Microgrids May Provide Distributed Energy 159
jobcello wrote to mention a BBC article discussing a new technique for power distribution that might provide electricity using a series of small "microgrids", in a manner similar to peer-to-peer software. From the article: "'This would save something like 20 to 30% of our emissions with hardly anyone knowing it ... A microgrid is a collection of small generators for a collection of users in close proximity ... It supplies heat through the household, but you already have cables in the ground, so it is easy to construct an electricity network. Then you create some sort of control network.' That network could be made into a smart grid using more sophisticated software and grid computing technologies."
DG and you (Score:2, Insightful)
Big companies (Score:3, Insightful)
People supplying energy for the people? Big electric companies will never allow it.
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...what about the guy down the block? (Score:2, Insightful)
1) how much more/less will this cost?
2) is this going to affect, say, the data center that houses 300+ servers, and the guy down the block's electronics? who says the data center can afford the drop in power when he goes to turn on a few high-power units?
3) wouldn't this just make it that much easier for power to be cut as a whole?
Re:Lightning (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another Zonk dupe! (Score:3, Insightful)
What the... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you refuse, then stop trying to force other drink your special Kool Aids; we don't need idiots who chant the same PR for every story.
Skeptical eyebrow raise... (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems somewhat far-fetched to me.
From what I remember of physics in highschool, the production and transport of electricity is much more efficient when it is done in high volume with high voltages. In a small grid, you'd lose the benefits of that efficiency. It would also require separate maintenance crews, hardware, etc.
It would also raise concerns about standardization. Will the product I just purchased work on a grid down the street? Would you have to replace your appliances when you moved? The biggest benefit of consolitation is, imo, that you don't have to ask these questions. The systems are large enough to span areas well beyond the majority of general user's environments and thus there are few, if any compatability issues (i.e. Currently, if you leave the country, you might need to change your plug type / voltage, but anywhere in the country it should be the same).
Interruption also raises an issue. I'm inclined to think that a larger factility is easier to keep in operation because it's consolidated and more easily accessed by technicians / engineers / etc.
There are some benefits.
Solar power is made feasible, at least partially, in this case. I've always wondered why we don't all just have solar panels on our houses and batteries in the basements. I suppose that living in Southern California gives me a bit of a bias in terms of estimating the feasibility of such a system, but it certainly seems more reasonable than burning copious amounts of fossil fuels.
There are also other "alternative" power sources listed in the article, although it seems to me that large-scale, consolidated power production is still superior, given that the production facilities are clean.
Having grids separated increases security of those facilities in a disaster as there is no single facility whose compromise would cause a power loss to an entire large grid. With small grids, even if your grid goes down, surrounding grids should still be operational. That does, however, raise concerns about maintenance and repair--who's doing it and when?
Why not nuclear?
Nuclear energy is some of the cleanest and most efficient energy production available. Even with the waste being very toxic, its concentration levels are high. It is arguably easier to control the pollution from nuclear by-products than from a coal power plant. In a well-maintained and operated plant, there is virtually no risk of a meltdown, and I'm sure modern technology can be used to further increase the safety of nuclear power.
Chernobyl is the bloody poster-child of anti-nuclear groups, but that's certainly not par for the course in terms of nuclear power. San Onofre [sce.com] is down here in SoCal, and I dare say we have any mutated sea bass or deathclaw walking around. ;)
My vote is for nuclear, hydroelectic, and other efficient, clean, large-scale power sources, or for solar panels on my roof. It'll be interesting to see how this issue plays out.
Re:...what about the guy down the block? (Score:3, Insightful)
Assume that in most places, the existing electricity grid will be used to shuffle power around the neighborhood -- and to allow access to the big-boy power generators who pick up the slack when the microgrids are net consumers. Many states allow individuals to sell power back into the grid. Some even require that the "price" paid for such power is the same retail that the small customer pays, so accounting is simply a matter of spinning the meter backwards. Most of those states, however, require that the small generator monitor the commercial power, and if it fails, to quit pushing power into the grid. The nominal reason is one of safety -- some of the repairs done to the local wiring are danerous if the wires are "live".
Granted, a sufficiently sophisticated distributed control system should be able to handle this. But I'm not sure I'd want to put my repair staff at risk on that basis.
Economies of Scale (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the reason we built big power plants was that:
1: By putting all your eggs in one basket and Watching That Basket, reliability was increased.
2: Many small generators would cost more and not be as efficient as one big generator, even allowing for larger transmission line losses.
Just call it a RAIG.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, that seems to be the key here. You will need controllers to synchronize all the generation, but once you do that, then each generator is just like the disks in a RAID array. They can be inexpensive and not super reliable, thereby reducing costs.
The efficiency issues I believe are being overemphasized. Yes, you want high voltage for long distances. But the whole idea here is that you are doing mostly local generation of power, so running power to a few of your neighbor's houses doesn't incur nearly the penalty that you'd get from running the same power many miles. And people often forget that even your efficient power company puts the transformer on a local pole or box in your neighborhood. So the idea actually makes a lot of sense.
Mother Earth News types of yesteryear (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually the Mother Earth News types of 25 years ago where exactly the same as they were now: hypocrites who didn't realize that their actions where hypocritical. They were always in favor of pollution restrictions on everything, and being self sufficient on your own wood heat. Both at once.
I remember (Just before the original mother went out of business) their shock when they realized that their efforts to prevent pollution had reached the point where their beloved woodstove was no illegal to make.
In otherwords they were like everyone else. I want to make the world a better place, so long as it doesn't effect me in any way. (Think greenpeace bumpersticker on a SUV)
Re:..but... (Score:2, Insightful)
CERTAIN POLITICAL FIGUREHEADS? How about all of them. Every last one of them. The more powerful they are, the more positions they're going to have to give out. I hope this new regulatory commission has a large enough budget to sustain all of that!
But honestly, you're fooling yourself if you think that one party is squeeky clean and the other is corrupt and evil. A lot of the politicians who got themselves elected with their own money just got that money from illegal activities, family money from illegal activities, or flat-out extortion or manipulation of the capitalist system. Not that I think this is a terribly bad system, it's certainly better than Divine Right. I'm just saying you should know that the same shit happened under a lot of democratic presidents, republican presidents, and yes, even intelligent presidents.