The Smart Grid and Renewable Energy

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The smart grid is coming, and in an era characterized by a global financial shock caused partly by, what arguably can be called a blind faith in markets, it seems reasonable to suggest that an examination of the concept of a Smart Grid might deter another blind faith error.

In simple terms, the move to a Smart Grid will largely consist of a move to the use computer related technologies in order to improve the efficiency of electricity distribution.

While the term may sound benign, or even pleasant to many ears, it also evokes an amorphous vision of a future that can translate into either a dream come true or a nightmare scenario for Americans looking to break their dependence on fossil fuels, and the security, economic and environmental problems associated with that dependence.

Consider, for example, the daily lives of people in and around the large population centers of the country. They get up in their suburban homes, go to work in the city, and then return to their suburban homes at the end of the work day. To them, smart grid technology means providing electricity managers with the ability to efficiently and easily move the available flow of electricity in conjunction with the population flow.

Rural Americans, on the other hand, might think of the Smart Grid as a technological revolution that allows them to stay home and tend the windmill(s) that generate the electricity necessary for keeping city lights burning brightly.

Merge those scenarios with the reality of the computer age, filled with hackers looking to cause problems "because they can" or hackers looking to cause problems for more nefarious purposes, and the vision for a smart grid could easily turn out to a stupid idea.

The odds are favorable that those extreme Smart Grid visions will be met with a practical reality that falls somewhere in the middle range.

The amorphous vision of today's Smart Grid will become clearer as today's technologies are put to practice. This preliminary review of the Smart Grid and renewable energy begins the clarification process.

Two separate but related issues dealing with economies of scale frame today's discussions about the Smart Grid and renewable energy.

Often the issues merged into what is known as the distributed versus centralized renewable energy debate, although it is equally as easy to consider distributed and centralized renewable energy as the two sides to the renewable energy coin.

A Smart Grid vision of distributed renewable energy begins with the idea of small scale electricity generation (from the household to neighborhood or business complex level) for use in bounded geographical area.

Solar rooftop programs, or any type of micro-CHP (combined heat and power system) system based on renewables would be examples of a distributive renewable energy system (note: micro-chp technology was originally designed to be used in conjunction with natural gas and is only now moving into renewables). Smart Grid technologies used in distributive systems rely primarily on hardware and software innovations that can efficiently measure the electricity supply and demand of single households or micro-producing communities, and efficiently move that electricity to places within the bounded geographical area over existing transmission lines.

The following video on smart meters provides one example of a Smart Grid technology that can be used in conjunction with a distributed renewable energy system. The video was chosen based on its artistic merit rather than the company's technological merits. A handful of companies are competing in the smart meter market.

Notice that the smart meter builds on a two way communications platform. The platform allows the utility company to measure household electricity use and production to calculate aggregate electricity demand and production in real time. This innovation allows the utility to better regulate the flow of electricity during the peak and low demand times of the day. Left unsaid, in a Big Brother sort of way, is the issue of the utility's ability to determine the internet or television watching habits of any specific customer, and shut down electricity to the internet or television once a quota has been reached. That's merely a smart grid joke as long as customers have the right to opt-out of any automated utility regulation of their electricity use.

A smart microgrid system would be managed with similar smart meter technology, except members of the microgrid (rather than the individual household) would serve as a single unit of analysis vis a vis the grid and a utility company. Members of a microgrid produce and distribute energy among themselves, independent of a utility. When necessary, they act as a unit to purchase or sell electricity to a utility.

A centralized renewable energy vision of the Smart Grid starts with the idea of creating large scale renewable energy projects such as large solar and wind farms in the Southwest and Upper Midwest, and then moving that electricity long distances, to large population areas in need of the electricity.

Because the high voltage transmission lines necessary for efficiently transporting large quantities of renewable electricity do not exist, the concept of a Smart Grid expands to include the construction of a network of high-voltage transmission lines.

The Unified National Smart Grid represents the most aggressive approach to centralized renewable energy. States are also promoting smaller high voltage transmission projects.

While the costs of building a Unified National Smart Grid are measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, those estimates do not include the costs associated with the constructing the large scale renewable energy plants that need to accompany them. Instead, the costs are often compared to the environmental, economic and security costs associated with continued dependence on mostly imported fossil fuels.

In an era also defined by the related and repetitive stories of high oil prices, global financial crises and war, the arguments for a move away from fossil fuel dependency have merit. At the same time, as Smart Grid implementation moves forward, it also seems reasonable to consistently rethink any centralized electricity decisions that move the country away from one type of dependency to another. The autonomy inherent in the distributed renewables approach compliments a vision of liberty and choice in tune with an American vision of independence.

Additional Information

CERTS Microgrid Concept
Relative Merits of Distributed vs. Central Photovoltaic (PV) Generation

© 2009. Patricia A. Michaels