Category Archives: Future of Utilities

The New Grid Needs to Be a Lot More Complicated

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The Old Grid used to be relatively simple, with generation following load:

Old Grid

It is now a lot more complicated:

New Grid

The grid is transforming and getting more complicated.

  • We are decommissioning fossil plants to reduce GHG emission and nuclear plants because of safety concerns.
  • There is only so many rivers, so the solution of building new hydro plants is not sufficient.
  • We are then replacing fossil and nuclear base load plants with renewables that are intermittent.
  • To compound the problem of balancing the grid, loads are also becoming peakier, with reduced load factor. Interestingly, many energy conservation initiatives actually increase power peaks.
  • To connect the new renewable generation, we then need to build more transmission. The transmission network also allows network operators to spread generation and load over more customers – geographic spread helps smooth out generation and load.
  • Building new transmission lines face local opposition and takes a decade. The only other alternatives to balance the grid are storage … and Demand Management.
  • Another issue is that we are far more dependent on the grid that we used to be. With electrical cars, an outage during the night may mean that you can’t go to work in the morning. So, we see more and more attention to resiliency, with faster distribution restoration using networked distribution feeders as well as microgrids for critical loads during sustained outages.
  • Renewable generation and storage can more effectively be distributed to the distribution network, although small scale generation and storage are much more expansive than community generation and storage.
  • With distributed generation, distributed storage and a networked distribution grid, energy flow on the distribution grid becomes two-way. This requires additional investments into the distribution grid and a new attention to electrical protection (remember the screwdriver).

All of this costs money and forces the utilities to adopt new technologies at a pace that has not been seen in a hundred years. The new technology is expensive, and renewable generation, combined with the cost of storage, increases energy costs. There is increasing attention to reduction of operating costs and optimization of assets.

“Resilient Power for Sustainable Cities” Presentation at the Canadian Electricity Association

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I presented this to senior managers of Canadian utilities attending the 24 February Distribution Council of the Canadian Electricity Association. It can be found on SlideShare at http://www.slideshare.net/bmarcoux/resilient-power-for-sustainable-cities.

Abstract

The cost of disasters has been increasing exponentially since the 1970s – and cities are mostly affected, which is not surprising since cities produce 80% of the world gross domestic product (GDP). Since the majority of disasters are related to climate events, cities are also part of the root cause, since they generate 75% of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Mayors, acting locally on a short feedback loop, view the challenges they face on a daily basis – it is about their constituents getting sick, having clean water, being warm or cool, holding productive jobs, commuting efficiently, surviving disasters. They see that a smart city needs, first and foremost, to be both resilient to face increasing disasters and sustainable to reduce its environmental impact and to improve quality of life – while being financially affordable

Cities can’t function without electricity. It moves subways and trains. It cools, heats and lights our homes and businesses. It pumps our water and keeps fresh the food we eat. And it powers the technologies that are the foundation of a smart city. By implementing smart grid technologies such as microgrids and distribution automation, electric utilities play a key role in making cities both resilient and sustainable. Yet, many electric utilities do not partner with mayors to work on cities’ resiliency and sustainability challenges. A better approach is to see city policy makers as major stakeholders and a driving force in modernizing the grid.

Have you talked to your mayor(s) lately?

Tutorial: Key Players in the Energy Markets: Rivalry in the Middle

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See also the previous post.

The players described in the previous post have vastly different characteristics. The most striking difference is the level of rivalry.

IMG_2174

Distributors operate in a defined territory, often corresponding to a city, a state or a province, where they are the sole provider – thankfully, as there would otherwise be multiple lines of poles along roads. Given this monopoly, distributors are subjected to price regulation, meaning that the price they charge for the use of their infrastructure (poles, conductors, cables, transformers, switches, etc.) is set, typically equal to their costs plus an allowed return on their investment. This is done by filing tariffs that are approved by the regulatory body following a rate hearing.

Retail is often a competitive industry, as there is no structural barrier to having multiple players. However, some distributors are also given the retail monopoly over their territory. Some may also provide retail services in competition with other retailers. In those cases, the distributor-owned retailer is also regulated and has to seek approval of its rates, but other retailers typically do not, although they may have to file their rate plans.

It is possible to have multiple transmission companies operating in the same territory, each owing one or a few transmission lines. However, because those transmission lines are not perfect substitutes (they do not necessarily have the same end-points in the network) and because transmission capacity is scarce, electricity transmitter typically have regulated rates, although they may compete for new constructions.

System operators are monopolies over a territory, and they have to maintain independence. They are, in effect, monopolies, although system operators are often government- or industry-owned. Their costs are recharged to the customer base, directly or indirectly.

Large generators are in a competitive business, competing in an open market, although distributed generators, which are much smaller, usually benefits from rates set by a regulator or a government.

Tutorial: Key Players in the Energy Markets

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I will be making a conference to investors later this year and I will also be training some people internally at my employer. The topics will touch on the electricity industry structure and I am preparing some material for it.

The industry can be quite complex in some jurisdictions. I boiled the complexity down to just this:

New Picture

Traditional large-scale generator own and maintain coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind and solar plants connected to transmission lines. Those are large plants – typically hundreds of megawatts.

Transmitters own and maintain transmission lines – the large steel towers seen going from large generators to cities. Those typically run at 120,000 volts and more, up to over 1,000,000 volts in some cases.

Distributors own and maintain the local infrastructure of poles and conduits going to customer sites. Those typically run at 1,200 to 70,000 volts, usually stepped down to 600 volts. 480 volts, 240 volts or 120 volts for connection to customers.

Most customers are connected to distributors, although some large industrial facilities (such as aluminum smelters) are directly connected to transmission lines.

While customers are connected to distributors, they purchase electricity from an independent retailer or from the retail arm of a distributor.

With customer installing distributed generation on their premises, they sell back power to the market, often through aggregators.

Retailers buy electricity from generators in an energy market – like a stock exchange, but for electricity.

By definition, the energy produced at any instant must be equal to the energy taken by customers, accounting for a small percentage of losses in transmission and distribution. (We are starting to see large-scale storage operators, which may act as both consumer and generator, depending they are charging or releasing electricity in the network.) This critical balance is maintained by the system operator that direct generators to produce more ore less to match load; in some case, the system operator will also direct distributors to shed load (customers) if generation or transmission is insufficient to meet the demand.

The next post will deal with energy and money flows in the market.