After Gutenberg

Brother and Sisters, can I get an Energy Star sticker for my GridWise Roomba?

A recent post by Jason Godesky is receiving considerable attention from some of the blogs that this blog reads. “Many of the so-called ‘alternatives’ to fossil fuels” he begins his post, “rely on the electrical grid.”

In a sense, Godesky is rebutting the recent PNNL report, which indicated that off-peak production from the Grid could support 184.8 million plug-in hybrids in the United States. “This will be an impossible feat,” argues Godesky, “since the current load alone is already breaking down the world’s biggest machine under the weight of its own complexity.”

On several occasions this blog has resounded a concern that greater reliability was needed. In his post Godesky recounted the history. In 1992, the Energy Policy Act empowered FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) to separate generation from transmission and distribution. Not only did the economic rules change, but also “the wheeling of electric power across utility lines.” The complexity of such operations reveals the flaws in the weaving.

Not surprisingly, the solution Godesky offers, is one that has been oft repeated here, i.e., local distributed generation.

Our results suggest that distributed generation close to end-users may significantly increase the robustness of electric power grids. This is true in terms of decreasing spikes in operational costs due to system failure, delaying the onset of undersupply to cities, and slowing the progression of undersupply as edges are removed. While other authors have speculated that this would be the case, it has not previously been demonstrated. (Trancik, et. al, 2005)

What distributed generation can offset are failures in grid reliability like the one Godesky cites, when in August 2003, “a tree branch in Ohio caused the largest blackout in North America’s history”, or, last year, when major power outages in Europe resulted from a high voltage line across a river being switched off to allow a cruise ship to pass safely.

However, localization brings its own set of problem, which is why this blog also advocates investment in a smarter Grid, for Europe, North America and elsewhere. Of course, the adage applies, “Anybody can make a mistake, but it takes a computer to really foul things up.” So, given a whole bunch of computers managing distributed energy resources at various levels provides a grand opportunity, a.k.a., AFGO (Another Fabulous Growth Opportunity).

The answer this blog advocates is to move from allowance to partnership:

For grid reliability such new development needs to interface with existing protective overlays that minimize damage, ensuring that power can be restored rapidly when problems arise and preventing the occurrence of cascading failures. Yet what seems lacking in such initiative is sufficient incentive to the power companies to introduce the sophisticated power electronics and expert systems consequent with a premium payback system.

Possibly, such partnership in the future could represent a bicameral system, i.e., the high voltage systems are the senators and the low voltage systems are the commoners with a system of rapid negotiation to resolve policy initiatives from either side, plus oversight from the government and elected central administration with electricity and GridWise Roombas for all.

Reference:

Trancik, J., A. Gilmore, J. Reichardt, and C. Tiazzoldi. “Efficient and Resilient Electric Power Networks: A Chinese Case Study.” Complex Systems Summer School Final Project Papers, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 2005.