sábado, julio 14, 2012

The Dominican electricity crisis is essentially that of Europe and the United States

Summary: This Grupo Millennium Hispaniola (GMH) article responds to the criticism that says "Don’t tell us ... that in the United States and Europe there is also the same problems with electricity that we have here [in Dominican Republic], because nobody is going to believe it ... " What follows is an edited translation of the article La crisis eléctrica dominicana es esencialmente la de Europa y EUA, posted on July 13, 2012, on acento.com.do.

These three crises come from architecture frameworks which hold an excessive state intervention that interferes with the best relationships between the producer, the retailer, and the consumer. These relationships need to consider that the assumption of the guarantee of cheap energy is replaced by the guarantee of increasingly cheap information.

The architecture framework of the vertically integrated power industry, under the protection of cheap energy, evolved successfully until the early 70's, becoming essentially the same throughout the world. Practices shows considerable differences in the electricity sectors in the world before and after those years. For example, before as in Europe and the USA the industry prospered; after as in the Dominican Republic that infant industry began to fail miserably before the others, becoming a political problem.

After the disappearance of the basic assumptions that held the vertically integrated industry in Europe and the USA, the crisis in those industries have contagion their respective economies. Similarly, the architecture framework which replaced it in some jurisdictions remained under the same assumption of cheap energy, instead of that of cheap information. To see the contagion effect, for example, according to a report by the United States Department of Energy at the end of 2008, for every dollar charged to end customers in that country poor quality add an average of one half of a dollar.

Note the criticism made to the article Systemic leverage to economies via their electric link, that says "Don’t tell us ... that in the United States and Europe there is also the same problems with electricity that we have here [in Dominican Republic], because nobody is going to believe it ... " The problems are definitely the same, as in the financial sector crisis, it is systemic risk (adverse leverage) caused by the architecture framework, in which as always the local manifestations are totally different.

Peter Senge, C. Sharmer Otto, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers, during the investigation that resulted in the book “Presence: human purpose and the field of the future” discovered the axiom "what is most systemic is most local,” which definitely applies to any sector. Hence, that axiom confirms both that the systemic crisis is essentially the same, as well as the large differences that manifest themselves in the different economies they contagion.

The reality is that we in the Dominican Republic have been witnessing the global emergent whole of the electricity power industry long before others, but the result here has been the socio-electric anti-system. From the 1990s, in Dominican Republic we have had the opportunity to increasingly witness ever more of the whole that has been trying to emerge but that has been stopped by political decisions at the expense of professional ones, for example, by means of huge subsidies.

In explaining the axiom, Senge and his colleagues say that "... Unlike machines, living systems, such as your body or a tree, create themselves. They are not mere assemblages of their parts but are continually growing and changing along with their elements." They added that “[t] he deepest systems we enact are woven into the fabric of everyday life, down to the most minute detail ... This is so important for us to understand. We, every one of us, may be able to change the world, but only as we experience more and more of the whole in the present."

To make matters worse, the current basic assumptions are based on smart grids as technologies, inanimate things, when interconnected electric power sectors are active things that have much more life with the information technology that will enable people to actively participate.

2 comentarios:

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio dijo...

Klaus Kurenbach posted a comment on The Dominican Connection Group of Linkedin ( http://bit.ly/GMH352  ) that says:

• Are you kidding? I do not know what happens in the US, but in Europe we have electricity 24/7, and nobody is allowed nor able to steal power, AND everybody pays his bills. AND we do not produce electrity with the help of gasoil. So where are the same problems? And why should the Dominican power problem be that of the European and the US?????

This was my response:

• Klaus: thanks. The fundamental problem or root cause is the same: a flawed architecture framework that keeps the electric power industry in “the comfort zone,” although the symptoms in each of the systemic crisis are widely different. To get out the economic crisis, the USA and EU need to take a closer look on the great untapped potential of the power industry. The power industry is still one of the few places left to help end the crisis, since most of the energy industry will also be impacted.

To see what it’s being proposed in Germany “to go where the magic happens,” they are using the systemic statement “While this requires a shift in thinking on the part of the industry, it promises to deliver innovative and efficient solutions for the system as a whole.” Please take a look at the GMH post “Will Germany be the First Country to Adopt the EWPC-AF? ( http://bit.ly/GMH052 ).” In it you will also find a link to the press release of Bonn, 2 January 2012 that starts as follows:

Bundesnetzagentur publishes key elements paper on smart grids and markets to accelerate changes in the course of the transformation of the energy system

Kurth: “The potential for innovation lies in the development of new offers, and new business models and services for flexible electricity procurement”

The Bundesnetzagentur has just published a key elements paper entitled “Smart Grid and Smart Market”, which is meant to clarify and shed more light on a sometimes confusing and still somewhat unstructured debate. The paper deals with the question of how the energy supply system needs to be changed in the course of the transformation of the energy system. Among other things, the Bundesnetzagentur calls for a clear separation of the areas of smart grids and smart markets.

José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio dijo...

Three more comments has been posted under The Dominican Connection that can be seen through the link http://bit.ly/GMH353 

Rolando Cedeno • You can't compare, is like comparing oranges and guanabana. The problem of electricity in our country is corruption as simple as that from top to bottom. You can't compare Dominican Republic with Develop Countries that is one crazy analogy. Before you even try to compare, we need to go into a process of transformation, cultural, intelectual, socio-polical and socio-economical. The solution to our problem is solar and you know that as soon as you place a cell somewhere they will steal it.

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Klaus Kurenbach • Rolando, you are right, but they do not "steal" it, they simply find it before you lost it - that is how we described it on the island

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José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio • Like the Bundesnetzagentur in Germany, the USA and RD need to work to change the architecture framework of the power industry as suggested before in the GMH article "Systemic leverage to economies via their electric link ( http://bit.ly/GMH227 ), I will show that next.

Rolando and Klauss: we could write about oranges and also of bananas. We could write about obvious sysmtoms and we could write of the root or fundamental cause of the problem. By writing about symtoms is how "el que hace la ley, hace la trampa." In all three cases, the separation of the whole power industry was designed to privatize the benefits and socialize the losses.

Every system is integrated into its local environment. The system essence gets incarnated with technology to be integrated into the environment. We heve three very different environments, that can't be compared and thus the integrated systems can't be compared either. However, the system's essence, that where most of the potential leverage reside are essentially the same.

Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline in the section 'Leader as designer" of the chapter "The leader's New Work," says "Imagine that your organization is an ocean liner, and that you are 'the leader.' What is your role?"

He adds "I have asked this question of groups of managers many times. The most common answer, not surprisingly, is 'the captain.' Others say, 'the navigator, setting the direction.' Still others say, 'The helmsman, actually controlling the direction,' or 'the engineer down there stoking the fire, providing energy,' or 'the social director, making everybody enrolled, involved, and communicating.' While these are legitimate roles, there is another which in many ways, eclpses them all in importance. Yet, rarely does anyone think of it."

He tells us that "The negleted leadership role is the designer of the ship. No one has a more sweeping influence than the designer... It's fruitless to be the leader in an organization that;s poorly designed..." The first paragraph has been demonstrated.