even worse, co-dependence).
John Bailo
Sutext:
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amazingdrx Posted 5:23 am
18 Sep 2007
It's happening. A solid oxide fuel cell backed up distributed generation and storage smart grid.
Half the GHG of normal natural gas generation with fuel cell/turbine at 70% efficiency. Vast reduction in GHG from manure and fertilizer runnoff too. These systems run on biogas from waste digestors. that produce organic fertilizer and soil amendment as a byproduct.
Best backup for a renewable wind and solar grid. The vast coal reserves converted to natural gas by natural bacteria underground is the ultimate backup fuel reserve if biogas supplies and renewables run short. No more coal nmining.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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biggav Posted 9:36 pm
19 Sep 2007
If you don't trust the network, be a net generator of energy - then the network will (a) pay you some money for the service you provide, and (b) be a backup in case your own systems fail.
A well implemented smart grid would allow everyone to compete (or cooperate, depending on how you view the world) in the power supply industry.
Think of it as the best of both worlds instead of as a prison...
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Sean Casten Posted 11:17 pm
19 Sep 2007
Fundamentally, my annoyance over this issue is that it is a utility PR boondoggle. Not that new tech isn't helpful, but that independent of regulatory reform, it isn't sufficient.
Case in point: lots of the smart grid folks talk about how great this would be for renewables & plug in hybrids because then we could build a grid designed for two-way flow, send real time price information, etc. etc. All wonderful, all true. But under the current regulatory regime, that would all be illegal. Every state in the country brands you a felon if you try to build your own wire to sell cheap power to your neighbor. 13 states prevent anyone but the utility from selling any kWh. If those advocating the smart grid really want to prepare for a world with clean local energy and bidirectional flow, they ought to advocate for fixing those regs - since if they don't, the smart grid is just an expensive change that still doesn't allow the benefits they articulate.
On the other hand, if the utilities can throw money at R&D and get it in the rate base, they can earn more money while they do nothing. Call me cynical, but until I see the utility that stands up and says "change the rules so that I am no longer penalized for doing the right thing", I remain extremely distrustful that this sort of PR is as benignly motivated as it first appears.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:20 am
20 Sep 2007
Power is distributed into the grid from each self sufficient island. Someday renewable energy can do that. There is enough roofspace on many buildings to produce enough power for several other super efficient buildings.
The surplus can be used to recharge plugin vehicles and clean up pollution.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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