Transmission: Not the Only Path to Green
Clearly, transmission will have an important role in linking renewable resources to the grid. But this doesn't mean transmission is the only pathway to green, or necessarily the right one in all circumstances. For example, there are proposals to create a subsidized "electric transmission superhighway" costing tens of billions of dollars to bring wind power from the Midwest plains to the cities of the East Coast.
Midwest wind is a great resource, but not our only resource. It should compete on a level playing field with renewables elsewhere. Suggesting we should get our renewables from remote areas regardless of transmission costs is like saying if only we had access to free refrigerated freight trains, we should get our ice cubes from the North Pole.
Who pays to build the trains or lay the tracks? And wouldn't it be cheaper to make the ice locally?
All business owners know if they establish their factory at a distant location to keep production costs down, they have to weigh that against increased shipping costs. But, if taxpayers pay the "shipping costs" of renewable generation, we skew decisions away from locally based renewables that may have a lower total cost.
Moreover, there is no such thing as a "green" transmission line. Transmission lines carry all electrons, regardless of whether or not the generator is green. A new line gives a market advantage to any power plant fortunate enough to be close to it. A Midwest transmission build-out could have consequences that are hardly green - giving a new lease on life to antiquated coal plants, jeopardizing green economic development and jobs in regions such as the Northeast, and burdening many taxpayers who would not enjoy its ostensible benefits.
With so much of energy needing to be changed, it's important to avoid approaches that could prove excessively costly or even counter-productive. We owe this to our customers.
Renewable energy needs to be encouraged everywhere, and not only in one particular area or region. We will be on the road to doing this when we have a strong national renewable energy standard (RES) and a price on carbon. But we should leave it up to the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of the American people to do the rest. This will help ensure that we get the most cost-effective solutions - whether from transmission or other resources.
No one knows exactly what will be the most successful clean-energy technologies of the year 2020, let alone 2050. By letting the market determine which are the best technologies and locations for renewable energy projects, our nation will be in a far better position to unleash innovation, drive down costs and build the world's leading green energy sector.
Comments
Excellent article . . . . you've raised some very good points. YES, long-distance transmission systems cost plenty . . . and there has been considerable progress in small-site decentraliized power generation technology:
- Micro turbines that use ceramic materlals can now deliver the thermal efficiency of multi-megawatt size turbines
- Toshiba, NuScale and Hyperion are offering micro-nuclear power generation technology of 10MW to 25MW
- Some low-head, small-site hydroelectric power turbines can deliver up to 84% conversion efficiency.
There is definately a market for decentralized generation in many geographic locations around the world.
It is already in many parts of North America but currently there is no incentive for regional distribution utility companies to pay for expanding the long-distance and / or local distribution transmission systems. Regulators in fact try to keep a lid on rate increases for any reason, let alone the very high costs of adding more long-distance transmission lines.
There is a way perhaps to give them an incentive but it would mean a drastic change in the regulation of utilities. If permitted by regulatory reforms, local distribution utility companies might / could make extra money from commercializing residential renewable source micro-generators, and smart grid products and smart grid communication services to residential customers. They could help individual customers with buying a rooftop solar PV or solar thermal, or geothermal system, and even make money with clever marketing by e.g. offering consumers temporary discounts on rates, and / or possibly free electrician help to hook-up to their local grid in return for getting a piece of the action i.e. a share in the profits whenever the customer’s micro-generator sells power back to the grid.
This extra money earned could help go towards the cost of beefing up the long-distance transmission system as well as local urban distribution networks to handle much more distributed local generation capacity. But this is probably wishful thinking unfortunately because the necessary regulatory reforms would need our governing politicians to change regulator's mandates, and a drastic change in utility company business models; much easier said than done.
Great illustration of something that should be obvious to everyone. More of the same old solutions don't solve tomorrow's problems - local innovations and technologies are the answer. All that's missing is a fair playing field to evaluate the options comparably.
Keep up the great work!
Chris Tomasini
Even when net metering is capped at 5% of peak load, residential PV production could significantly reduce the immediate need for added transmission and distribution.
The point in the article that more distributed generation is required is absolutely valid and is a near term solution to immediate problems. This is also a long term solution, once a strategy for actual development of distributed generation is implement, noting that there is still the requirement for concentrated generation, but those plants will have to be where the resources are.
This program is going public now.
See http://www.enmax.com/Energy/Res/Greenmax/Technology/AlternativeEnergyTechnologies.htm for more information.
It will take a while before the society has adopt this new business models but innovative utility will do evevrything to exploit the EXISTING transmissions lines by smart grid to interact with distributed generation. Hopefully the politician will not succeed to convince tax payers to financing NEW transmission grid to transport electricity across the country.
best regards Peter Platell
In a relative "modern" country like Germany,
we need the unbelievable figure of
1.600. 000.000 kilometers, that are 1.000.000.000 miles
of electricity grid to transfer the power from the points
of production, mostly coal fired power plants,
to the users like industry and households.
It is getting even more interesting, when you find out
that to support this system, more than 566.000 substations
are needed in Germany alone.
Most if them filled with toxid cooling fluids...
Imagine the amount of metal like steel and copper
that went into this "analog" construction.
These grids are rather old, not only in Germany.
They tend to brake down in snow storms.
To modernize the elctricity grid is a huge challenge.
Her the owners of the grids and the suppliers of the
auxiliary equipment have not done too much in the past.
That is worldwide the same situation.
Even if you add smart meters or other devices to the grid,
you have not even tackled the actual problem.
Imagination, vision and strong people are needed,
not a "fummbling around" with details.
More here:
http://www.hydrogenambassadors.com/background/german-high-voltage-network.php
1. Most people in industrialized countries live in energy hungry big cities. While you may agree or disagree with their choice it is a fact that cities are where they choose to live.
2. The surface area available in city roof tops is small in comparison to the energy consumption of the building immediately underneath it. Powering such structures with solar power is completely impractical. This is especially true when those same roof tops are being converted to roof gardens (quite a nice idea).
3. Wind towers in a city - I hope you agree not a very practical idea either. Although I have seen some very innovative designs in Dubai. Unfortunately in order to implement such innovation one would need to collapse all the exiisting high rise structures and build new ones. Likely not viable financially or from en energy perspective.
4. What do you do when the wind does not blow.Something has to be there producing electricity at the times when the wind does not blow. If the centralised grid system of the evil electrical empire is not there what do you propose will do that. The wind blows on average only 25% of the time. One could restrict elevator use only on windy days I guess and on calm days legging it up to the top of a 50-storey building will be good for the heart. Shame if you happen to be incapacitated in a wheelchair.
5. What do you do when the Sun does not shine. I have visited most of the big cities of the world and I recall they are lit very brightly at night. I have noticed that is coincident with the time of day (called night time) when the the Sun is not shining. So what is going to power the cities at night. I guess you would be OK on windy nights.
Now there are some quite ingenious ideas out there such as deep lake water cooling of buildings (Toronto Ontario) which do work but only to displace air conditioning use.
While Mr. Evers appears to suggest that grid systems break down alot I would venture that this is factually incorrect. Most grid systems have reliabilities of 98% or better and I suggest that the German grid is not an exception.
While the concept of the "smart" grid is appealing to those that have no clue where or how the power gets to their home or business they will have a very rude awakening when it is they who have to clear the snow off their solar panelled roof in winter or keep their wind generators operating 100 feet up in the air.
Thee will be no evil centralized grid to call when the power goes off or the Sun inconveniently does not shine when you want to use your air conditioner.
There is only one way in which distributed generation will work and that is to distribute people out of cities and back to the countryside. That seems to be exactly the opposite of what is occurring now.
And finally if any one seriously thinks that wind solar and similar sources of enery will provide much more than 8-9% of world electricity demand very unreliably I suggest you go give your head a shake.
But I will agree that the present grid system has produced one major failure. It has been far too reliable, far too long and has lulled people into a false sense of security. The fact that every time you flick a light switch a generator somewhere is picking up your load instantly is testament to how good we have it.
Decentralisation is a pie in the sky idea that will not work for the majority of citizens of the world....including most of the respondents here who are using computers plugged into the evil grid.
Malcolm
Net metering is not a long term approach to interfacing distributed generation with the grid, because the customers without cistributed generation are required to subsidize the customers with distributed generation. Yes, the issue is trivial now, but it will not remain trivial forever.
Malcolm
Your are both correct, as long as renewable generators are increasingly added to the grid at highly lucrative feed-in tarrifs or subsidies, the public is bound to wake up eventually by refusing to pay for them or pay for building the extra grid infrastructure necessary to support them. Some other way to raise money for the grid will become increasingly necessary, and one way is suggested in my last comment above.
Malcolm, our grid operators and politicians are not that naive. I’m sure most realize that solar panels and wind mills are part-time generators and that something on the grid has to back them up when they are down. But they are pushing renewable source generators onto the grid nevertheless with massive subsidies. They fully expect all ratepayers will foot the bill for them and the grid infrastructure to support them. The question is how fast are ratepayers’ bills going to increase over time to pay for them.