Making the grid ‘smarter’ is not the answer
Posted in: Energy, Smart/Microgrids | Comments (0)
With all the talk about modern smart grids and the call for increased transmission to deliver new renewable energy to consumers, eager to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, little attention is given to how antiquated and inefficient long distance transmission is. A March 2009, National Geographic article, citing the Energy Information Administration points out, “…for every kilowatt-hour used, 2.2 are “lost” as that energy is generated and sent over transmission lines.”
Hardly a sustainable business model, centralized power production only works for the monopolized utilities because the ratepayer is compelled to pay for their inefficiency by the PUC. The centralized grid delivery system is like taking the mountain to Mohammad except as energy demands increase the mountain keeps getting bigger and further and further away.
As promising as smart grid technology seems the primary goal is better load matching and therefore fewer wide scale blackouts, not efficiency. Smart grids will be effective for managing over spinning events that have wind farms producing excess power and redirecting it elsewhere but it does nothing to reduce wheeling or thermal losses.
Today’s central grid is based on Edison’s 1882 Pearl Street Station in Manhattan, serving less than 500 customers. More than 100 years later advancements in transmission technology have been mainly around stepping up voltage higher and higher to make the ever increasing distances required by building power plants out of sight of the urban centers.
Perhaps because the ratepayer picks up the tab for these losses little has been done to reduce them and the resultant CO2 emissions. Add in the enormous environmental footprint associated with thousands of miles of transmission lines hundreds, even thousands of feet wide, making the central grid ‘smarter’ is perpetuating 19th century technology into a 21st century world.
Cost estimates to improve the central grid vary widely with one suggesting $46B worldwide within the next five years. Investing just 10% of that money into developing utility scale clean storage technology would help eliminate the need for a central grid.
Producing power at the point of consumption, implementing wide scale distributed energy makes more and more sense, environmentally and economically. Smart microgrids can employ multiple renewable technologies such as rooftop wind and solar without any of the losses associated with the central grid.
Practically, it is hard to imagine a technology that wastes 2.2 kilowatt-hours for every single kilowatt-hour produced surviving into the 22nd century. Let’s hope it doesn’t, it simply isn’t sustainable. We should be imagining that next century now, hopefully one without a crisscross labyrinth of ugly transmission lines, something with thousands of independently functioning renewable energy microgrids.
admin @ July 21, 2010
Centralized power grid is a giant lightning rod
Posted in: Energy, Smart/Microgrids | Comments (0)
As a proponent of microgrids, seeing more and more stories like this one about the imminent cyclical solar storms damaging the central grid, is encouraging if not, well, downright scary.
Over the past thirty years, Kappenman has accumulated a vast and compelling body of evidence indicating that sooner or later a major blast of EMP (electromagnetic pulse) from the Sun, a space weather Katrina, will knock out the electrical power grid and bring society to its knees.
“Historically large storms have a potential to cause power grid blackouts and transformer damage of unprecedented proportions. An event that could incapacitate the network for a long time could be one of the largest natural disasters we could face,” he declares. A bluff, friendly man, half science nerd, half overgrown farm boy, Kappenman insists that solar EMP blasts the size of those that occurred in 1859 (before society was electrified) and 1921(before the power grid had developed to the point where it played any significant role) would today result in large-scale blackouts lasting for months or years.
Kappenman contributed to an oft quoted report entitled ‘Severe Space Weather Events’ documenting the horrific cost in both lives and dollars should severe magnetic storms hit. Perpetuating the centralized grid, even if we make it ‘smart’, is simply perpetuating a bad idea. A March 2009 National Geographic article by Peter Miller, points out that ‘…for every kilowatt used, 2.2 are “lost” as that energy is generated and sent over transmission lines .
The world’s power grids, of which the United States has the most extensive, have in essence become giant antennas for space weather blasts. Just as a lightning rod attracts any lightning bolts that might otherwise strike a roof, the power grid, which is designed specifically to be extremely efficient at conducting electricity, attracts space weather bolts. Problem is that, unlike lightning rods, the power grid is gravely vulnerable to such shocks.
Microgrids offer a much better business model, especially in terms of efficiency and definitely reliability.
admin @ July 15, 2010
RRW introduces new high bandwidth direct drive relativistic generator
Posted in: Energy, Smart/Microgrids | Comments (1)
Rogue River Wind, Ltd, (RRW) an Oregon renewable energy company has acquired the rights to a revolutionary new relativistic generator (REM) design. RRW is the developer of a ducted fan wind turbine, the V-LIM, capable of operating in low, high and turbulent winds up to Class 2 hurricanes. The V-LIM requires an equally robust, high bandwidth, direct drive generator capable of capitalizing on these powerful kinetic forces. The higher the RPM the more power the REM produces.
Until now modern generator technology began with Barlow and Faraday in England, and rather quickly matured through the dynamo into the recognizably modern generator by about 1900. The REM design represents the first radical design departure in generators since that time.
The REM has no inductive wound coils. Plasma or laser cutters cut continuous and precise shapes simplifying manufacture. There is no inductive steel significantly reducing total weight. The design incorporates a magnet topology that requires only 1/5 the neodymium used in traditional generators. As a low resistance device there are no heating or cooling concerns.
The generator uses no flux targets so there is no magnetic hysteresis. The generator has low internal loss and no thermal loss. The generator operates at a high bandwidth, requires low starting torque and has zero cogging. The direct drive generator can be scaled and stacked to replace existing generators in traditional wind turbines and eliminate the need for gearboxes and reduce the weight at the top of a tower by over 2/3. These combined features result in a 15% efficiency gain over contemporary generator designs.
The general topology can be elementally reconfigured into all different generator design aspects and parameters, from axial to radial. It can function as stacked element generator in a traditional BIG WIND megawatt power mode, or as the power-generating element in a wind turbine based micro grid configuration.
The REM can be used in a radial mode as wheel based motor in an electric vehicle design, or in water driven electrical generation modes. It can replace any traditional field coil or rare earth permanent magnet generator design in most applications, as an efficient coupling element between a mechanical power input, and an electrical power output. It can even be a stepper motor in a disk drive mechanism.
The generator is available for license in any application where generators are required.
For information please contact Mary Geddry, CEO Rogue River Wind, Ltd, mgx@rogueriverwind.com 800-490-8060 x210
admin @ July 14, 2010
Welcome to Rogue River Wind, Ltd’s blog
Posted in: Energy, Smart/Microgrids | Comments (1)
Check here for updates on the V-LIM Hybrid wind conversion system, wide scale distributed energy and smart micro-grids. Additionally, we will be talking about vortices and low pressure zones, ducted fans, clean capacitive storage technology and capacitive electric vehicles.
Launch coming soon!
admin @ May 15, 2010
