Sustainability Begins with Balance

The electricity grid has been called "the most significant engineering achievement of the 20th century." Power projects are completed on a scale that rival the Pyramids of Egypt and today, electricity has become one of the most basic and essential elements for living, next to water, food, shelter, clothing, and the air we breathe. Scientists have created the product of the century, giving birth to a high-tech revolution and drastically improving the quality of life the world over.

So how was it that something as seemingly meaningless as a few overgrown trees could come in between suppliers of electricity and their 50 million customers, resulting in a blackout effect that could not only be seen from space, but cause mass communications disruption, loss of mobility, boil water advisories, a 30 percent temporary increase in gas prices and over $60 billion dollars in financial losses?

The Need for a Smarter Grid

After the 2003 North American blackout, it became clear to society as a whole, no longer just the beatniks living off-grid, that the very system we depend upon, build our lives around, and take for granted, may be inherently flawed.

Today's grid is constantly pushed to its physical limits with our growing use, and is nearing the end of its lifespan. With a projected significant increase in our demand for electricity, it is clear that current generation and transmission will fall far short of meeting our growing requirements. In fact, over the next ten years the equivalent generation of 160 large power plants will be required to meet North America's growing demand. Add to this the challenges associated with government-set mandates on energy conservation. As an example, BC Hydro, British Columbia's electricity utility, must meet 50 percent of all future demand through conservation.

Renewable electricity generation, including wind, solar, and biomass, can improve the environmental performance and long-term sustainable supply of our electricity grid. However, independent power producers have already uncovered other limitations of our century-old infrastructure. To optimize efficiency, power generation has typically been handled on a large scale. As such, most utilities in North America struggle to keep up with interconnection or grid tie-in requests from smaller micro-level generators of clean electricity. Looking further down the line to the end-user market, only a handful of utilities are now able to purchase power back from customers. Yet it is this end-user piece of the grid-saw puzzle that is the coveted missing piece that must step up and claim its part in securing the electrical lifeline to which we all connect.

Re-engineering from the Bottom Up

The primary drivers for change in enabling the smart grid can be divided into three key points. Distributed energy and storage, integration of power supply, and the aggregation of demand and data assist in balancing supply and demand of power at the micro-grid level. The micro grid then supports the overall larger macro grid.

From its inception, the electrical grid was built on the premise that bigger is better. Large centralized power generation is delivered through transmission lines to the end-user for consumption. In the Smart Grid, smaller decentralized generation options, including renewable platforms, such as micro wind and solar photovoltaic (PV), can deliver power produced closer to the end destination. Placing distributed generation near the end nodes of the network will bring about lower maintenance costs, greater efficiency and potentially a lower carbon footprint. Distributed energy platforms with inclusive intelligent storage technologies will help enable the smart grid with energy security through redundancy and backup. Integrating various power supplies will help to balance the supply and demand within the electrical grid.

To meet peak demand periods under the current system there are standby systems in place, or spinning reserves, which are in a constant state of idle until such time they are brought online. This method of redundancy costs billions of dollars per year to run. A more efficient way to meet the growing needs of business and society is to draw from renewable sources including wind, solar photovoltaic (PV) during peak demand periods. Keep in mind that renewable power is, by its very nature, intermittent and must be stored if it is produced outside of peak demand periods. Companies leading the way in PV technology, such as Day4 Energy, recognize the importance of storage technologies. Clearly there is no silver bullet. The future supply of electricity will have to come from the integration of all forms of renewable energy, and for some time to come, even nonrenewable energy.

To bring about the implementation of the smart grid both consumers and utilities must be aware of the demand for electricity during any part of the day. Intelligence at the outer edges of the network brings about awareness that can be turned into responsive action. In aggregating information of both demand and consumption our current generation platform can be better managed to meet our growing demand.

Creating Balance from Within

To balance the growing demand of consumption with the developing infrastructure of supply, companies need to become active participants in the smart grid. In the smart grid, both centralized and decentralized generation platforms help to create stability and energy security throughout the electrical grid when combined with micro-storage options. Large-scale power generation from the macro grid can be balanced with the stored supply of renewable power from the micro grid to provide energy security for tomorrow and years to come. As renewable energy projects increase in size, they begin finding their place in the macro grid, displacing fossil fuel-derived electricity.

Integrating power generation from the micro grid during peak power demand will reduce the need for building large peaking power plants and the savings can be passed on to the end consumer. If a company spreads their energy needs throughout the day and stores cheaper power at the off-peak rate to be used at peak rate there is significant financial benefit to both the end consumer and utility.

The Smart Grid is coming. However, it can only provide the energy security and cost savings needed tomorrow and for years to come if public and private sectors work together with a shared vision. If we look to the lessons learned from the IT industry, the benefits of collaboration, standardization, and open protocols are evident. The Internet was one of the significant results of the communications revolution, yet we were never really faced with a shortage of information, at least from our grandparents' perspective. Energy is a basic need for the development of a healthy economy and essential to our way of life. Today, we are facing an energy crisis; the reality of Peak Oil and rising fossil fuel prices further exemplify this. With a combination of clean technology, brave public policy, and early education, we as a society can meet this challenge. Let's take what we have learnt from the IT industry and apply it to an opportunity that could make the dot com era look like the period at the end of this sentence.

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