History
- local, but economies of scale rapidly drove mergers and cooperation until
- 1926 – Electrical (Supply) Act of 1926
- 1934 – Public Utility Holding Company Act
- electric utilities were recognized as public goods of importance and
- regulated as public goods
- 1938 – the National Grid => began operating as a national system
- Rural cooperatives helped distribute high costs, but depression change view of role of government
- cities vs rural – now we see the digital divide – then it was the electrical divide
- by 1920s half of urban homes had electricity
- 10{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} of rural had electricity
- micro-grids for the rural wealthy (hobby farmers)
- energy poverty for the rural poor – not so much now
- cities vs rural – now we see the digital divide – then it was the electrical divide
- the need to transition from cheap fossil fuels to renewables is complicated
Power Grid. CONUS power transmission grid consists of about
* wires
* 450,000 miles high-voltage lines
* 186,411 mi of high-tension lines ~ 1 light second if laid out in a line
* operated by approximately 500 companies.
* The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) oversees all of them.
* 440GWatts
* 31{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} Coal
* 20{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} nuke
* 34{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} gas
* 15{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} renewables (hydro 6.6{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9}, wind 5.7{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9}, biomass 1.5{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9}, solar 0.9{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9}, geothermal 0.4{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9})
Some important concepts
* baseload – measured as the minimum demand over time (say a week)
* dispatchable – adjustable (coal/oil, nuclear, hydro, biomass, geothermal, ocean thermal)
* oddities – batteries (2{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9}, pumped storage (like I saw in Vermont, 94{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9}) for 195GWatts
* pumped storage can come on line quickly (~16 seconds in one case)
* biggest is A-WV border at 150{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} of Hoover Dam – the “Biggest battery in the world”
* stores from coal, nuclear, and other power plants – letting them op[erate at peak efficiency
* non-dispatchable – wind, solar PV – need storage, not direcly useable for baseload
* spinning reserve – able to quickly come online – like in my MM LCC
* load following power plant – follow daily changes in demand
* peaking power plants – able to come on line to balance load-demand over a day’s cycle
– typically gas
– typically expensive
Grid is mixed blessing
* able to use most efficient sources
* Failure-prone (at sources) but indifferent to those failures (because of load balancing)
– like the Internet
* Centralization creates perverse incentives to use power of gov’t to keep an effective monopoly
* Hence Public Utilities Commission (oversight)
* But, gives power to block as well,
– a rooftop solar on your house is one thing – [Alan]
– but a rooftop solar on a QuikTrip or Walmart might cross into “utility scale” and
really run into issues.
Small cities (like Colleges) may find some advantages in creating their own local grids
* might be a good time to think locally rather than just assuming power is magically there
* strategic resources may require local thinking (Y2K planning), but
really just a good conservative use of planning and contingency thinking
