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The way electric power is generated and distributed will change substantially over the next two decades. Power will be democratized, as small-scale production at the individual and community level moves from niche to normal. The resulting “electron-democracy” will still have centralized power plants, but power grid activity will increasingly be dominated by innumerable incremental energy flows between small producers and consumers. This is likely to happen whether or not public policy mandates a shift away from dependence on fossil fuels.
Most centralized plants (hydro excepted) cannot easily adjust to demand fluctuations, leading to steeply discounted off-peak rates and the need to acquire additional plants for high-demand periods. More broadly, an expansive transmission grid dominated by a few central power plants is vulnerable to disruption from both natural phenomena and human malevolence.
In contrast, smaller-scale power generation can respond more nimbly to market demand, in a shorter time frame, with lower capital costs. Filling supplemental power needs with niche supplies rather than primary power facilities creates new generation options that that otherwise would be impractical. Finally, a grid fed by a broad, physically dispersed heterogeneous mixture of power sources would provide robust protection against disruption.1
Putting these strands together and looking forward, the distributed grid might look like this: intermittent wind and solar power generation would be complemented by load-supplementing fuel cell plants, in much the same way that peak power and base load power plants interact today. Electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and batteries would serve as grid energy storage when excess energy is being produced. The latter is analogous to the role of pumped-storage hydroelectric in current utility systems, where water is pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher one for later use in generating hydroelectric power.
Considering the intensifying pace of climate change, governments should play an ambitious role in the transition from today’s grid to tomorrow’s electron democracy. Governments could coordinate with local business to develop centers of excellence for distributed power in targeted industries. Mechanisms such as feed-in tariffs—which grant favorable rates for those generating power from renewables and clean-tech sources—could facilitate the development of these regional technology clusters. They would bring ancillary economic benefits as well.
We are hopeful that by 2030, our energy system will be considerably less dependent on fossil fuels, particularly for electric power generation. Supported by a diverse array of renewables, our energy needs could be met with an overlapping set of complementary clean technologies. In doing so, we would strongly curb our global warming emissions. We would then be poised not only to stabilize the climate, but to transcend the Fossil Fuel Age entirely and open a new “Age of Sustainability” in our human story.
1 A closer examination of these topics is available from Jeff Vail (A Theory of Power) and John Robb (Brave New War) in their writings on “rhizome” at jeffvail.net and “resilient communities” at globalguerrillas.typepad.com, respectively.
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14 Apr 2010 · 06:40:40 AM GMT
Communitization of the Power Houses is a nice idea and definitely looks like the Go-to way. And if We go a step further democracy lane then electron democracy can be at the individual home basis as well. I always had an idea of a energy self suff...—Chandrika Rathee
In response to Electron-democracy
06 Jan 2010 · 06:21:10 PM GMT
I think that there is a big issue of more and more renewable sources producing irregular power transmission. The power generated by renewable sources is not controllable, and at best vaguely predictable. A system that has renewable energy at its hear...—Naresh Ranvah
In response to Electron-democracy
12 Dec 2009 · 04:24:18 AM GMT
I can’t wait until half the desert is covered in parabolic trough solar thermal fields.—Eric Kline
In response to Electron-democracy
03 Dec 2009 · 07:58:43 PM GMT
Since fossil fuel prices are going to be staggering high, especially after peak-oil, there would be a good reason to use those profits to invest in other durable energy sources. Either we have to nationalize the oil companies, or seriously taxate th...—Rob Heusdens
In response to The end of the oil age
14 Jul 2009 · 02:57:03 AM GMT
The idea of a more democratized grid to be able to respond more quickly to the variations in demand for energy sounds like a viable option, but I belief that to be feasible only under the conditions of a more centralized control over the grid. In ...—Henk Perdok
In response to Electron-democracy
20 May 2009 · 05:04:02 PM GMT
I really appreciate the thinking beyond oil. In Italy, where I live, the nostalgic desire of nucelar power stations has reached the irresponsible political level. But I’m asking: Does it make any sense to invest 10 billions Euros and 10 years t...—Alex Colombo
@Jim: Interesting. Thanks for the detailed response.
Posted 19 March 2009, 08:02 by Jeff Millard
@Jeff
Yes, you get the idea. And I think your objections can be answered.
The gasoline engine would probably be adapted to switch to natural gas when operating at home. This helps with cost, the importance of which you noticed, as well as pollution, particularly CO2. (In some parts of the world propane might be the fuel for mobile operation.) Thus there is no cost disadvantage for the fuel.
I am thinking that the efficiency advantage would help to get natural gas almost competitive with coal. It won’t quite get there, but a system like this might make it possible for a small carbon tax, or cap and trade equivalent, make the difference.
As far as cogeneration in homes, this is actually done with home units, though more often with big commercial or industrial units. The problem with the home units is that a whole engine and generator have to be installed in the home. For my system, this is approximately free since both the engine and generator would be already owned as part of the car. Fairly simple and cheap plumbing would be most of the cost for the very efficient, stationary, electrical generation mode of operating.
I knew there were advantages to using internal combustion engines optimized to work at fixed speeds, but was surprised at actual results. A very important part of the Prius achievement is that the engine seems to manage 38% efficiency, which is better than most diesels. (The 38% is according to Argonne Nat. Lab. data)
Most car engines are too big so they would tend to overwhelm the typical household capacity to use heat. But my approach assumes a high efficiency car, which was where I started. Click my name to see the general idea of that.
Disclosure: I represent Miastrada Company which is working on a plan for solving these problems.
Posted 19 March 2009, 00:36 by Jim Bullis
@Jim: If I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting running the car’s generating equipment to provide both power and heat to a home, when the car is not otherwise being used. Does that mean you’re going to be running the car’s gasoline engine as the energy source for both the heat and the power for the home? Do you think that the efficiency gain from using the waste heat will overcome the cost disadvantage for the fuel? And if so, then why would we not expect to see simple gasoline-power generators equipped this way already, and people using them to power/heat their homes in winter?
Posted 17 March 2009, 12:02 by Jeff Millard
I have seen hopes rising in this front especially with Obama’s stimulus. But it seems unlikely in the near furture (10 years) that without heavy government spending to equalise the grid displacement cost for such technologies (or to offset upfront cost), we will see heavy movement to these new technologies.
Renewables will start playing bigger role in displacing the fossil fuels and it might be plausible to see the significant effect of such technologies in may be 30 years or so, as mentioned in the article.
Posted 16 March 2009, 19:35 by Pankaj Jha
The idea of using batteries in electric cars is gaining some attention, and a power company in Northern California (PGE) seems to be showing some interest.
However, this entirely misses the opportunity of actually using the generating equipment in the car to produce electricity while using the heat locally to push heat using efficiency to well over 90%, up from 32% to 40% that is the national average for coal and natural gas plants, respectively. The cogeneration process needs to be implemented based on a household and a personal car that is parked in proximity to that household for a significant part of a day.
This could be far more important than using the batteries in cars as storage. The technology needed to implement this is well in hand.
True, most cars would overwhelm their respective associated households with heat so we also need to adapt to high efficiency cars to make the size of engines compatible with household heat capacities.
Potentially this could be a near zero cost implementation with a strong positive payback over time.
Such things are possible in a country that is actually interested in changing the CO2 levels of the globe.
Posted 14 March 2009, 16:01 by Jim Bullis
It won’t happen overnight, nor did Rome. But it will. “Open source” energy, anyone?
Posted 14 March 2009, 13:25 by uxdesign.com
I still am not convinced that we shall be able to de-centralize power generation, when so many years have been spent on trying to centralize the energy generated to a single, unified grid. IT would lead to a lot of policy unwinding. Would power companies, which become irrelevant in such a scenario, allow this to happen? It is highly desirable for empowering communities, but it is not going to be a cakewalk for sure. Also, we have to innovate in terms of efficient technologies to ensure that all this talk is really relevant.
Posted 12 March 2009, 06:08 by Rohit Pathania
Just wanted to share one point of view with the skeptics in the last two messages.
I agree with the notion that subsidies don’t help where the economics fail. However, let us not under-emphasize the role that subsidies can play as a catalyst for change. While subsidies are a poor choice in steady state, it can catalyze the process of moving from the current state (centralized grids) to the desired state (micro grids). This might be the spirit of the author…
Posted 12 March 2009, 01:07 by Sriram Nadathur
Sceptical
“If the economics for an idea work, then it will work without subsidies. If the economics don’t work, then no subsidies will help”
Then why do we give the fossil fuel industry $49 billion/year in subsidies?
Oil gets $39 billion a year. Coal gets $8 billion even before the new subsidies for “clean coal”. The nuclear industry has been subsidized for 50 years to the tune of $500 billion.
Oil has been subsidized since 1918. According to one authority on energy subsidies, not one oil subsidy since 1918 has ever been phased out.
That is what distorts the market.
Subsidies are a poor argument against renewable energy.
Posted 9 March 2009, 15:52 by Richard Mercer
You are absolutely correct on a more “distributed” power grid. This is analogous to what electrical engineers have been doing for the last 40 years in computer systems: each box, each board, each module, each chip, etc., has its own energy storage & management system.
You are absolutely wrong about how to go about this. Every subsidy makes it that much more difficult for an entrepreneur to decode the correct price signals. If the economics for an idea work, then it will work without subsidies. If the economics don’t work, then no subsidies will help.
Posted 8 March 2009, 09:40 by Sceptical