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Subject: Introduction: The supply Side
I am trying to frame the subject some for those new to power
here with a few stage-setters, here and on my blog. http://www.newdaedalus.com/articles/2008/12/11/smartgrid-basics-the-supply-side-problem.html Apologies to some who will feel I missed some nuances, as I
know I have. My goal is to help some get up to speed quickly… Consider
this an educational cartoon… Smartgrid Basics: The Supply Side Problem The North American power grid is the world’s largest
robot. It was imagined in the 30’s, designed in the 50’s and has
been built out and patched ever since. Some very bright people have done
extraordinary things to retrofit the system with digital descendents of the
original analog controls. It is very much less table than folks let on. It
suffers from an instability condition that occurs periodically and has for
years. This condition was occurring when a tree branch took a transmission line
and thereby a third of North America on August 14, 2003. That underlying
instability occurs an order of magnitude more frequently today than it did
then. Something has to change. The archetype for modern power markets was established 100
years ago in Chicago on April 1908. At that time, power demands were low, and
electric metering consisted of pens on mechanical turntable that spun as power
was used. These paper sheets were collected and read periodically. Modern power
marketing was established a natural monopoly with regulated cost recovery, much
as telecommunications used to be. The regulated cost recovery market is only
slowing to take advantage of digital metering using two way communications.
Many new installations are still being designed as asymmetric interfaces, with
the demand side, i.e., the building inhabitant, excluded from direct
communication. New business models must support transparency and symmetry. The Carterphone law suit established that third party
equipment could be attached directly to the phone system, and Judge Green tore
down the natural monopolies. The model of 25 year depreciation of black
handsets owned by the phone company began to erode. New business models,
beginning with fax, continuing to modem-based communications began to arise.
Today deep process interactions running through slow moving standards bodies
prevent the attachment of new types of systems. Innovations must be approved as
expenditures by 50 public utilities commissions. Today’s need for rapid
innovation in energy generation, storage, and conversions demand more agile
business models. In 1908, there was no exchange of power between local
markets. There was no dynamic pricing. Consumers still use power as if it were
a static resource; wholesale prices oscillate though each day. In many parts of
the country, power prices are actually negative at regular times each week.
Most goods can stay in the warehouse overnight; electricity cannot. We can win
great savings by smoothing power demand. Without price signals, end users in
buildings and homes have no incentive to help. The grid is built for peak capacity. 17% of the grid’s
generating capacity is used for less than 110 hours a year. This capacity is
the dirtiest and by far the most expensive generation. These plants may even be
spun up but idle, ready to be called into use if needed. The system as a whole
bears the cost of this very expensive peak load. If consumers in buildings,
homes and industry could respond rapidly to signals that the grid was nearing
the need to use these resources, it would greatly reduce costs, both monetary
and environmental. The power industry calls this Demand-Response, and as of yet
there are no standards. OpenADR is a good start. Power Grid operation is like Windows 95. I say that as
someone who considers Windows 95 one of the supreme engineering achievement in
software. Windows 95 had to support every bit of software that had ever been
written, including some horrible mistakes. Windows 95 had to create an
environment that made it possible for new markets using 32 bit software to
develop, while running all the old software. Windows 95 had to support old
drivers and memory management based on the old 840K and 32K memory thunking,
while switching to virtual memory management in mid-boot if no such drivers
were found. Windows 95 was a shaky bridge built over a chasm, made entirely of
bent toothpicks and wet tissue paper. It would be easier with structural steel
and suspension materials, but that easier job was not the task. It was a wonder
that Windows 95 could work at all. Today’s power grid, and SCADA
(Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) strategies, and system operations
are like Windows 95, tied down to backward compatibility and hampered by the
reasonable decisions of long ago. Perfecting Windows 95 led to the increasingly
unwieldy Windows 98 and Windows ME. Sometimes it is better to do things that
aren’t so hard. In summary, inquiries about how it is done today are not
always useful. Paving the cow paths to handle heavy traffic is not the best way
forward. The GridWise effort is to find something new, and that something will
support new markets that we do not today know or understand. It must do so
while stabilizing the grid even as we add de-stabilizing new energy sources. It
must promote better control even as we accept new players and more point
sources of generation. What is the model? If we do this right, that question will
be like asking what the new economy would look like before the DotCom
boom… tc "It is the theory that decides what can be observed." - Albert Einstein
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