Guest Speaker: Keith Bell
Dr. Bell graduated from the University of Bath with a BEng (Hons.) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1990 and, after a spell as a community worker, a PhD in 1995. After working with Ansaldo Trasporti in Italy and as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester, he spent 7 years as a power sys... Profile
Discussion - June 2010
Renewable energies are of growing importance, but shouldn’t we be re-modelling our electricity grids, too?
38 Comments from our contributors
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Head of Business Analytics
News International
said: On 01/06/2010
Electricity grids are currently used at a national level (in the UK) to distribute electricity from generation points near to the points of consumption and allow some balancing between demand and supply. Then, they aim to deliver a safe, constant and consistent supply to the end user according to their terms of contract.
There are communities who would jump at the opportunity to have such a supply of relatively low cost, consistent energy and it is easy for us (in the developed world) to forget how difficult life was before the current infrastructure was developed. However, like so many other aspects of ‘western’ life we now take the benefits of these infrastructures for granted (including roads, rail, water, sewage, waste disposal etc) for granted, effectively commoditising their results.
In my opinion, future infrastructure systems should be developed participatively so that users benefit from the resilience, safety and consistency they provide but also have the possibility of contributing to them and accept some responsibility for their management and consequences.
In the case of an electricity grid, it should be a right for those so inclined to be able to contribute generation input at a fair price under an implementation regime designed to encourage their participation rather than avoid it. The fair price should reflect the investment made by the contributor in producing sustainable energy where applicable.
Another means of de-commoditising the generation of energy (so encouraging uptake of RE supplies) is to make energy generation a local requirement. As I have said previously, communities will find and be more accepting of methods of generation appropriate to their geography if they know they cannot pass on or buy their way out of the problem. Differential pricing between locally produced energy versus ‘bought in’ power or, local tax penalties for bought in supply that are used to incentivise net supply communities would also encourage innovation and acceptance.
It can be argued that the UK has a deregulated, competitive market but, in reality, we have a legacy one-way grid and suppliers who compete to attract retail customers through service bundling which serves to further commoditise the product.
I would welcome the opportunity to become a local generator and sell sustainable power to my neighbours but like any community project, the hurdles are very high.
An intelligent two-way grid with precise unit monitoring (effective smart metering) and an effectuive framework of particpation is needed to facilitate the next generation of ‘participative infrastructure’.
Next waste disposal…
Chief Operating Officer
FS International FZCO
said: On 01/06/2010
Yes, fundamentally the grid and the fuels and technologies that power it were designed to centrally distribute power everywhere. As our demand for grid power has grown so have the generators and substations, and the distances to which power must be transmitted. It’s terribly inefficient. Even with unprecedented growth in wind and solar, when fed through the grid on a utility scale, they are still dwarfed by mainstream coal, gas, and nuclear generating sources. Although there is a movement to make the grid more efficient (smart grid, peak generation, grid balancing technologies, etc.) Is this really where our resources should go? Of course utilities affirm smart-grid research as a way to reinforce investment in the capital spent on their existing infrastructure.
I think any renewable strategy has to involve distributed generation, thereby reducing reliance on centrally-based dirty generation. Distributed generation means that generation takes place at or near the point of consumption. Mid-sized wind turbines and roof-top solar, backed by Metal Oxide cell arrays, could power or reduce grid consumption at small nodes of consumption, such as community centers, commercial operations, or neighbourhoods. This makes the traditional grid assets under perform in terms of how much revenue they can generate, thereby forcing an eventual switch over to environmentally sustainable sources of power. The grid itself is only tyrannical if consumption has no alternative.
Board of Directors
Sustainable Business Network of Washington
said: On 01/06/2010
If we are to meet the ever increasing electricity demands of the growing world population, we must rethink our energy mix, generation and distribution systems.
Regardless of how power is produced, failing to maximize efficiency of our power grids is both environmentally and economically wasteful – and therefore not sustainable. Transmitting electricity that is generated by clean and renewable means into a system that is inefficient and wasteful will require the building of additional generation capacity to compensate for that waste, increasing even a minimal environmental footprint.
A true ’smart’ system is one that has renewable energy as input as well as integrates real-time monitoring, increases the efficiency of transmission and allows for consumers to ‘time-shift’ their energy use to times of lower demand.
We must also review the portfolio of our overall energy mix, using the most efficient systems to meet differing needs. For example, natural gas is vastly more efficient (approximately 90 percent) than electricity when it comes to heating. Conversely, electricity is the natural choice for lighting.
Vice President Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs
Vattenfall
said: On 01/06/2010
Introduction
EU’s renewables, RES, target of 20% in 2020 will actually mean 30-35% for electricity. Most of the investments will come from wind power, but biomass and solar can also play a role.
When wind power is going to play a role in Europe’s electricity supply, it will not be small scale spread over the whole geographic area. It will be built very large wind farms, onshore and offshore, and consequently there will be a strong geographic concentration to certain areas. These areas have in common, not just the offshore, that electricity consumption is very low since very few people live there. This fact results in a need for dramatic increase of transmission capacity to transport the power to load centres.
The existing transmission system in Europe was built based on generation located close to consumption. When large RES generation capacities now will be located far away from consumptions it should be easy to understand that we need a re-modelling of our transmission system. Without increased transmission capacity we will see reductions in trade hampering European market integration. In the worst case the European Internal Market for electricity can be at danger.
Why is wind different?
It is no surprise to anyone that the wind is not always blowing and that the variations in wind speed can be both large and rapid. Experience has also shown that it is very difficult to predict the wind, at least in the day-ahead time frame making it an intermittent generation source. From Spain and Germany with already high wind power penetration we can learn that in practical terms every MW of wind capacity requires one IMW of backup firm capacity to ensure 90% availability. Thus, wind generation replaces fuels but the need for firm capacity remains.
Given the coming high concentration of wind power in certain areas of Europe we will need both integration of markets and huge grid investments to handle the situation. We can call market integration “the software solution” and grid investments “the hardware solution”.
The Software Solution
Since wind generation will be uneven spread over Europe while flexible generation is more dispersed, hydro in Nordic and in the Alps and gas in Continental Europe and UK, integration of markets is a tool to reduce the costs for society.
Although in the day-ahead time frame wind forecasts are rather inaccurate, market coupling is the best tool to allocate cross border capacity. Therefore day-ahead price coupling must come in place as soon as possible. But to cope with errors from the day-ahead, continuous intraday trade via a central order book function should facilitate the necessary co-ordination of all flexible generation. And finally, TSO to TSO integrated balancing systems with a common merit order will fine tune the positions in the most efficient way. In other words, with large wind penetration it will be very costly for a country to try to solve the market design nationally.
The Hardware Solution
It should be easy to understand that if you build 20 000 MW wind power in an area with balance in supply and demand it will be economic from a socioeconomic point of view to build more transmission capacity out of the area. Denmark is often taken as an example that high wind penetration is possible without problems, but remember that Denmark is the country in Europe with the highest share of interconnection capacity including strong interconnection to the Nordic hydro system.
The European TSOs association ENTSO-E have just presented their first European 10 year grid plan. A truly European grid plan is a necessity since the grids can no more be planned from a national perspective. We need an European or, at least, regional grid planning. However, in the first plan ENTSO has not included RES to the extent that countries fulfil their RES targets. With that assumption we will end up with a grid unable to take care of all RES in Europe. The question is what can be done now? 2020 is not far away in transmission planning/investments time frame. Will we have the required grid in place 2020 or will member states have to cut or delay RES investments to maintain system security? In many countries there is a positive discussion going on how to shorten licensing of new wind projects. But we don’t see much of a parallel shortening of licensing for transmission lines. Can it be so that politicians have not understood the dramatic need of new transmission capacity to make the RES targets possible to achieve? The first ENTSO 10 year plan could have been such an eye opener. Unfortunately it seems more interesting to talk about a North Sea Supergrid or a Desertec project in Sahara. But the power from the North Sea or Sahara shall not just be transported to the shore or the shore in Southern Europe. The power must be transported to the load centres of Europe. So if governments can not give licence to thousands of kilometres 400 kV lines we need to discuss an onshore Supergrid urgently. Such a high voltage DC grid will require less space in the environment and could then be easier to license. However, some important technical development is needed to make it possible.
Conclusion
The RES targets are an important part in Europe’s Climate Change Strategy and Energy Action Plans. Due to the intermittent nature of wind power a number of actions must be taken now to make the 2020 targets possible to reach.
• The Software: European markets must over the next 1-2 years be integrated in all time frames. Firm Financial Transmission Rights with capacity provided by TSO should be implemented throughout Europe along with day-ahead price coupling, continuous Intraday trading, TSO to TSO balancing.
• The Hardware: The all time largest transmission investments in any previous 10 year period have to be done up to 2020. This in a period where Europe have built almost no transmission capacity the last 20 years and local opposition makes projects of national and European interest practically impossible to build. Strong political commitment is a necessity. Building transmission lines must be given the highest priority. Within the next 1-2 years plans accommodating the integration of renewables must have been processed and licensed. The information on where future investments in transmission capacity will be built, and when, must be available well in advance to guide investments in generation capacity, also renewables, to the right areas.
Assistant Professor
Power System Group - University of Salerno
said: On 01/06/2010
Energy related issues are increasingly present in the media, political and industrial debate, concerning. Actually, economic development, environmental protection, climate emergency, renewable sources, crisis of fossil fuels and the protection of the territory became the main themes of international policies for energy development.
This debate in our country and the birth of new energy sources have been strongly influenced by the contemporary market liberalization.
There are widespread pursues in reducing pollutions through the use of renewable energy, with installations of increasingly popular microgeneration.
A similar scenario, in which energy development and protection of the territory issues are discussed by public and private industries and government, has, without any doubt, many degrees of freedom, all of them influencing planning and management of electrical systems and prefiguring also increased penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) and renewable energy within electric power systems.
This penetration is favored by the continuous technological development, which provides standards and technical norms for simple connection of such generators to the network, and by the diffusion of automation in the networks control allowing managing effectively the surplus energy produced, and also provide useful instruments to exploit the liberalization of energy markets.
However, the increasing prevalence of DG from renewable sources will require a more careful attention in interconnections between micro and conventional grids, currently characterized by unidirectional power flow and centralized control which does not allow an optimal DG management, thus limiting the exploitation of renewable sources.
Among the innovative distribution network management methods, that allow maximizing the energy exploitation from renewable source, reducing possible drawbacks, an emerging paradigm of special scientific and practical interest is the so-called microgrid (MG) (autonomous or not).
The concept of MG involves the realization of small areas of the network with a sufficient number of small generating units providing both electrical power and heat to the local network.
In order to achieve effective reduction of pollution, a large penetration of DG from renewable sources is expected, therefore, the management and maintenance of the network and the development of efficient control and communication systems will be more complex.
The connection of these generating units will happen through common standards both for equipment and communications systems ensuring that these plants are easily connected (plug & play) to the network. Thus, future power distribution networks should be “smart” and evolve from the current passive to active network configuration, managed through systems based on Information & Communication Technology (ICT).
The use of innovative control systems for management and advanced ICT systems will lead to the realization of active networks and smart grid.
Project Engineer on Technical Department
Romanian Power Grid Company - Sibiu Subsidiary
said: On 01/06/2010
Certainly,it is vital that Europe’s electricity networks must be able to integrate all renewable energies (all low carbon generation technologies) as well as to encourage the demand side to play an active part in the supply chain. This must be done by upgrading and evolving (re-modelling) the networks efficiently and economically. Track European technology platform smartgrid’s requirement.
It will involve network development at all voltage levels. For example, substantial offshore and improved onshore transmission infrastructure will be required in the near term to facilitate the development of wind power across Europe. In Romania, for now, distribution networks are not able to integrate distributed generation, including residential micro generation, on a large scale. Few years, distribution networks will need to embrace active network management technologies to efficiently. There are many other examples but all will require the connectivity that networks provide to achieve the targets for energy security and environmental sustainability.
There is yet another reason for re-modelling our electricity grids: electricity is projected to supply and increasing share of the world’s total energy demand and is the fastest-growing form of end-use energy worldwide over the next decade. Given the growth and importance of electricity throughout the world, it is amazing to note that the average efficiency of the world’s existing electricity grids is only around 33 percent. This contrasts with 60 percent efficiency for grids based on the latest technology. Just at the transmission and distribution levels , energy losses are around 7 percent. Further, the cost of power outages , and power quality disturbance is estimated at $ 180 billion annualy in the United States alone. Therefore I think the solution should be : re-modelling electricty grids using Smart Grid Technologies ! Broadly speaking, Smart Grid Companies add computer intelligence and networking to what is otherwise a physical maze of interconnecting wires. Some Smart Grid Technologies out demand – or “Load levelling” on the electrical grid. This allows a generating company to run cleaner power sources, such as nuclear or hydroelectric, at full output, 24 hours a day, while reducing the need to use carbon-emitting gas, coal or oil plants in a surge (usually for only a couple of hours per day ) to meet peak demand. Other examples of Smart Grid Technologies activities include: making the process of generating electricity more safely, – connecting and managing correctly sustainable energy sources to the existing grids. Smart Grid mean the integration of two infrastructures… securely: electrical infrastructure and information infrastructure. A Smart Grid is a power system that handles emergency conditions with “self – healing” actions and is responsive to energy-market and utility needs.
Managing Director
ENERGY Capital Invest GmbH
said: On 01/06/2010
The answer to this question is short and straight-forward: Yes, we have to re-model the electricity grid. Just look at the consequences of the current disequilibrium in the electricity markets: It has resulted in even negative prices at the EEX-Power Exchange. Without fundamental changes in the grids, there would be no point in pushing renewable energies.
But what does it mean, to make the electricity grid smart? Since 2009, almost everybody has been talking about this smart grid and analysts predict hundred of billions in investments during the next decades. Is it just applying more ICT?
In my opinion, it´s much more. Finally, in the absence of affordable electricity storage, the only way to integrate more renewables is to match production and consumption. Therefore, end-user appliances have to be an integral part of the energy systems and have to be dispatched in a similar way as electricity generation.
Apparently, this would be difficult with domestic applications. Nobody would like to wait for the washing machine or dish washer to start until a surplus of wind power occurs, e.g. at 3 o´clock in the morning. Surprisingly, most of the smart grid demonstration projects are focusing on such ideas.
In contrast, we see the biggest potential neither with households nor e-mobility, but in industry and commerce. In our opinion, shifting electrical loads in industry and commerce could be the “killer application” of the smart grid.
Compared to households, many processes and appliances in industry and commerce could be dispatched easily. Offering of time-of-use (TOU) pricing by the utilities being prerequisites, the deployment of such technologies could be fast and economic. Especially in facility management, the missing link between the existing energy management systems and the grid could be implemented at very little cost.
The basic concept is similar to existing demand response programs in the US, that have been employed for more than a decade already. Many industrial processes, like pumping or cooling, are “low hanging fruits”. Usually classical demand response programs require just half the investment cost compared to classical peak-load power plants.
Nevertheless, the shifting of electrical loads is much more complex in other industrial processes. Future approaches have to incorporate automated solutions and offer additional value, for the costumer and the utilities as well. This means plenty of opportunities for new market players. Together with technical partners and funded by the Austrian government, we are currently looking at such new approaches and identifying the technical and economic potential for new solutions and business models.
But looking into our long-term future, linking renewables with the electricity costumer is just the first step. The next and even bigger challenge is connecting the different energy systems, like electricity, gas, heating and cooling, and their costumers, all together.
That means integrating the smart power grid with the smart gas grid and other energy carriers to a smart polygrid. Benefiting from natural synergies, such an integrated system could be much more energy- and cost-efficient and integrate more renewables than separated energy grids could ever do.
Integration of production, grids and customers is the key for a renewable energy future!
Lecturer
University Politehnica of Bucharest
said: On 03/06/2010
The renewable energies are of a great deal of interest for both utilities and consumers. Its main advantage proved to be the never-ending natural power resources. However, by continuing with current power system infrastructure, the impact of these power sources will have a small significance. Future grid will have to be elastic and responsive to consumer needs.
Therefore, a new paradigm is growing, and its name is smart grid. This new concept is bringing the consumers and utilities closer, by replicating the utility attributes at end-use consumers.
This means that a “clever” consumer will be able to assess its pattern of consumption, and then it will automatically choose among a large range of feeding possibilities, from their possible embedded generation units all the way to classic generation units. The feeding path will be closely monitored by its embedded advanced meter, which will ultimately make connection with an energy broker, whose main job is to provide the best energy price for his clients.
This consumer behaviour will be sustained by the smart devices that industry is making available in increasingly number.
Senior Consultant
Engage Consulting Limited
said: On 03/06/2010
Well the short answer to this question is yes.
Renewable energy can make a significant contribution to future energy needs. But, renewables can be accepted as not especially good at generating “on demand”. Wind delivers when it’s windy, solar delivers when it’s sunny and so on. If renewables are just introduced into the generation mix then they may not even make a useful contribution. They may be generating when power is not wanted or their generation may be distributed inefficiently. You can end up with other generation backing up for when the renewables aren’t generating and renewables having not made an especially positive contribution.
A general rule in answering this sort of issue is that there is not a single answer, rather there are a raft of measures that should complement each other.
One answer is – a variety of renewables – this is a variety of types and a geographic distribution, this can tend to mean that the unpredictability of generation from individual devices is balanced by generation from other devices or other areas.
But the clue to the other answers is that renewables may not be great at delivering on demand – but if demand can be modified to follow generation then you can start to match clean generation to demand. Part of this might be energy efficiency measures actually reducing demand, part of this might be by new storage and part of this should be by demand response – actually modifying demand to match generation. And all of these should be contributing to effective generation distribution and use of electricity. Smarter grids can facilitate distributing power efficiently and matching demand with generation. Energy efficiency really ought to be the first thought but all of these measures need to be developed to work together.
General Secretary
EuroPEX ASBL
said: On 03/06/2010
Euronews has addressed a very interesting question “renewable energies are of growing importance, but shouldn’t we be re-modelling our electricity grids, too?” To this question I have a simple answer: yes and no.
Firstly, the answer has to do with what one understands to be renewable energy source and what is meant by re-modelling.
It is worth not generalising the requirements for the integration of different renewable energy sources to the transmission or distribution network. Renewable energies have been connected to the grid for long; this is the case of the conventional hydroelectric energy generation. Wind energy has however been challenging the industry about its integration mainly when located offshore.
One could understand “re-modelling electricity grid” as either extending the existing infrastructure, redesigning the existing grid topology, introducing new technologies to better monitor and operate the grid or upgrading the capacity of transmission of the existing infrastructure.
On one hand, today’s challenges to increase alternative renewable sources of energy generation and connect to the electricity grid, for example wind energy, has raised the debate whether the electricity grid needs restructuring to facilitate integration of those energy generators or not. This depends on the case by case since it may happen the characteristics of a project for wind energy generation may require construction of new lines or cables, changes of grid topology or simply connect to the existing lines/cables without significant changes. On the other hand, renewable energy produced by domestic consumers and injected to the distribution network does not in most cases require re-modelling.
Secondly, the answer has to do with the main purpose for integrating wind energy source into the system. There are good reasons to favour (or not!) the integration of wind energy to the grid and the motives vary, being either for creating a competitive electricity market, for environmental and sustainability purposes, for political reasons such as to comply with the 2020 targets, or for enhancing the security of electricity supply.
One may nevertheless question “should all renewable energy be integrated into the electricity grid regardless of what the motives are?” and to this I could answer: not all renewable energy should be integrated to the grid since a ground cost/benefit analysis is essential and hence the same applies to re-modelling the grid.
Thirdly and to conclude, an ideal solution for the future, although acknowledging its limitations, should be a grid that is smart in the view point of technology, market, sustainability and environment, and electricity system security; a grid that not only gathers and treats information to optimise the system but the one that is smart and dynamic: an overspread grid, with no congestion; a grid smart enough with possibility to remotely and timely re-model its topology depending on various factors including wind conditions, location of generators and consumption, losses, electricity prices and congestion. To achieve this new investments and improved technology is necessary.
Action Leader
Security of Energy Systems
said: On 03/06/2010
The European power system, one of the largest and most complex machines in the world, is aging, experiencing mounting congestion and undergoing challenging market liberalisation and renewable integration processes. Developing, and to a certain extent remodelling, our electricity grids (or electricity networks) will be an imperative step in the pursuit of the EU’s competitiveness, sustainability and security of energy supply objectives for 2020 and beyond.
In order to better understand why and how this redesign will happen, European grids can be distinguished into transmission and distribution networks. These differ in terms of their function, structure and consequent planning and operation philosophies:
The pan-European transmission network hosts large-scale power plants, which constitutes the lion’s share of generation in Europe (some 70-80% of the installed capacity) and carries power over relatively long distances. It features higher voltages and a multi-terminal, so-called meshed, interconnected structure (composed of a few hundred thousand km of wiring).
The regional distribution networks embed lesser quantities of small-scale generation (roughly 20-30% of the installed capacity) and transfer power passively from the upstream transmission system to the final customers. They feature lower voltages and generally simpler radial structures (i.e. point-to-point connections, including several million km of lines).
The architecture of both networks is based on alternating current technologies (which entails that the current periodically reverses direction) for a number of technical, economic and historical reasons.
Key drivers linked with renewable energy
Moving Europe to a low carbon, resource efficient and climate resilient economy also entails increasing our reliance upon renewable energy and what are known as Distributed Energy Resources:
In 2006, renewable energy provided 16% of the electricity consumed in Europe, but this figure is expected to jump to 30-35% by 2020 in order to meet the agreed EU targets on renewable generation. This share will become even larger after 2020 and impact both transmission and distribution grids (with e.g. onshore/offshore wind and solar power playing a key role).
Distributed Energy Resources include small-sized power resources, such as certain renewable generation units (e.g. photovoltaic panels), as well as storage technologies and electric vehicles. These resources are increasingly penetrating the distribution grids.
Evolution towards super and smarter grids
These forces are anticipated to render the European electricity transmission grid increasingly ‘super’, and Europe’s distribution grids ever more ‘smart’. Allow me to explain:
The Super transmission grid. The best locations for the generation of renewable electricity are not uniformly distributed across the continent, and are often in places where connections to the electricity network are weak. To fully utilise these resources, the power grid must be enhanced to allow electricity to be transported to the main centres of demand and storage. A super grid can be defined as an electricity transmission system, most likely based on direct current technologies (which work better over long distances), designed to transport large amounts of electricity from remote areas to consumption centres. A super grid could well be a high transfer capacity layer superimposed to the traditional alternating current transmission system.
Smart distribution grids. Owing to the rising deployment of distributed energy resources, distribution networks will have to change their control properties and become more similar to the transmission network we have today: that is, they will need more ‘active’ control features. Distributed units will be fully integrated into the management of the electricity system, and collectively serve a role comparable to large conventional power stations. The electricity grid will enable this by becoming ‘smarter’ and more interconnected. This so-called smart grid requires hardware, software and data networks capable of delivering and responding to information quickly: the installation of smart meters could reduce energy consumption and make both generation and consumer demand more responsive and flexible.
It has to be noted that the current transmission grid can already be considered a good example of a (semi-) smart power grid. For the most part, it can reliably handle the needs of all the users connected to it. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement by making the grid even smarter, allowing it to better balance variable renewable sources of electricity and improving its interaction with the distribution systems connected to it.
In conclusion, do we still need a transmission grid if a massive deployment of small-sized distributed energy resources is going to move the power system towards fully decentralised smart grids? Or, on the contrary, is the onshore/offshore penetration of large sized renewable energy plants going to transform the transmission grid into a super grid thus downplaying the role envisaged for smart distribution grids?
Most likely, the super transmission grid and smart distribution grids are not going to supplant but to integrate one other, as they fulfil supplementary functions and serve different geographical scales. Both electricity transmission and distribution need to be further developed, and better coordinated, by increasing their carrying capacity and deploying advanced information and communication technologies and control platforms.
Activities of the Joint Research Centre on smart grids
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) performs research and supports EC’s policies and initiatives on smart/power grids. Amongst others, the JRC contributes to the EC’s work for preparing an energy infrastructure package, which will set out priorities for the Trans-European Networks for Energy and the development of smart grids. Additionally, the JRC monitors and contributes to the implementation of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan, which aims to accelerate the development and deployment of cost-effective low carbon technologies; the plan comprises specific initiatives on smart grids, such as the European Electricity Grid Initiative and the Joint Programme on smart grids of the European Energy Research Alliance.
Executive
Energy Community Secretariat
said: On 03/06/2010
There is no doubt that renewable energy sources and especially wind energy will play a key role in the new future. Challenges like rising energy prices, due to the limited availability of fossil energy sources, as well as necessary measures to meet emission targets require an intensified usage of renewable energy sources. Already nowadays huge investments take place and wind farms across Europe serve as highly visible landmarks on the way to this upcoming green revolution in the energy sector.
On the other hand we have to keep in mind that “our” electricity transmission grids have been developed some decades ago for a completely different environment with predictable production and consumption patterns and that they are not optimized for the future integration of renewable energy sources. As a result Transmission System Operators (TSOs) are facing more and more critical situations due to loop flows and imbalances with severe consequences for the entire transmission grid.
Increased flexibility and new approaches for grid balancing are therefore the “must haves” of transmission grids in the 21st century. In this respect stronger regionalisation of electricity grids – in the planning as well as in operation- is required in order to tackle upcoming difficulties.
From the legal perspective we can say that the 3rd Energy Package provides certainly a sound basis for the further integration and regionalisation of the European Electricity grid as it foresees stronger cooperation of the TSOs on regional level. The proper implementation of this legal framework will provide the backbone for positive developments regarding the European Energy Market and, last but not least, the further integration of Renewable Energy Sources.
As a conclusion we can say that we are already “on the way” to having a “green grid” but further efforts are required. Upgrading the grids to the requirements of the 21st century is certainly one of them.
Lecturer in the Department of Law and Administration
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
said: On 09/06/2010
If the direction adopted in the European energy law and policy was brought down to the three objectives of covering sustainable development, promotion of competition, and security of supply, intelligent grid perfectly fits the implementation of each of them. When we consider fulfilling ambitious goals of EU energy package for 2020 smart grids should be the starting point. Smart grids technolgies offer an opportunity to absorb more renewables and microgeneration into electricity grids as well as improve efficient energy usage by final customers. On the other hand Smart Grids contribute to the development of energy market and consumer welfare by changing energy consumers into active prosumers. Feasibility studies already published in Poland prove that apart from reaching other goals these projects are economically rational: smart grids save money of consumers, energy distributors, suppliers and other market players. That is why we consider Smart Grids as a strategic project for Polish power system and foster cooperation of various players to bring it into live.
Principal Consultant (Modelling)
AEA Technology
said: On 09/06/2010
Question: Renewable energies are of growing importance, but shouldn’t we be re-modelling our electricity grids, too?
Answer: Yes.
Our existing electricity grids have served us well. For many decades electricity has been generated in large centralised power stations, transmitted at high voltage across the country, and distributed at lower voltages to consumers. This set-up persists today, and the aggregation of power stations afforded by “the grid” provides us with a remarkably reliable supply, and allows us to use the cheapest generator available at any moment in time. Whilst it is clear that the grid concept itself does not need to be “fixed”, it is equally true to say that we may benefit from it being re-modelled. In coming years we must meet stringent greenhouse gas reduction targets, and the structure of our electricity grids are a crucial element of doing this in the smartest and cheapest way possible.
Currently-advocated visions of low carbon futures in the UK involve electrification of energy services previously met by direct combustion of fuels, notably transport and low grade heat, accompanied by radical and rapid decarbonisation of electricity supply. Complementing this, the emergence of ICT combined with “decentralised energy resources” (DER) gives us opportunities to change the nature of demand itself: Demand may become a flexible and responsive quantity.
So what does this mean for the electricity grid? Well there are three options that exemplify the boundaries of what is possible.
These are:
1. The “asset-intensive” option.
2. The “asset-portfolios” option.
3. The “management-intensive” option.
The asset-intensive option is, in its simplest form, similar to what we have at the moment. Electricity would be generated at large power stations, wind farms, tidal barriers, etc, and distributed to where it is needed. It involves a large investment in assets; many power stations and wires to support the generation and transport of a lot of electricity. This could entail very high peak demand and/or supply, and all upstream assets could have much lower utilisation than at present. Whilst it is technically feasible, it basically means a higher average cost of delivered electricity. But that’s not necessarily a disaster; another result of modelling of low carbon futures is that it’s going to be expensive, whatever we do.
The asset-portfolios option is more elegant. It involves choice of DERs (e.g. heat pumps, electric vehicles, community or micro-cogeneration, solar PV, etc) such that the mix of demand-side technologies ameliorates the upstream impact. For example, one would expect CHP to generate electricity at the same time that heat pumps are consuming it, as they are both “heat-led”. Where these technologies are implemented together (e.g. one for every second house), impact on system peak load could be small, and overall utilisation could even improve. This may be cheaper than the asset-intensive approach, and may also have useful synergies with the fact that a free market is likely to deliver a diversified combination of technologies anyway.
The final possibility is the “management-intensive” solution.
This is synonymous with the frequently-cited “smart grids” concept, where DERs (and supporting networks) are introduced and then actively managed in order to meet some pre-defined aim (e.g. CO2 abatement at minimum cost). For example, heat pumps could be used with “smart storage” to shift the load seen by centralised generators, reducing peak demand and increasing utilisation. Or charging of electric vehicles could be timed to coincide with the availability of low carbon electricity, or to provide ancillary services.
The possible combinations are endless, and can draw from any demand, generation, storage, or network-based technologies. Indeed a smart grid solution could be also combined with both the asset-intensive and asset-portfolios options; a balance between large centralised systems/distribution and smart demand-side management is likely to be an attractive combination.
This comment does not seek to tell you which option above is the “best”. That is a question for modellers and researchers, and we would do well if providing insight were high up the funding agenda over coming years. So, the question is not “shouldn’t we be re-modelling our electricity grids”, but rather “what is the smartest, least-cost, and secure way to meet our medium and long term abatement targets?” The structure our electricity grid and control of the resources within it are central to this.
Director
International Energy Efficiency UN Foundation
said: On 09/06/2010
Within the policy debate around responses to combating climate change, the relatively “unsexy” topic of electric grid infrastructure hasn’t excited policymakers or the public nearly as much as renewable energy.
Yet the massive deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency will require investments in a clean-energy smart grid consisting of two distinct components: 1) extra-high voltage transmission lines will be required to transport clean utility-scale renewable energy long distances from the source to market, and 2) a digital “smart distribution grid” will be required to deliver this electricity efficiently to local consumers.
To better monitor and control both the transmission and distribution networks, smart technologies from the IT industry can be used to provide utilities and consumers with better information in real time, improving the security and efficiency of the entire electricity system.
The absence of a smart transmission and distribution grid is one of the biggest impediments to large-scale deployment of low-carbon electricity. For example, the United States currently has a backlog of 300,000 megawatts of wind products waiting in line for connection to the gird because of inadequate transmission capacity.
On the national level, construction of a network of long-distance and high-voltage transmission system will be needed to provide the linkages between tremendous wind potential in the US’s interior, the solar resources of the Southwest, the geothermal potential beneath the mountain regions, to the population centers on the coasts and the industrial heartland, where demand is greatest.
At the regional level, construction of a regional smart-grid distribution system utilizing digital IT for high-performance electricity distribution will enable management of energy demand, improve conservation, and help use existing power plants more efficiently.
At the household level, consumers can make smart choices about how they produce and use electricity if they have access to real-time information on the true costs and impacts of their energy choices and their patterns of consumption.
The deployment of smart meters in homes will create incentives for conservation and allow for real-time pricing that rewards moving demand away from peak hours, allowing each building to not only generate its own energy, manage its electricity demand more efficiency, but also to contribute to the nation’s clean energy supply.
America’s electricity transmission and distribution grid was developed in a pre-digital era and as a result cannot respond effectively to new challenges, such as the integration of renewable energy, security and reliability issues. However, it is also incapable of capturing the opportunity created by recent advancements in information technology; exciting new tools for producing radical gains in energy efficiency, reliability, and security; or the deployment of renewable energy at a massive scale.
The policy questions are complex and have been contentious, involving regulatory policies and pricing concerns, questions of eminent domain, matters of state vs. federal regulatory authority, financing, rate recovery, the effects on wildlife, the surrounding scenery, or property values. Similarly, upgrading the electric grid to support digital, smart-grid technologies requires a large up-front investment that is difficult to simply fold into the local rate-structure, despite the substantial public benefits that will be accrued.
Overcoming the barriers to smart grid implementation will allow for large-scale renewable energy (both centralized and distributed), advanced energy storage, and sophisticated IT management of energy use. Utilities will have greater reliability and there will be fewer price spikes due to more diverse sources of energy, which over time will combine with energy efficiency to drive down family energy bills.
President Obama understands the importance of a 21st century electric grid and invested billions of dollars from the economic stimulus to fund smart grid projects around the country. In 2007 Xcel Energy began SmartGridCity, a $100 million project which was the first full-fledged test of a high-tech “smart grid” in the U.S. Southern California Edison is installing 5 million smart meters, investing $5 billion in neighborhood power distribution circuits and on/off routing switches. They’ve also announced a plug in hybrid partnership with Ford, while Pacific Gas & Electric partnered with Tesla Motors on plug in and vehicle-to-grid technology. American Electric Power is deploying advanced metering and an enhanced infra¬structure, which is expected to be fully deployed to its 5 million customers by 2015.
One of Major Economies Forum topics for global partnerships is smart grids, which is co-chaired by Italy and South Korea. The Technology Action Plan was released on December 14, 2009 but it is not clear what actions are being done as a result. The US Department of Energy’s Secretary Chu has indicated that Smart Grid will be one of the major topics at the Clean Energy
Ministerial Meeting the US is hosting this July in Washington.
Smart grid is a topic under the U.S.-China Renewable Energy Partnership, announced by Presidents Obama and Hu in November 2009. The idea is to modernize the electrical grid with new transmission lines and smart grid technology in order to scale up renewable energy production in both the U.S. and China. The Partnership will include an Advanced Grid Working Group bringing together policymakers, regulators, industry leaders and civil society to develop strategies for grid modernization in both countries.
Senior Consultant
FVB Energy Inc
said: On 09/06/2010
Many renewable energy technologies are small energy producers. The problem with today’s large electric utility systems is that they cannot easily incorporate the small electric generators into their systems. The small producer often gets treated the same as a large producer from a system interconnection requirement aspect. This results in imposing large costs on the small producer just to connect to a system. The costs of connection for these small producers make up a large part of the total cost. This unnecessary additional cost can adversely affect the investment feasibility.
Our electricity grid operators must adapt in a way to encourage the small producer and eliminate unnecessary interconnection costs.
Senior Scientist
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research
said: On 09/06/2010
Renewable energies have fundamentally different characteristics to coal, gas or coal power plants. They are diffuse sources of energy and vary according to natural conditions – wind and sunshine. Therfore, they require different power management systems, in particular storage’ and demand management, since they cannot simply switched on to full power. Also, their diffuse nature gives the possibility of decentralised power management systems – microgrids at house , street or factory level. This then requires fundamentally different grid management systems, with an automation of price and dispatch management, combined with active power management at the household level, so that households without expertise can particiapte in a power market.
Managing Director
Freedom Digital Networks
said: On 10/06/2010
There are a myriad of definitions in the market as to what constitutes a Smart Grid. From Automated Metering Intelligence/Infrastructure (AMI) and Transmission & Distribution intelligence through to the inclusion of Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) or Distributed Power Control to Demand Side Management.
Every utility and component or solution provider has its own view. That view and definition is influenced by factors ranging from commercial or legislative drivers, through to portfolio expertise and product or application positioning.
In principle, the Smart Grid relies on gathering data collected from large numbers of intelligent sensors and processors installed on the power lines and equipment from around the power grid (e.g. switches circuit breakers, transformers, meters, etc.), and using that to pro-actively manage the power resource.
To a utility, a Smart Grid is a commercial imperative as well as a technological implementation. Power companies are legislated and commercially driven to support a range of environmental targets including a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the share of renewable energy systems (RES) to 20% by 2020.
Only time will tell if that is achievable, but it is clear and paramount that whatever the driver, in order to serve multiple economic, commercial, legislative and environmental goals of the 21st Century, regional and national electric power grids will need to enable, support manage and communication between nodes and devices in previously unimaginable detail.
The general consensus is that to achieve this, Utilities must be capable of intelligently integrating the actions of all components and users connected to the grid. It is this holistic infrastructure that defines the Smart Grid.
The considerations include requirements ranging from reliability in a range of operating environments through to communication speeds that allow any product or solution to be instantaneously responsive in a wide range of applications, and at a level of security to defend against cyber intrusion that could have significant economic implications.
There is no “single” element in a Smart Grid – it is an “end to end” cohesive solution
It must provide reliable and cost effective two way communication across and between vast internal and edge assets.
The UPA PLC enabled Smartgrid is key to delivering an “end to end” cohesive solution, using wide band Power Line Communications (PLC) to enable the Smart Grid, over the existing electrical infrastructure.
Senior Scientist
Energy Economics Group, Vienna University of Technology
said: On 10/06/2010
As already mentioned in this forum, I agree that recent developments in renewable energies initiated a process of transforming centrally organised electricity supply environments to more and more distributed ones. As a result, electricity grids increasingly have to face system related challenges (e.g. voltage and capacity related problems) to further integrate distributed, renewable and/or volatile generation capacities into existing infrastructures. However, research for innovations in grid integration and operation approaches show that there still exist possibilities to utilise established grid capacities more efficiently, e.g. by implementing active network management concepts based on new communication technologies.
Even though by implementing such alternatives – mostly called as “Smart Grid solutions” – it is tried to enable a more active grid design at lower cost than conventional approaches (e.g. cable laying), there are still many limiting factors. For example, historically grown electricity infrastructures are different from case to case, and therefore, a general applicability of Smart Grid solutions cannot be guaranteed. Another factor is that there are grid regions which do not provide necessary assets (e.g. controllable generators or loads) for alternative grid management approaches and therefore, still need conventional grid upgrades if future demand rises. Consequently, coming back to the initial question if there was a need to re-model our electricity grids, the answer is “YES – for grid areas which have reached their capacity limits”, regardless of the application of Smart Grid or conventional solutions.
Another vital issue regarding Smart Grid alternatives is that some approaches necessarily have to result in alternative business strategies or models in order to provide incentives for participation of generation and demand units in new grid control strategies. In general, such business models have to incorporate the interactions, strategies and value exchanges of different actor segments in a distributed electricity supply system. Therefore, a non-discriminatory treatment of involved business model actors has to be achieved and rated by corresponding impact analysis (e.g. by recently developed Pareto Criterions for business modelling). Thus in my opinion, the key to success for re-modelling the grids lies in a broad acceptance of such measures by all actors which then possibly could result in further business models we currently cannot realise or imagine due to missing data and experience regarding user behaviours.
Above all, we must not forget to analyse the future economic impacts of different grid designs (conventional grid design, Smart Grid, Super Grid, Micro Grids) and corresponding business models from national economies’ and selected actors’ perspectives.
Panel member
US National Academy of Sciences
said: On 10/06/2010
Renewable energy will likely require a re-modelled electricity grid to increase cost effectiveness, but while we are at it, we can make positive use of the massive data sets that will be generated by the smart grid and one of its components, the smart meter. We should allow academic researchers to have access to much of these data (which will likely be collected for time-of-day billing and load management purposes by the utility), as long as consumer consent is obtained for analysis of individualized information. I have discussed this proposal in the journal, Science (Vol. 328, pages 979-980, 2010).
Economists could use the data to assess consumer response to price and income and to project demand response likely to result from pricing policies. Energy researchers could assess the response of the grid to various perturbations. The ability to extract performance of individual appliances from smart-meter data increases the research possibilities, as well as increases the need to obtain consent before analysis. Epidemiologists and those studying health interventions could make good use of such data. To guard against inadvertent compromising of data, analysis algorithms could be run on utility billing servers.
These data sets represent national treasures of information. They, or subsets of them, should be stored in national digital archives for use by historians, as well as other researchers. Imagine analyzing electricity time-line data to identify characteristic signals that predict electrical fires; to identify appliances that are malfunctioning.
Chief Executive and Founder Director E3G
Third Generation Environmentalism
said: On 10/06/2010
Rapidly building a stronger and smarter electricity grid is essential to move to an efficient, low carbon economy. But this will not happen automatically. Success will require an intelligent mix of innovation, financing and planning policies both nationally and at European level.
A consensus has emerged that modernised and ‘smarter’ electricity grids will be needed to effectively address growing climate change and energy security risks. Advanced meters are only one part of this effort. Truly smart grids must involve the whole range of instrumentation, communications and analytics that allow power network infrastructure to be operated in a dynamic and efficient manner. This is in contrast to the ‘passive’ operational approach currently the norm.
The benefits of a smarter grid are widely accepted and offer something for everyone. Advanced sensors, automation technology and data management systems should allow utilities and network operators to optimise their use of assets, leading to lower operational, maintenance and capital costs. Smart meters and appliances can allow consumers to save on energy bills and, eventually, provide the option to sell power back to the grid as suppliers. ICT companies can capture new markets for smart technologies and systems.
But the greatest public value of smarter networks is that they can cost effectively facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy. The intermittent nature of renewable energy means it must be reinforced by traditional sources, such as natural gas, to ensure that peaks in demand can be met. Using traditional grid technology adding large amounts of renewables to the grid would also mean adding expensive new fossil fuel backup capacity. Having the ability to reduce (or increase) demand as well as reducing the need for backup capacity, which smart grids would provide, will dramatically lower the price tag of the low carbon economy and allow greater use of all of Europe’s renewable energy resources.
If the smart grid serves as the enabler of a cost effective low carbon transition at the micro level, a ‘super’ grid would provide similar benefits at the macro level. The super grid would involve building a series of cross-border energy interconnections so that supply and demand for renewable energy could be matched more efficiently. Building transmission lines will often be much cheaper than building new renewable generating capacity, and being able to export excess supply is easier and cheaper than having to curtail renewable energy capacity only to have to dispatch more flexible fossil fuel plant in its place. In the longer term, interconnections will allow access to the large scale renewable energy resources on Europe’s borders: hydro electricity and offshore wind to the North; biomass, geothermal and wind to the east; and solar power to the South.
A truly smart grid would also have other important co-benefits. Smarter networks should also be more resilient; as new automated controls will allow for the grid to “self heal” thus avoiding interruptions. More efficient use of energy combined with increasing use of electricity in heating and transport through electric vehicles and heat pumps will mean lower dependency on oil imports.
Although there is near universal agreement on its importance there is a risk that smart grids will not be delivered in time to achieve climate goals and manage energy security threats. There are multiple barriers to delivery and a lack of clear ownership by responsible bodies of upgrading the grid infrastructure. For example, network operators currently have little incentive to invest in new technologies and fear that they will be made to foot the bill without seeing the benefits. A lack of consistent standards – essential for ensuring that all the various smart gadgets can communicate with each other – is acting as a barrier to investment from technology suppliers. While some trials have shown that consumers can save money through demand response, it is impossible to predict exactly how they will behave when smart meters are rolled out on a commercial scale.
The technologies required for an active, dynamic and efficient electricity grid either already exist or are in the late stages of development; radical innovation is not needed to deliver the next generation grid. Rather, delivering smart grids will require the right regulations to overcome the challenges presented above. Detailed roadmaps will need to be developed with a clear view of the outcome to be achieved and the critical path for achieving it. Large-scale demonstration projects must be accelerated to prepare for commercial rollout in the next several years. Public sector financing should be made available to cover any short term financing gap, including RD&D into new energy storage technologies.
In short, the answer is a resounding yes: the re-modelling of electricity grids should be prioritised now and the right regulatory frameworks put in place so that infrastructure is built in the short term to ensure any and all low carbon solutions can be fully utilised in the future.
Research Professor, Advanced Technology Applications
Buffalo University
said: On 10/06/2010
The simple answer to the question posed is:
“Of course yes, we should be upgrading our grid system too to accommodate renewable as well as distributed energy sources.” However, in this short paper, I would like to respond to a rephrased question:
“Renewable energies are of growing importance, so how should we be upgrading our electricity grids, too?”
Introduction:
Instant delivery of electrical power from multitudes of inter-connected power plants of all sizes and shapes to a multitude of grid connected loads at the flip of a switch is figuratively and literally a “high wire balancing act”. When a light switch is turned ON, the set of electrons required to flow through the filament of the bulb must be instantaneously balanced by an equal set of electrons produced at one of the generators somewhere within the grid system. Similarly, when a set of electrons are produced by a generator anywhere on the grid system, they must either flow into a load circuit or into a storage system connected somewhere to that grid. With a complex interconnected grid system, “The Interconnect”, supplying power to millions of people at the flip of a switch is indeed a marvel of technology, if not a miracle. Unlike natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear materials, alternating current [AC] electricity is not a commodity. Electrical energy, except in the electrostatic form, neither exists in nature as other sources do nor can it be utilized directly. It is a means to transport energy found in fossil fuels, nuclear materials, flowing waters, blowing winds, and solar rays to homes, commercial buildings and factories etc. where it is converted to light, heat, mechanical, and chemical forms of energy for utilization. That is, AC electrical energy is a transportation medium and not a commodity in itself. Over the last one hundred years, the world has adopted electrical conductors as the means to guide the flow of electrons from the source to the load and vice-versa. It is an alternative to trucks, trains, and hydraulic or pneumatic pipes. The transmission line infrastructure, to some extent, resembles the highway infrastructure with electrons resembling oil and petroleum tanker trucks or system of pipes for natural gas and water supply or sewage collection systems. Just as fluids and gases flow from a higher pressure at one end of the pipe to a lower pressure at the other, electricity flows from a higher potential at one end of the wire to a lower potential at the other end. However, unlike the pressures in fluid and gas pipes, the electric potentials can be reversed instantaneously causing flow of electricity to reverse. Just as infrastructures of highways and rail lines, though permanent, need to be upgraded to keep up with ever changing population centers, electrical power grids should also be upgraded continually. As the world tries to address the environment challenge of our times through integration of wind and solar sources for the production of electricity, a decentralized power grid structure must be created through careful upgrade of the present system of centralized power generation, HV transmission, sub-transmission, and distribution. Starting with a brief look in the rear view mirror of the power grid, I present a road map for our journey forward in this short essay.
A Look in the Rear View Mirror
Transmission of AC electricity to remotely located loads was first demonstrated by George Westinghouse and William Stanley on March 20, 1886 in Great Barrington, MA, with wires strung on elm trees along the town’s walks and transformers placed in the basement of few buildings to be lighted. Later same year, George Westinghouse established Westinghouse Electric Company and successfully tested a four mile transmission line at Lawrenceville, PA. These successes resulted in Westinghouse Electric operating some 300 central generating stations supplying AC electricity primarily to lighting loads by 1890. The DC [Thomas Edison] – AC [George Westinghouse] controversy was resolved, once and for all, at the Niagara Power Project. And, AC electric power was first transmitted from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, NY, through an overhead, three-phase, 11 kV transmission line on November 15, 1896. Robert Belfield documents in detail the historical developments of that period in his article; The Niagara System: The Evolution of Electric Power Complex at Niagara Falls, 1883-1896”. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] recognized this event by designating Adams Hydroelectric Generating Station as an “Electrical Engineering Milestone” with a plaque dedicated on June 21, 1990. Recognizing the success of AC electric power, Thomas Edison bought out Thomson-Houston and merged it with his Edison General Electric to form the General Electric Company and began directly competing against Westinghouse Electric Company for AC power projects. A new industry was thus born. Soon the electric power industry became recognized as a natural monopoly due to its ability to generate, transmit and distribute electricity to a set of customers in a specific location by a single source supplier.
System Control Centers [SCCs], in each of the utilities, were responsible for energy dispatch, economics of generation, and system security. Initially these SCCs were small and controlled only bulk power system. Then in 1926, the first two utilities, Duquesne Light and West Penn Power interconnected. This led to the concept of Power Pools. These Power Pools served to improve reliability and reduce complexity by operating a single grid and pooling the resulting savings amongst the Pool members. The largest savings came from avoidance of new generating facilities required for enough spinning reserves for short-term transient loads and faults. The operation of the Poor Pools led to the development of the Tie Line Bias Control, which allowed sharing of the frequency control amongst all generating station members. An interconnected power grid structure was thus created and soon became a global standard.
As for the USA, along with the implementation of emerging technologies in the development and expansion of the power grid over most of the last century, socio-political environment also had major influence in shaping the electrical power system infrastructure. Since Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed monopolies in US, foundation for strong Federal involvement was established in the early 1900s for regulation of electric utilities. Federal Power Commission became responsible for regulation of wholesale interstate transmission of power. Under the provisions of the Federal Power Act of 1935, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] exercises principal regulatory authority over the transmission system. It regulates wholesale electricity rates, approves sale or leasing of transmission facilities, approves mergers and acquisitions between Investor Owned Utilities [IOUs], and exercises jurisdiction over the interstate commerce of electricity. Its authority covers over 73 percent of the transmission systems in the US. Federally owned utilities own 13%, while the remaining 14% are owned by public and cooperative utilities. North American Electric Reliability Council [NERC] was voluntarily formed in 1963, just before the 1965 major blackout in the Northeast US. US and Canadian utilities were organized into nine regional reliability councils to promote the reliability of the electrical power systems throughout North America by defining operating guidelines for security in all nine geographical regions. It is responsible for overall reliability, planning, and coordination of electricity in North America. NERC is a not-for-profit corporation under the ownership of the Regional Councils, which cover 48 contiguous States, part of Alaska, and portions of Canada and Mexico. These Councils are responsible for overall coordination of bulk power policies that affect the reliability and adequacy of service within their jurisdictions and regularly exchange operating and planning information among their member utilities.
Prior to 1978, the regulated utilities were responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of AC electricity to their customers under the rate structures approved by Public Service Commissions in their respective geographical territories. Non-utility producers of electricity had no access to the power transmission systems owned and operated by the regulated IOUs. Then the US Congress passed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] in 1978 to initiate deregulation and competition in the wholesale power markets by opening it to the non-utility generators [NUGs]. In the early nineteen eighties, large industrial users of steam were encouraged to install co-generation equipment so that waste steam could be converted to AC electricity and sold back to the utilities at a rate, which guaranteed acceptable ROI [Rate of Return] on the investment. Then the US Congress passed the Energy Policy Act in 1992 to promote greater competition in the bulk power generation market. This Act was implemented in 1996 with Orders 888 and 889 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to “remove impediments to competition in wholesale trade and to bring more efficient, lower cost power to the nation’s electricity customers.” According to the DOE web site, “The FERC orders required open and equal access to jurisdictional utilities’ transmission lines for all electricity producers, thus facilitating the States’ restructuring of the electric power industry to allow customers direct access to retail power generation.” A number of states initiated major legislations during the decade of the nineties to deregulate and restructure the electric utility industry in their respective states under these FERC orders. However, the establishment of “Standard Market Design [SMD]” has been very painful to a large number of consumers who were supposed to have benefited from this restructuring.
The Road Map for the “Smart Grid”
As we go forward, we see that implementation of newer technologies to upgrade existing power system infrastructure to a “Smart Grid” will not only be constrained by the routine “Return on Investment” [ROI] considerations but also by the challenges of socio-political climate. Since socio-political climate varies from country to country and region to region, this article focuses only on the technology road map. The upgrading of the legacy electricity grid to a “Smart Grid” infrastructure has to be based on the following functional requirements.
1. Integration of intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar, along with combined heat and power [CHP] units distributed throughout the system.
2. Bidirectional flow of power from the grid to the consumers and from consumers to the gird resulting from load side demand management and local generation.
3. Real-time bidirectional information flow between the producers and consumers’ smart metering and appliances
4. Highest quality, efficiency, reliability and security.
5. Optimal cost for both producers and consumers.
In order to meet the above requirements of the Smart Grid, an “Intelligent Substation” with a “Micro-grid” communications network, as depicted in Figure 1, would be required. This substation would be the critical interface between the transmission and the utilization networks. The key technologies for the upgrade of existing substations would be the following.
Peak Power Shaving Technology:
While DC electricity can be directly stored in batteries and capacitors, AC electricity must be first converted to either DC or other forms of energy for storage. In a Smart Grid environment, supply and demand would not be synchronized, as both producers and consumers of electricity would constantly try to minimize their costs. This would create major fluctuations in flow of power on the transmission systems, unless there are means to buffer the peaks in power demand at the substation level. In addition, connecting intermittent sources of renewable power from wind turbines and PV arrays to the grid would require means to buffer them from consumer loads at the substation level. In short, peak power shaving at the substations would be the key to successful realization of the Smart Grid infra-structure. Recognizing the criticality of peak power shaving technique for Smart Grid deployment, R&D effort was carried out at the UB during Sept. ’04—Dec. ’06 time frame. This effort dealt with the design, modeling and simulation of a distributed generation scheme that could be used in supplying an isolated load, or for peak power shaving of grid connected loads. The ANN [Artificial Neural Network] based system consisted of a microturbine connected in parallel with a fuel cell at the dc-link feeding a DC-AC converter scheme. The combined microturbine/fuel cell scheme was then modeled and simulated for two different cases; supplying an isolated load, and sharing the power with the grid. Simulation results showed that the system could respond to fast load changes with small time delay in real power by controlling the inverter modulation index and output voltage phase angle. The addition of batteries for storage was then modeled and the simulation of the system supplying an isolated load was performed. It was found that the connection of the battery took care of most of the rapid load variations and hence alleviated the stress on the fuel cell. A small scale experimental model of the system was then built using a fuel cell emulator and a dc motor representing the microturbine mechanical characteristics. Experiments were conducted on the laboratory setup to verify the simulation results. Experimental results confirmed the simulation models extremely well. Several ANN [Artificial Neural Network] techniques for control of real and reactive power flow from the system to the load were studied and evaluated. The direct inverse control using neural network was adopted to model the inverse of the system and provide control. The network was trained off-line with data obtained from simulating the system for different load values. The simulation results of the neural network-controlled system were compared with the results obtained from a conventional PID controlled system. The neural network showed that it had an advantage over the PID scheme for the real power control, but its response lagged that of the PID technique for reactive power control.
Intermittent Power Integration Technology:
Production of electrical power from microturbines and fuel cells can be directly controlled through input fuel [Natural Gas] to match the demand. On the other hand, production of electrical power from the wind and solar insolation can not be directly controlled to do so. Production of electrical power in the DC form allows efficient means of matching supply and demand through a storage buffer. It so happens that the fuel cells, PV panels, and microturbines do produce DC power directly. Wind turbine generators can also be designed to produce DC power output. Therefore, production of DC power for distributed resources is the most efficient technology option. For decades, uninterruptible power supplies [UPS] have used the AC-to-DC-to-AC (double conversion) technique to isolate critical loads from supply disturbances. Every “Intelligent substation” of the future would be required to incorporate one or more of these distributed resources with energy storage means and intermittent power integration systems.
DC Distribution Technology
While bulk production and transmission of electrical power is most efficient in the AC form, practically all electrical loads can operate on DC power. Several studies and a demonstration project have been conducted at UB which conclude that delivery of electricity through DC feeders would be more efficient and cost effective than AC feeders, especially to IT, Telecom, and commercial loads. The intelligent substation of the future would include DC power delivery at + 320 VDC.
Micro-grid Technology
A “Micro-grid” would be a cluster of nodes consisting of communications and energy sensor/control which would respond autonomously, yet working as a group, the network cluster would respond to changing loads and demands. The wireless system would have to provide a virtual nervous system offering advanced capabilities in a cost effective manner. The true potential of the Smart Grid could only be realized when the network is self aware and adaptive to changing environment. The use of a reliable, robust, resilient and trustworthy network infrastructure that can respond intelligently without manual intervention or complexity would be required.
Test & Validation Facility at UB
Through a consortium of utilities and equipment suppliers, efforts are underway at the University at Buffalo to build a multi-million dollar full scale “Intelligent Substation” for test and validation of these technologies before they are implemented in the real world. Parties interested in participating in this exciting project are welcome and may contact the author at safium@buffalo.edu.
Professor Emeritus
University of São Paulo
said: On 14/06/2010
Disruptions in electricity supply occur everywhere and grids require constant improvements. Integration into new energy networks are referred to as smart grids, helping to ensure reliable supply. For renewables it represents another advantage. Shifting away from the conventional project-by-project approach, an integrated plan will help their introduction into the system, improving their competitiveness, lowering costs and abating significantly atmospheric emissions. Long-term integration is one of the main options to deploy renewables, specially for urban areas. Therefore, smart grids must be incorporated in energy policies, promoting their development. Such strategy will require an effort in terms of resource identification, assessment of infrastructure needs, technology standardization, integrated planning and a whole new and competitive electricity market creation.
Deputy Director
Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales
said: On 14/06/2010
Improving electricity transmission infrastructure is a vital part of replacing dirty coal-fired power stations with renewable electricity. The transmission networks in many regions have evolved as sets of almost-separate systems in individual countries making up a region, or as almost-separate systems in individual states or provinces making up a country. The transmission links between these almost-separate systems are very weak and are unsuitable for the efficient distribution of renewable and other distributed sources of electricity.
Furthermore, new and improved transmission links can smooth the fluctuations in wind and solar power by spreading their inputs to the grid over a larger geographic region with greater diversities of wind and insolation. Thus the need for back-up or storage can be greatly reduced.
For instance, several decades of research show that, even without any geographic diversity, the amount of additional peak-load back-up needed to maintain generation reliability when there are high penetrations of wind power in the grid is never greater than about half the wind power capacity. With improved geographic diversity, the additional peak-load back-up can be reduced to a small fraction of wind power capacity, even to zero in some grids.
There are already many proposals for upgrading transmission networks around the world in order to integrate much larger renewable energy contributions into the grid, for example:
• For Europe there is a proposal for a ‘green transmission super-highway’ that would greatly facilitate the growth in off-shore wind power and its distribution across the continent. An even more challenging proposal, originating with the Desertec group, is to feed solar and wind power from North Africa by cable under the Mediterranean into Europe.
• In the USA, lack of adequate transmission infrastructure is now one of the principal constraints on the further growth of wind power. There are several proposals for a ‘green transmission super-highway’ to strengthen the transmission links between the states.
• Australia has enormous potential for solar, wind and hot rock geothermal power, but most of this cannot be utilised until new and improved transmission links are constructed between South Australia and the eastern states.
• With undersea transmission lines, Indonesia’s large geothermal resource could make a valuable contribution to the growing electricity demand across the ASEAN region.
These proposals generally incorporate one or more high-voltage DC links, which have lower transmission losses than AC and can make the whole network more stable.
Global Head of Strategy
Accenture
said: On 14/06/2010
Smartgrids will be essential if we want to bring the volume of renewables on stream implied by the 2020 targets and be ready for the advent of electric vehicles. The big challenge is scale – most pilots are still small and although there are bigger initiatives with smart meters – we need to be able to equip our networks with the remote sensor technology and analytical software to drive greater efficiency and improve grid flexibility.
To encourage bigger scale pilots we will need to work on 4 priorities: customer buy in ; the right incentive package from regulators; a broad based business case and standards. Europe can lead the way but the clock is ticking – the one certainty is that without smarter grids the 2020 targets will not be achieved.
Research Lecturer
Centre for Environmental Policy
said: On 14/06/2010
The growing importance of renewable energies is in large measure related to the wider preoccupation with the transition to a low carbon economy. The Stern Report on the Economy of Climate Change (2007), commissioned by the outing UK Labour Government, starkly concluded that governments must act now and invest in low carbon technologies in order to avoid much higher mitigation costs in the future. Therefore, the promotion and investment on renewable energies, which are particularly green technologies, would suit any serious commitment to advance towards a low carbon economy.
The problems is that, no matter how much technical improvement and increased investment in renewable energies, the fact remains that the centralized national grid will continue to provide and distribute most of the consumed energy in this and other European countries. Yet, it is evident that the UK national grid cannot lay claim to green credentials but these will be essential if the grid is to become part of a future low carbon energy system.
In the past five years, £14 billion have been spent on improving the national grid, and the new Tory and Lib-Dem coalition government plans to significantly step up spending to £22 billion, with some participation from private investors, over the next five years. For the national grid, a shift to a low carbon economy will request large investment in the transmission networks to accommodate new flows of energy and different approaches, such as new smart meters and smart grid, and feed-in-tariff system. All this is necessary to remodel the transmission infrastructure of our grid up to the standards required to reduce emissions, improve the service and cut inefficiencies.
Yet, irrespective of large investment plans to remodel the national grid in the future, R&D on renewable energies should continue and increase. The way that renewable systems produce and deliver energy services are typical of these technologies and therefore, particularly useful: they operate off-grid but could also feed-into the national grid; do not rely on fossil fuels, therefore significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependency; and due to variation in their development scales, renewable energies are suitable to enable access to energy where the grid has not, and probably will never, reach.
Greening the energy system poses however a number of risks that are, unsurprisingly, not necessarily technical or cost-related, but have been less mentioned. Under the current market policy that dominates the sector, it is likely that both, the importance of renewable energies and of national grid renovation will generate large investment opportunities for a few. A further risk is the probability that the majority will need to bear the costs of greening the energy system, without necessarily reaping any business benefits. With the spending cuts soon to be announced by the current government and planned to affect services and benefits particularly of the bottom half of the population, it remains to be seen how such large upgrade of energy funds will be intelligently used to guarantee efficient and effective affordable energy services to the poorest too. A low carbon system cannot exist without the people; and a successful low carbon economy that includes renewable energies and a remodelled grid should not overlook all sectors of the population.
Chair
Sharing Knowledge Foundation
said: On 14/06/2010
where real estate prices are at a premium and the reduced footprint of superconducting cable will be attractive A 750 kV DC power line needs a Right of Way which is 50 to 80 meters wide, whereas the superconducting cable carrying the same capacity is the size of a garden water hose that will be interred in a trench by a roadside among other piping such as optical fibres, water etc… There is a lot of NIMBY opposition to HV power lines, on aesthetic but also –right or wrong – fear of electromagnetic radiation. Superconducting cable will not emit any radiation whatsoever. This could be a decisive factor in opening the market.
Please refer to the presentation by Franck Schmidt, Head of HTS unit at NEXANS, at the “Sharing Knowledge Conference (5)” 1st March 2010
Research Assistant
Electricity Policy Research Group, University of Cambridge
said: On 14/06/2010
Many people who have answered this question before me have pointed towards the importance of the development and implementation of new technologies such as smart meters, micro-CHP, smart grids and many more. However, should we not first investigate ways to more efficiently use the electricity grids we currently have before turning to new technologies that we have never used before? Luckily, there is a large potential for improvement, using methods and technologies that we understand relatively well. Sure, these improvements may be much harder to sell to consumers or voters, because they do not have attractive names, cannot be accompanied by flashy graphics and are generally much more difficult to explain. However, that should not deter us from investigating them, which is why I would like to suggest the following four answers to the above question:
We should be re-modelling the way we use our national electricity grids. Contrary to the US, most European power markets are run as if there were no constraints in the transmission system. Of course, transmission constraints exist, so system operators have to spend significant amounts of money redispatching the system to avoid overloading lines. This is obviously an inefficient solution, as it does not give generators incentives to locate in the right places, it does not give consumers incentives to change their consumption patterns, and it creates opportunities for generators in export-constrained locations to make large amounts of money by false arbitrage. Increasing amounts of renewables will only make these problems worse. A change to a market with nodal prices would go far in solving them, as these nodal prices, which can be different at every location and in every time period, would accurately reflect the costs of congestion. Several large US markets have successfully implemented this and saved large amounts of money; Europe should seriously consider doing the same.
We should be re-modelling the way we use our international electricity grids. Currently, most European system operators are almost exclusively concerned with their own systems, without sharing vital information with their neighbours. However, electricity flows according to physical laws, and it does not stop at national borders. Hence, the amount of power generated in, for example, Germany, affects flows in all connected countries, from Finland to Portugal. The lack of international coordination not only causes expensive inefficiencies in planning and operations, it also threatens the security of the system: several of the wide-area blackouts in the previous years could probably have been prevented if system operators had talked to each other. Again, increasing amounts of renewables will make these issues much more important.
We should be re-modelling the way we operate our electricity grids. Deterministic security assessments, such as the so-called “N-1” criterion, which specifies that the system must be able to deal with the loss of any one if its components, have served us well in the past. However, with increasing amounts of renewables coming on to the system, this may no longer be the optimal standard for of maintaining security, and we need to think about alternatives. There are also many other things that can be improved; for example, transmission line ratings could be set dynamically, so that they can depend on the temperature, wind speeds, etc.
We should be re-modelling the way we plan extensions to our electricity grids
Currently, most planning procedures are deterministic. Complicated planning models are run several times, each time with a different set of assumptions about generation costs, demand levels, etc.; extensions which have a positive net present value across all these model runs are undertaken and other extensions are evaluated using different metrics, such as the maximum regret. This is not the best way to deal with uncertainty, as the best extensions may be those which are not optimal in any scenario but give the best overall result. Changing to a stochastic planning method, where planning is optimised taking the whole range of future scenarios explicitly into account could bring significant benefits.
Clearly then, there is much we can do to improve the efficiency of the existing electricity grid, and nothing will ever get done if we continue to prefer existing, inefficient solutions to new, better ones, just because we are afraid of change, or if we continue to avoid real international cooperation. Of course, we should also develop and test smart meters, distributed generation, and all those other things, because they are likely to be very important in the future. However, in our search for new, exciting possibilities, we should not disregard the ones we currently have.
Senior Vice President, Power and Environmental Policies
Alstom Power
said: On 15/06/2010
Renewables must increase their share of the power generation portfolio as the world is developing solutions to tackle climate change. But we all know renewable sources of energy are intermittent and possibly remote from the grid. So electricity grids in the future will have to be remodelled to deliver real-time monitoring and control of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and demand.
We in Alstom believe the interconnection of these four elements will be essential if we want to connect intermittent and remote generation, such as solar and wind, to the grid in an efficient way.
Although smart metering is already high in the priority of some policy-development, we believe policy should not overlook the monitoring and control of electricity generation. This is essential to the smooth functioning of a smart grid and to ensure cleaner generation.
Technologies are available to help manage the fluctuations between intermittent generation and base load and to take advantage of storage capacity to reduce volatility in power supply as delivered.
Alstom has considerable expertise in the optimisation of energy dispatch and control, within a plant and across the fleet as well as in the monitoring and management of generation plant, and is building on such expertise to offer enhanced real-time dispatching, plant management and optimisation.
Generators are helped to determine what products and services to provide at what point in time: base load energy, flexible power, carbon capture, and/or ancillary services.
To deliver the changes needed as effectively as possible, governments should include technology and equipment suppliers fully in the development of policy and technical standards, e.g. through the emerging industrial platforms.
Professor
National Defense University/ Georgetown
said: On 15/06/2010
Electrical grids are complex machines. They can stretch for 1,000s of kilometers and can cover many millions of houses in some countries. The biggest machine on earth just might be the combined and interconnected electrical grid of the US. But these are mostly “dumb grids”. We need to build truly smart grids that connect to many other systems within systems in intelligent and learning ways.
A huge amount of energy is lost in the production of electricity at generating plants that use oil, gas and coal. Significant amounts are also lost in nuclear plants. Most of this loss is due to heat from the generators being sent into the atmosphere. Much of this heat could be captured with combined heat-power-cooling-industrial-agricultural uses. This part of the electricity grid needs to be tightened up. A lot is also lost in transmission of the electricity from the point of generation to the distribution networks. Then we lose a lot from the stepping down and electrical friction in the distribution networks. In the US even more is lost when the lines are split into 220 and 110 at the houses, office buildings, etc.
Massive amounts of energy are also lost on the demand side when consumers use electricity unnecessarily at peak, a.k.a. expensive times, and use very little during the off-peak times. That may seem tautological, but it is not. If we can somehow change the demand parameters for electricity we can save a lot of electricity and the energy that goes into producing that electricity.
We can set up smart houses and smart buildings that have data streams on energy needs and use that feedback into the total energy grid. For example, let say we have a series of very light and heat intensive buildings in New York City and Paris. (Why is Paris called the “City of Lights”?) Let us say that in the computer in these buildings there is a dimming switch that goes on in the entire building at about 600 pm. That is one way of doing things.
Another way of doing things is that there is a data network that looks at all of the buildings and takes the electricity from the large buildings not being used so much and moves it to households and others, such as hotels, that will have increased demands for electricity during the time periods after 6 pm. The grid automatically moves electricity demand from one set of consumers to another. This reduces overall demand for electricity considerably and hence reduces the needs for electricity generation, and reduces investment needs to build new plants. Part of this solution to the energy problem is behavioral (do we really need all of that electricity lighting up mostly empty buildings at night) and the other is data driven (we can control and move electricity from one consumer to another via SCADA and other programs).
A couple of interesting links on other ways the smart grids can help can be found at: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/landing_page and http://smartgridcity.xcelenergy.com/media/video/imagine-smartgridcity.asp. Smart grids can be self healing. They can reduce blackouts. They can better pool electricity investments, inventions and innovations. They can better pool energy demand and supply. However, these are very data intensive systems and will require smart buildings, smart industries, and even smart cars, as well as a full systems-upon-systems connection between the economy, society, government, and more.
Smart grids are not just meters as some politicians like to think. Just putting smart meters in a house is just a baby step toward what the smart grid will be all about.
Given the amount of energy we waste and given the costs of producing the energy to the environment smart grids seem to not be a choice, but a requirement, in the future. However, this transition will take a long time and lots of trillions of dollars to transform from the essentially 19th century electricity grids we have now to truly 21rst century smart grids.
Now let’s connect transport to all of this. One of the biggest missing links in the energy-transport nexus is the connection between electricity and transport. This can be done with electric cars and the right sorts of batteries and power trains in order to get beyond the range anxiety that some feel now about driving an electric car. Having battery switching stations like what “Better World” is doing in Israel is a start, but again this is a baby step when we really need Olympic leaps.
One of those huge leaps will have to be getting rid of the massive losses of energy from the generating plant to the use in industry, in homes, or in cars. Normally only about 10-15 percent of the energy in the coal that is burned in a generating plant actually gets used to light a light bulb in a house. Shocking, isn’t it. Then that light bulb actually produces more heat than light. Try finding the temperature of the average light bulb. It is quite hot. So the point of that heat is what? So we need smarter end use devices like smart light bulbs, smart air conditioners, smarter computers, smart TVs, and, ok, the really smart car.
This smart car can produce electricity during the day time when it is being driven and export the electricity via a household or a business at night. At the same time it can get recharged for another days use. The recharge will happen at an off-peak time and when the electricity is cheaper.
A truly smart grid is also not just technology. It is also economics. There need to be proper costing of electricity depending on the time of day, time of year, the weather, and more. Until we get that right the waste will continue. As the waste continues the CO2 and other pollutants get produced with no real positive value to them. Think of this if 85% of the coal that goes into producing electricity for a toaster goes up as heat then the CO2 produced by that coal power plant is 85% useless in the end use (unless it is sequestered, which is another article). So we complain about energy prices, energy shortages, and environmental effect of energy production (and electricity production is the biggest source of greenhouse gases world wide with transport second) then we are really not being smart.
Smart grids mean also smarter environmental protections and smarter uses of our environment. They mean smarter investing, smarter consuming and smarter supplying of electricity. They also can mean smarter transport systems and smarter end use devices, like light bulbs and maybe even a smart toaster. The toaster is not a smart technology. Think of the 85% that is lost until the electron gets to the toaster. Now, think of all of the heat lost when one uses the toaster. If I were a polar bear worried about global warming I would not be happy about toasters and such end use technologies that compound the waste of energy and production of CO2, etc.
Smart grids are also organic. We will learn more as we develop them, hopefully. The end uses and methods of supply that we are using now could be completely revolutionized when the learning by doing with smart grids really begins. Then, hopefully, we will truly see how a systems-within-systems approach to energy-economics-society-water-food-security-and more are all so intimately interconnected.
Then we will not only have developing and learning smart grids. We will finally be much smarter about how to use and protect our environment and the resources that will be needed for generations to come.
Chairman and Managing Director
CityPlan
said: On 15/06/2010
In developed countries, due to our addiction, we are not able to provide basic human needs without electricity. Current electricity grid inherited victory AC over DC, and the legacy of centralized power generation from fossil fuels. In the history, fossil fuels never replaced all available renewable energy. Fossil and nuclear energy covers less than 0.01 % of available primary energy sources on Earth. The solar radiation is the biggest of its part. Without it would be the average surface temperature on Earth minus 263 ° C. The difference between absolute zero is the influence of geothermal energy. Solar energy is irreplaceable and unlike biomass inexhaustible energy source.
The problem of renewable energy is its density. We need a temperature of minimum 300 ° C to produce steam and electricity. If the temperature on Earth was like at Venus, the life will be impossible as well as no need for electricity. Instead of “dilute” concentrated fossil and nuclear energy, we need to harvest also distributed dilute renewable energy by adapted intelligent networks. Because most renewable energy is intermittent, we need integrate corresponding accumulation capacity into the distributed intelligent network (smart grids). The richest area of renewable energy are far from centres of consumption (e.g. off-shore winds from the Atlantic Ocean, solar energy in deserts, the Mediterranean), so we need a new super-smart-grids, which will be linked with existing transmission systems and that will provide also energy solidarity across continents. 1% from the desert areas it is possible to obtain electricity for 10 billion people worldwide.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Natural Alternative Fuels, Inc., USA
said: On 15/06/2010
Yes, we should. The question is why? What benefit will a grid makeover provide; and what challenges must we overcome to successfully upgrade the grid? Before we jump into answering these questions, let us not assume everyone knows what the grid is or what it does.
The electric grid is a complex network of private, public and government-owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. The grid delivers electricity from points of generation to the consumer. The electric grid performs two important functions. It transmits and delivers power. Essentially, the grid is the engine that powers nations.
Electricity is the flow of electrical power or charge and is generated from renewable or non-renewable sources. However, electricity is not itself renewable or non-renewable.
1 Electricity is a secondary power source meaning it is converted from other sources such as coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydroelectric power, petroleum or other types of renewable sources.
Without electric power, we could not meet the basic need for national security, energy security, economic prosperity and social order. Also, we could not meet basic essential needs such as food, water and shelter. When nations, states or communities lack sufficient, uninterrupted electrical power supply, they fall behind in the race toward 21st century technological transformation.
We need to remodel the grid to ensure that we are prepared to meet rising global energy demand; that we remain flexible as various clean energy, green technology strategies are introduced to the grid. Drivers that support the need to remodel the grid include; projected growth in electric power demand, expected near-term retirement of aged power plants, expansion of economic growth and information technology advancement toward a “smart grid”.
The smart grid is a system; a huge investment in infrastructure to give the electrical power system a digital makeover to make it more efficient, reliable and reduce costs.
Europe and the United States has invested billions of dollars to install new transmission lines and cables to make the electrical power system operate like computer networks.
The remodelling of the grid and the integration of smart grid technology will allow electric power utility companies to identify power outages through networked sensors and perhaps avoid the disruption of power before it happens. This will result in significant cost savings to the utility and inconvenience to the consumer. On the other hand, the consumer will receive more detailed information concerning personal use of electrical power through smart meters and other energy-monitoring tools. Through their cellular telephone or through web-based programs, the consumer will be able to control their household appliances to operate at non-peak times. This will save on their monthly utility bills.
Clearly, we need to remodel the electric power grid to accommodate future energy demand. The grid system in Europe and in the United States is at least 100 years old and in times past, has been victim to grid congestion, power outages and energy bottlenecks. Now the push is on to incorporate more fuel-efficient, clean energy technologies. We must properly prepare to provide consumers with flexible, reliable, affordable, clean energy. The challenges that we face begin with two ancient parables; the parable of new cloth on old garments and new wine in old wineskins.
1 EIA. “What is Electricity?” http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/electricity.html#Secondary Source
(Accessed December 14, 2005).
A new patch on old cloth will pull away from the old cloth and the original tear or breach will become worse. Likewise, the fermentation process in new wine placed in an old wineskin, will cause the old wineskin to burst, spilling the wine and ruining the old wineskin. The lesson, is that we cannot just afford to do a patch-work job when upgrading the electric grid. Government, public and private entities must significantly increase capital investment to cover the cost of the electric grid makeover.
More resources are needed to pay for new power plants, new transmission lines, better distribution channels to provide consumers with more efficient, low cost electrical power. The inefficiency of the current grid; the loss of power through transmission lines and disruptions in the power supply costs the U.S. economy more than $150 billion dollars a year. For these reasons, a grid makeover should become a high priority.
For anyone not yet convinced of the necessity to upgrade the grid, I point your attention to the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast of the United States. As good stewards of this earth, we have a duty to protect, conserve and preserve its natural resources for our children, their children and their children’s children. The enormous waste, the pollution and the damage to our ecological and economical well-being will be felt for generations to come.
It is imperative that we decrease our dependency upon fossil fuels; that we reduce carbon emissions in the air and that do something to control the impact of global warming. We can do this by increasing our use of clean, electrical power through various, harmonious power sources. This includes wind power, solar power, hydro power, geo-thermal and bio-mass produced power. For anyone who believes that we should not remodel the grid, I implore you to reconsider. Don’t do it for you. Do it for the legacy of our children and the generations to come
President
The Clearlight Foundation
said: On 17/06/2010
The power grid must be able to accept distributed power generation. The current average of 30% efficiency in generation is totally unacceptable. Power generation today typically throws away waste heat mainly because the massive power plants waste so much heat that it is difficult to sell it. Generation should be done wherever there is a need for heat and sized to match the heat application. That way efficiencies of 85% are easily achieved. Laws should be changed to encourage co-generation wherever heat is needed. No technical breakthrough is needed to triple our power generation efficiency. The only breakthrough needed is a legal and policy breakthrough that encourages efficiency.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2008/07/heat-is-power-lets-stop-throwing-it-away-53123
Coordinator
Triad Electric Vehicles Association
said: On 19/06/2010
Renewable energies are of growing importance, but shouldn’t we be remodelling our electricity grids, too?
Smart grid- communication between the generator and the load, creating a better match and improving efficiency, both generation and load are managed and opportunities are opened for mobile storage.
How?
The future is not certain.
There are two extremes: one centralized, very problematic, policy dependent; the other decentralized, with “dirty” AC power flowing many ways converted to DC and inverted to clean AC if desired. Technically already available.
Power companies want the control and governments want control regulation. People want options-cheaper rates such as time of use.
Our present systems are overly reliant on large scale fossil fuel and nuclear systems providing baseload. Baseload should mean the lowest continous load experienced. However, we have too much generated baseload, so at low usage times, we waste energy heating up elements in transformers and wires. Excessive, inefficient night lighting produces light pollution and masks this overproduction. In the US it has been estimated we could recharge 80 million electric vehicles without changing our generation capability. This inconvinent fact is rarely mentioned. Large generators are in sync with each other and cannot be throttled back. US power producers have enormous reserve capacity, typically in gas turbines to buffer the load when a large generator shuts down or fails. This reserve capacity could be easily linked with renewable energy. Renewable energy systems are often intermitant. Typically this is weather related; which means energy production can be reliably forecast hours, even days in advance. This can also be offset with dispersed energy production experiencing different weather. Production should be located near consumption.
Smart grids have been around for some time in special applications-where waste is expensive and so is failure- exploration-space, undersea, military, and stand alone home systems. Local smart grids can communicate down to individual appliances and monitor individual solar panels. Todays grid tied inverters are becoming more affordable. They match external systems and provide better, purer AC sine waves. Some loads are so delicate they convert to DC and invert back to “clean” AC.
Digital systems are all DC. Todays office communication, internet, computers, calculators, printer/fax and lighting are DC. Their greatest source of failure are power converters (wall warts).
Digital components could benefit from a centralized office DC converter upgrade. If you require AC power, a dedicated matched inverter would do. Work spaces could offer DC, AC, and communication bundles.
DC allows energy storage. Battery storage is an expensive proposition but loss of data and business capability has created the need for an Uninterruptible Power Supply. All major battery makers know energy storage is the major market. The electric vehicles are a secondary market. Now, visionaries are starting to see the car as an appliance underutilized (unused for 80% of the time). Batteries purchased for transportation because they are more energy efficient and cheaper than gasoline, can have a secondary use as energy storage for homes and business.
Vehicle to Grid
V2G 1.0 energy stored in vehicle tapped for use later
V2G 2.0 energy stored during low demand purchased cheap sold at higher prices at peak demand
V2G 3.0 energy stored and released from an aggrandized operator ( > 1 megawatt) is used almost simultainously to balance (clean) the AC sine wave. Every time a circuit is opened and closed it changes the relationship between supply and demand. To avoid damage from low supply, energy service providers err on the high side. Four times a second, power can be pulled or added to defuzz the AC sine wave. The pull off /put on ratio is 60/40. Over time you would gain energy for your vehicle. Vehicle energy storage would be a plus for the vehicle owner. Fleets of vehicles would help pay for themselves as storage units.
Renewable energy is DC. If the Balance of Systems (converters/inverters, powercenters, mppts etc) are already provided, PV will be less than a $1 a watt. Solar would be cost competitive with retail power. Electrical power would not have to flow one way from centralized generator to consumer, but could flow from neighbor to neighbor reducing the need for massive grid upgrades. This could result in a less vulnerable redundant system that enhances security.
A smart Grid will happen with communication between the supplier and user. Like the internet I see a transition from centralized systems to highly decentralized systems providing power to the AC distribution system and operating DC for digital, storage and smaller scale renewable energy generation.
Research Fellow
University of Surrey
said: On 21/06/2010
Re-modeling our electricity grids in the UK has become a more important issue for a number of reasons. The centralized systems which, have been a staple feature of both the nationalized and liberalized electricity regimes, remain only 30 per cent efficient – increasingly unrealistic given the UK’s increasingly stringent targets on CO2 emissions. Increasing reliance on imported gas has also thrown the spotlight onto our use and practices around more ‘conventional’ means of electricity generation.
Arguably, one of the principle benefits of the introduction of a ‘smarter’ energy grid in the UK would be its role in beginning to dismantle a now outmoded centralized energy system alongside the introduction of a more devolved means of generation. The potential for more community level energy initiatives to address the broader aims of energy security and climate strategy, for instance, is now seen as an integral part of a future UK energy policy – one which is able to deliver more effectively on demand reduction and to more stringent carbon reduction targets. In particular, introduction of Feed-In Tariffs (FITS) and a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) both carry the likelihood of beginning to introduce new actors into the energy generation market such as households, co-operatives, housing associations or schools. Theoretically, these developments can offer new, exciting opportunities to drive the inarguably radical changes which will be needed to effect climate change mitigation, whilst also embedding more ‘bottom-up’ resilience to the UK’s energy system.
Deputy Director - General
European Commission Directorate-General for Information Society and Media
said: On 30/06/2010
Smarter electricity grids can help Europe to meet its 2020 climate and energy goals and significantly reduce dependence on carbon-based energy supply by 2050.
According to scenarios published by the International Energy Agency, if CO2 emissions are to be reduced by 50% from current levels by 2050, around 57% of those reductions will have to come from renewable energy sources and improved energy efficiency, and smart grids are a pre-requisite to both.
Renewable energy sources are intermittent and their availability at any point in time can be difficult to predict. Electricity grids require constant supply to provide for the demand from users. If by 2050, half of total electricity generation is to come from renewable sources, the only way to manage the steady supply to the electricity grid is through advanced ICT-based control and monitoring systems that can manage the mismatch between those intermittent renewable sources and demand. These “smart grids” will also better integrate electricity coming from distributed sources and from micro-generation (such as photovoltaic solar panels, small-scale wind turbines and micro-combined heat and power installations used by individuals, businesses and communities to meet their own heat and/or electricity needs) which will have a growing importance in the European energy mix.
Smart grids will allow the transport of higher volumes of electricity through existing infrastructure (from 30% to 300% more electricity) that in turn will reduce network losses and put off costs to construct new transmission and distribution infrastructures.
For consumers, smart grids and smart metering systems will enable better and more precise monitoring of electricity consumption, allowing more energy efficiency and energy savings, especially in buildings. Those systems will provide timely information on energy pricing, in such a way that consumers can optimise their consumption patterns avoiding peak periods and using energy more efficiently. They will also open the door to new energy solutions provided by aggregators and ESCO’s Energy Services Companies. Consumers will also be able to produce, store and sell back their excess electricity to the market (e.g. through CHP or plug-in electrical vehicles).
From a European perspective the main challenges are to assure interoperability and cross border infrastructure in Europe. First and foremost a certain degree of interoperability should be achieved at European level between the different smart grids concepts that are emerging. A true European smart grid market needs interoperability at system and components level, and will create greater competition between energy suppliers, technology vendors and service providers, lowering the costs of roll out. Obviously under any scenario there will be considerable up-front investment required at the level of companies, regions, Member States and the EU. However, the long term energy and cost savings, the environmental advantages of smart grids, and the fact that they are “the enabling factor” for Europe to meet its environmental and energy targets justify the investment. These benefits should be the main incentives for business, Governments and the public to strongly support the roll out of smart grids.
Association Manager
European Geothermal Energy Council
said: On 30/06/2010
Geothermal: a renewable base load
i’m surprised to see some comments arguing RES are intermittent or flexible. You should know a RES mix is perfectly possible with technologies like geothermal providing the base load.
Of course we should adapt the grid for connecting all the plants. We must remind the main advantage of RES: it is a local ressource to improve the security of supply !
Geothermal energy as a heat resource is available all the time. Converted into electric power, it is therefore particularly adapted to provide a base load to the grid; many geothermal power plants have a track record of operating more than 8,000 hours per year, which represents more than 90% availability. Geothermal energy also is an ideal answer to the different energy needs of a local community: electricity, heating and cooling, domestic hot water, and thermal energy storage.
Europe’s target of 20% of total energy consumption from renewable energy in 2020 can only be met through a balanced mix which exploits the advantages of each renewable source.
The grid integration of energy from fluctuating supply sources will have a major impact on power networks, with baseload supply and controllability becoming increasingly important.
Geothermal is the only renewable energy source able to offer consistent, 24/7 power production. Additionally, generation based on the heat from deep inside the earth is controllable, making geothermal power an ideal addition to Europe’s prospective energy mix.
There is no geographical restriction for geothermal energy, as the source is available anywhere. However, some regions benefit from more favourable conditions that have allowed earlier development using existing technology and most of Europe’s geothermal plants are in Iceland and Italy, where unusually high temperatures at comparatively limited depths predominate.
In these high enthalpy (heat potential relative to depth) regions, steam-driven power plants can be deployed. However, when we consider the fact that more than 95% of the European land surface lies in low enthalpy regions where a different approach is needed, the scale of the opportunity becomes clear.
It is widely recognized within the international geothermal community that Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS, formerly known as Hot Dry Rock), as used at the French prototype facility in Soultz-sous-Forêts, represents the key technology for development of geothermal energy.
EGS raises the compelling possibility that geothermal power production is no longer restricted to special geological characteristics. EGS exploits naturally fractured hot rocks with insufficient permeability to allow the use of existing geothermal technology. The pre-existing joints and fractures are widened by injected water under high pressure. This technique, called ‘hydraulic stimulation’, is well known in the oil and gas industry. But the creation of an artificial geothermal reservoir happens at greater depth and temperature, and crystalline rocks with their (compared to gas or oil-bearing sedimentary rocks) significantly different geo-mechanical properties are the target.
Major efforts to develop the technology would result in the creation of a substantial source of baseload electricity production, available over widespread land areas, irrespective of daylight and weather constraints. Since the validity of the concept has been demonstrated, EGS plant ratings should move from 3-10 MW in the early development stages towards 25 to 100 MW units produced from multi-well clusters, as currently employed in the oil and gas sector.
Europe has pioneered the exploitation of geothermal resources. The R&D effort of European scientists led to the prototype at Soultz-sous-Forêts, and the EU has the first successful commercially-funded EGS project in Landau, Germany, with further projects under development in nations including the UK, Portugal, Spain and Slovakia.
However, the rest of the world is moving towards geothermal energy at an accelerated pace (the US Department of Energy is spending several 100 million dollars extra on EGS technology over the next three years) and these efforts need to be ambitiously expanded in order to keep this leadership.
Director
Electric Grid Research for the California Institute for Energy and Environment, University of California
said: On 26/07/2010
Much of how I would answer this question can be found in points already made in various earlier comments. At the risk of some redundancy, I’ll attempt to provide additional insights into this question by casting my answer in a different context and organization. And as some others have done, I’m responding to a slightly different question: Since renewable energy is growing in importance, should the electric grids be remodeled? My answer is “yes, by necessity.”At least that is my answer given in the context of California’s energy and climate change policy goals, which is my focus.
By 2020, 33% of the electricity sold in the state is to come from renewable generation, which will amount to about 25,000 MW of new generation, mostly remote central station plants, “fuelled” by wind and solar, that will need the electric grid for getting their product to markets. This situation poses three substantial challenges for the grid: (1) the sitting and permitting of new line extensions to the renewable generators, or upgrades of existing lines, while facing tough regulations and public resistance, (2) accommodating unique behaviors of renewables, such as intermittency, low or no generator inertia, large rapid up and down ramp rates, and occasional over-supply, without degrading system reliability and economic efficiencies, and (3) increasing the power capacity of the grid which is now effectively derated because of old equipment, and operating and planning practices related to thermal limits, standard reliability contingencies, and especially, stability constraints. Significant renewable electricity will also be done in distributed generators, which will also interconnect with grid and will pose their own special operational and infrastructure challenges for the grid.
The default approach to meeting these challenges is to build traditional wires, towers, and poles, and conventional generators. At these higher penetrations of renewable generation, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that we can’t just “build” our way out of this problem. Increasingly, the resistance to adding new infrastructure will cause excessive time delays and added costs, and the complexity of additional infrastructure will reach a point of diminishing returns for meeting the new operational challenges. New grid functionality will become a necessary adjunct in order to make renewable integration easier and cheaper in a timely fashion. Some industry people California say we have already reached that point. New functionality will require new technologies, especially those that make the grid smarter.
The list of candidate technologies is long, and includes new sensors; high speed-high bandwidth communications; advanced, high speed analyses, modeling and probabilistic forecasting; new materials; temporal and spatial power flow control; etc. They can and must be applied throughout the system from the generator to the customer This list can be characterized in terms of the three grid challenges described above: (1) Accelerating the siting and permitting by putting transmission lines in a better “light,” either by reducing the environmental and visual impacts, or increasing the recognized value in the context of its costs, (2) Accommodating the unique behaviors of renewable generation through a smarter and more flexible grid, and (3) Increasing capacity by optimizing the grid for greater power flow, especially with respect to managing operational stabilities.