martes, abril 28, 2009

The Trully Smart Grid

It is now very easy to answer Mark Sardella, PE, Writer, Local Energy News, question Smart Grids: How Smart? Look at the most recent series of post under his article and you will also become aware where we should be heading.

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Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
4.26.09

Hi again,

If the grid is to become trully smart, I suggest to offer input asap to the meeting organized by NIST (and EPRI) for the standards workshop coming on April 28-29, at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia. This is my firts input, which I already posted under the EWPC article On Cyber Spies Threats: Keep Public Wires Regulation and go for Energy Markets (where comments might also be posted:

Under Alex Yu Zheng’s, Smart Grid News.com, Blogging the Grid article Foreign Cyber-Spies Inject Spyware into U.S. Grid with Potential for Serious Damage, I posted the following comment:

Balancing regulation and markets by shifting away from the excessively unbalanced IOUs Framework, the maximum social benefit purpose can be aimed at by letting regulated Investor Owned Transporters (IOT), that replace IOUs, be responsible for the public grid (see my comment under Philip Bane’s article “Smart Grid Stimulus Bill: DOE Snubs IOUs and Meters”). As to the private grids, which are behind the (potentially smart) meters, security management should [be] one of the key market issues open to innovation.

A paradigm shift from the IOUs Framework to the EWPC Framework is the key for the emerging EWPC based EPAct (see also my comment under Jesse Berst’s blog " The Coming Paradigm Shift and How To Achieve It"). Standards development by EPRI and NIST should look deeper into these suggestions.

For more details, go to EWPC Blog at www(dot)energyblogs(dot)com(slash)ewpc

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Jerry Watson
4.26.09

Here is my belief not that it matters the Smart Grid will be expensive and the IOUs and other utilities will be allowed to earn a return on their investment. The fantasy of DG will not materialize on a significant scale and what does develop will be fully backed up by utility peaking units that the utilities are also collecting a return on. The net result will be higher electrical energy bills in the face current abundance of Nat Gas. Did everyone miss that the US has over twice as much recoverable Nat Gas as was believed two years ago. What does this mean? It means the US energy outlook is bright without more coal, nucs, renewables, or DG. For $45 million a generator can put a 45 millionwatt GE LM6000 unit in service that is a $1000 a KW with a 9300 simple cycle heat rate and $5 Nat gas it makes $60 power all in. Of course the utilities can beat that with heavy framed combined cycle at a 7500 (assumes cyclic operation) heat rate and still be around $1000 a KW in capital cost and make $50 power all in. Maybe I should try to collect funds and pay one of those little banner planes to fly around DC with sign saying hey we have a lot more Nat Gas than we thought.

On the bright side since combined cycle Nat Gas plants are efficient and extremely responsive even though they have a large efficiency loss at low loads they are great mates for renewables etc. I am convinced in the long term Nat Gas will rise. Nat Gas is a great fuel and old coal plants can be converted to burn it with little more than a pipe, burners and boiler tuning. Even building new plants is affordable. Its innate usefulness will drive its consumption and price up until it is in its normal zone cheaper than oil higher than coal. My guess is gas will hover between $7-9 per mmbtu after the new wears off the News we have a lot of it. Coal prices may even drop a little but with India’s and China’s unquenchable thirst for cheap fuel I do not see any drop long term drop in mining or greenhouse gas production. My conjecture is that every utility in the country has feelers out for long term Nat Gas. If supplies are such that enough of them get long term gas at $7 or below plans for both coal and nuc plants will be scrapped and we will see another wave of combined cycle Nat Gas construction like in 2001-2003.

One last point since sanity has returned to crude prices I think is safe to say peak oil was and is a ridiculous concept. Oil is very useful fuel actually the most useful since can be used to produce distillates that are liquids at ambient temperatures. I think it is safe to say the demand would be dozens of times current levels if it were free. Its usefulness like all resources is limited basically by its price. Reduced availability due to exhausted supply is still simply availability and has been a part of human existence since the controlled use of fire. Oil will continue to be used where it has the most value. To me it means the sub-Saharan Africans can look forward to starvation and actually face increased starvation and wealthy countries like the US will face recessions as more funds are drained away until the next equilibrium point is reached. Whether that point is Nuclear, Renewable or whatever I have no idea whether is 5 years or 20 years away again I do not know but I do know lots of Nat Gas in the US is short term great news for the US and its neighbors and should not be ignored. Maybe here in the US we should use this little window the fates have provided to make solid plans and smart decisions rather than dipping billions in Elmer’s glue and throwing them around to see if any of it sticks to good spot. Sadly, the dollars and trucks loaded with glue are already lined up for the slinging to begin.

I will chance to predict the future of the Smart Grid. It will basically be sliding rates based on time of day and time of year. The big winners will be utilities, consultants and software vendors. The losers will be ratepayers and taxpayers. The plans will look a lot like the current plans that most utilities offer except they will be mandatory. All and all the off peak prices will be slightly cheaper 75% of current cost the peak periods will 200% of current with random critical periods 600% the shoulder hours will be at the current levels. What this means if one organizes one’s life around his/her electric bill they will save 10%. The vast majority will pay 25% or so more and the utilities will keep it as return on the investment in the Smart Grid Technology.

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Bob Amorosi
4.27.09

Jerry,

Your last paragraph describes quite closely the spread of mandatory regulated Time-Of-Use rates soon to roll out to all 5 million residential customers in Ontario as we all are being equipped with smart meters. The utility companies here are mostly distribution companies, and they were forced by our provincial government legislation to adopt smart meters for TOU rates. But the government would not pay for them with tax revenues, instead they allowed utilities to finance the smart meters by tacking on a monthly smart meter charge on everyone's bill, which was expected to pay off their infrastructure investment over 15 years. Trouble is most expect the new smart meters will need replacing within 10 years, since after all their service life is not expected to be anywhere near as long as the old electromechanical units. Other pressures will emerge too to force smart meter replacement to upgrade their software or hardware to handle any sort of Smart Grid applications, like HANs, etc.

The unfortunate part is customers in Ontario are being left out completely from participating in any Smart Grid plans. Any form of demand response using smart meters or Smart Grid is all being viewed as utility controlled, making it unappealing for consumer product companies like Apple or others to jump in with new products on the customer side of the meter. Google will find they will have a tough time implementing their plans to provide real-time power demand or real-time pricing information to residential customers without intimately working with utility companies, which means there will have to be some benefit (meaning money) for the utility companies before they allow Google work with their smart meter systems.

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Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
4.27.09

Jerry's arguments seem similar to those of the telegraph companies when the telephone arrived. We all know what happen though sucessive innovations leading to today's iPhone. Nat gas is also a dirty gas, with half as much GHGs as coal.

DOE process to grant funding on the Smart Grid seems to be on the opposite site of Ontario's goverment, sooner or later, 'dumb' grid as a one time big shot, as Bob explains. I say the DOE funding intent is not just 'smart,' they are wise.

Responding to James Carson's plead to keep the IOUs Framework in place, the EWPC Blog post Smart Grid: Can the U.S Waste Billions in Taxpayer Dollars? leads to show how DOE is trying to introduce succesive innovations to enable the 'smart' grid' via grants and how IOUs are trying to keep the 'dumb' grid in a one time big shot. I invite comments to it.

The introduction of the article says: "The question "Can the U.S Waste Billions in Taxpayer Dollars?" should be in the mind of every participant in the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Interim Roadmap Workshop, that will be held at the Hyatt Regency at Reston Town Center, 1800 Presidents Street in Reston, Virginia. The workshop is open to the public and free of charge, after registering."

Tomorrow and the day after tomorow may have an impact of the real future of the Smart Grid in a roadmap of succesive innovations.

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Len Gould
4.27.09

The problem Bob describes is at the core of any randomly retailer-supported smart-grid initiative, such as EWPC and etc. The smart grid needs some smart planners to lay out a groundwork before it is possible for innovaters to come in and implement various competing initiatives. Otherwise all the benefits accrue to the free riders.

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Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
4.27.09

Hi Len,

There is no such core problem. Minimum interoperation is required, as well as prudential regulations. Instead of IOUs based closed standards, as Bob endorsed, in the past, open standars are absolutely necessarary.

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Jerry Watson
4.28.09

Jose, at least be accurate coal is around 220 lbs of CO2/mmbtu Nat Gas 110 lbs of CO2/mmbtu; however coal at base load operation has a heat rate of around 10000 were Combined Cycle Nat Gas has a base load heat rate around 6600 so finish the math. Coal is 2.2 lbs CO2 per KW and Nat Gas is .72 lbs CO2 per KW. That is a third not half. I have worked at both Coal fired and Nat Gas fired plants. Not included is the small army of trucks belching CO2 used to support coal plant operations. Coal plants produce byproducts like ash and slag and consume non fuel resources like limestone for SO2 removal. My guess is when it all said and done Nat Gas CO2 emissions are more like a forth of that of coal. Personally, I do not worry about CO2 emissions I am convinced whatever cataclysm comes with uncontrolled CO2 emissions will be suffered. Not a lot of utility in worrying about the inevitable.

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Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
4.28.09

Thank you Jerry for the explanation. As you have assumed, I confirm that I don't know everything.

If you may, I like to see those figures in terms of GHGs, not just CO2. Apparently missing in the comparison (correct me if I am wrong) is that coal power plants can also be designed for combined cycle operation. If the coal plant is close to a city, Can it be part of a district energy redesign? On the other hand, coal plants have mercury impacts too.

You have your rights, which I strongly respect, not to worry about making earth living environment collapse; I understand that that collapse is similar to what happened in Easter Island under different circumstances. I may be wrong, but given the example of Easter Island, I think that global leaders have the responsibility to get the general population aware as soon as possible that the environmental collapse can not be taken with a wait and see attitude. So to meet the large reduction of GHG emissions as soon as possible, for those that have a right to a different understanding than you, Can we conclude that Nat gas is not the silver bullet either?

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Edward A. Reid, Jr.
4.28.09

Jose Antonio,

The US administration's "wish" is an 80% reduction in US GHG emissions by 2050, to "save the globe" from AGW. We all know that the US could not "save the globe", but that is obviously just an insignificant detail, which can be conveniently ignored.

UN FAO estimates that ~18% of global GHG emissions are emitted by domesticated animals. If we assume that meat remains a dietary staple, then no more fossil fuel emissions after 2050.

Therefore, you are correct that NG is not the "silver bullet". NG is not even acceptable as part of the solution, unless it is combined with 100% carbon capture. Of course, that is also true of coal and petroleum.

The future is hydro (existing), geothermal, solar, wind, wave power, OTEC, storage batteries, very long distance transmission, supplier or government controlled equipment service interruptions, brownouts and blackouts.

Fortunately, hydrogen/plug hybrid vehicles get infinite miles per gallon, using the common parlance, so we don't need to worry about transportation.

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Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
4.28.09

Thank you Ed!

I add energy efficiency on the demand side and new green architecture and design of buildings. Those innovative buildings may result in net output towards the grid, becoming then as a whole one of the most important "energy" sources in the future. Unlike the IOUs Framework, which prefers the supply side, the EWPC Framework is well set to cover any mix of the development of the resources of supply side and the demand side.

For that reason, the long transition expected to a global clean energy (the U.S. is now taking the leadership) transformation will need to add customers with smart systems interfaces (not necessarily meter) organically. That is why it is important that innovation in retail business models be set for the federal market.

There may be also other sources in the making that a real smart grid will help enable under the EWPC based EPAct. So the way to go is EWPC.