October 14, 2009

When the utility industry talks about home energy management, the focus is often on managing home appliances such as dishwashers and refrigerators. But what about all of the other stuff we plug in -- or just never unplug -- each day? The "plug load," which consists of many consumer electronics (CEs), just doesn't get enough air time today in smart grid discussions.

Yet CEs -- such as cellular phones and computers, televisions -- will be a $165 billion industry in the United States in 2009, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. And these electronic devices consume not only our dollars, but our energy as well. A 2008 study by the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research Program found that such devices account for 15 to 19 percent of California residential energy use and, "if household electronic energy use were assumed to be the same in the rest of the United States as in California, these devices would consume 9 to 12 percent of the electricity used in the average U.S. home."

October 02, 2009

Not long ago there were two widely held views when it came to the fossil fuels that powered nearly three-quarters of the electric generation industry: the United States was the "Saudi Arabia of coal," with a huge supply that would last well over two centuries, and the increasing reliance on natural gas to produce electricity would stress this country's ability to meet the demand from domestic, or even North American, sources.

Now those assumptions are being turned on their heads as a combination of reports examining recoverable resources are gaining currency. Simply put, separate analyses by government agencies and private organizations indicate recoverable coal resources are not nearly as plentiful as once thought, while a combination of new discoveries and technological advances have made supplies of natural gas much more bountiful, perhaps enough to last another century at current rates of consumption.

September 25, 2009

The hype surrounding the intelligent utility is getting heaped onto consumers and regulators. But the real question is whether the technology will bear fruit or whether it will result in broken promises.

Grid modernization has long been the goal of utility techies. Such pursuits, though, will vary and can range from installing software so that system operators can detect outages before they would spread to beefing up the meters that reach directly into homes where they can signal consumers to curb usage. The early readings on most smart grid projects is that they have the ability to bring substantial benefits but at prohibitive costs.

September 21, 2009

It's taken five years. But the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin has given approval to American Transmission Co. to build a new 32-mile high voltage transmission line that will link two towns within the state and which will be complete by 2013. While obscure to most of the nation, the $215 million project may represent a gradual shift in how transmission is owned and permitted.

The demand for energy is expected to keep climbing and contributing value to most power facilities. In states that have restructured their electricity markets, that energy can be sold at market rates, giving well-run facilities the chance to earn superior returns. Transmission systems, however, will continue to be regulated, perhaps making the investments less attractive to certain utilities and more appealing to third party transmission owners.

September 18, 2009

The regulatory and financial maze surrounding the construction of new nuclear plants might be circumvented if some developers are able to commercialize smaller, less controversial reactors. Such efficient units could be built and shipped at a fraction of the time and money than the much bigger base-load facilities.

The focus is now on right-sized reactors that are typically between 100 megawatts and 300 megawatts. They would be mostly marketed to developing nations where the transmission grids cannot handle the larger, 1,000-3,000 megawatt systems. And while the concept may sound appealing, researchers must still prove that idea is doable. Once the projects are shown to be feasible, developers can then take the various components of the smaller facilities and use them to form base-load plants.