A work in progress by David Buckley
All locations referred to are in New Zealand, unless otherwise stated
There has for many decades been the assumption that electricity is an infinite resource, constrained only by consumer's willingness to pay for it. This is much in the same way that groundwater in Canterbury has always been assumed to be infinite, requiring only a resource consent (assumed to be a rubber stamping exercise) and a well to enable the creation of another diary farm. Environment Canterbury (ECAN) has now discovered that water isn't infinite, and there are "red" areas where no more water extraction may be permitted. Would-be dairy entrepreneurs are now facing serious difficulties in securing more precious water to fuel their expansionist plans.
In reality, and especially moving forward through the years, electricity is much the same, in that supply of electricity is constrained. New Zealand has been particularly lucky in the past, in that there are large hydro power resources, which has allowed electricity generation with no fuel cost. Today, that same hydro provides as much as 60% of our electricity needs, in a manner that will remain available to us forever. Its not perfect, dry years can cause problems, but over the long term, this is an extremely fortunate resource to have available.
One of the key issues facing us is the concept of a "plentiful" supply of electricity. Whilst electricity supply has been effectively infinite, if you can pay for it, then you can have it. Commercial economics mean that the largest users of electricity pay a disproportionately small price for electricity. Many businesses can only survive whilst they can obtain electricity at very low prices.
In much the same what that ECAN are now having to allocate Canterbury's groundwater, the time is coming when New Zealand as a country will have to look at how, where and to whom we choose to make electricity available. There will need to be an electricity strategy. It will need to be a national strategy. It will need to be firm and fair, based on objective criteria, such as GDP contributions, employment benefits, environmental impacts, and opportunity cost losses.
The very concept of such a key enabler of commerce will be contentious. It is probable that some business sectors will be denied electricity in the quantities that they require. There will be all kinds of legal action as vested interests try to protect their positions. Entire business sectors will be destroyed, creating unemployment black-spots, and disenfranchised voters. It’s going to get ugly. But it is necessary.
In reality, the energy economy is the same as the monetary economy. Things that generate money are powered by energy. Shortage of energy will mean a downturn in the economy. The only good news here is that the balance of supply and use of electricity discussed herein is going to be orders of magnitude less difficult than the issues to be faced when the oil energy runs out. But that, as they say, is another story.
We need to be positive.
New Zealand has a track record of leading the way. Compare the New Zealand stance on agricultural subsidy policy. We can do things differently
We must be leader in our production and use of electricity, we must get the best use out of what electricity we have available. That will enable us to be an economic leader in the future, rather than scrabbling around with the also-rans.
Much of the worlds and New Zealand’s non-hydro electricity is generated from thermal sources, either based on coal, or oil / gas products. We know that these thermal burners are contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions, and the related global warming issue. Although cleaner coal-fired stations can be built that are more efficient, and have less emissions (other than carbon dioxide), the problem remains. New Zealand has over a thousand years of coal available to be burned for electricity production, but the question facing New Zealand is should we convert that coal reserve into greenhouse gasses. New Zealanders like to think of ourselves as green, and thus unless there is no alternative, we would prefer to leave that coal right where it is.
This brings us right back to where we started. How can New Zealand generate enough electricity to satisfy our needs.
For a supposedly green country, New Zealand isn't actually very good at conserving energy. The key to conserving electricity in the home is insulation, and most New Zealand houses are poorly insulated. Even new housing is built to poor energy insulation standards, considerably below what could be considered state of the art.
There is still widespread use of GLS (incandescent) lamps, most wastefully in places where the cosmetic shortcomings of compact fluorescent (CFL) or standard fluorescent lamps are not of great concern.
There has even been talk of late that New Zealand should acquire nuclear power generation, with a price tag of something like 2bn NZD. If there is so much money about, it would be far more advantageous to use it to avoid building more generation faculties by deeply improving energy conservation nationally.
The key to the sustainable provision of power in a post-thermal economy is renewable energy, such as that provided by the sun, by water, and by wind. It is likely that many of these generation facilities will not be located in single large facilities, as power stations are built today. Much of this generation will be Distributed Generation, whereby instead of a small number of large power plants, there will be hundreds or thousands of smaller plants.
There is great logic in using distributed generation.
No less a figure than Buckminster Fuller pointed out that if a small wind turbine was placed atop of each transmission pylon in the USA there would be enough generation capacity to supply the USA three times over.
There are often arguments against distributed generation based on factors, such as safety, suitability of the distribution network, and utility commercial interests.
The safety issues of distributed generation are solved, there are no outstanding safety issues connecting small scale generation. A simple intelligent disconnect is all that is required, and such devices can be mass produced and type approved.
Arguments about the suitability of the distribution system are, for the most part, fatuous. Each connection of a customer to a distribution system is rated to carry a load, and the distribution network sized using diversity calculations. Providing the customer connects no more distribution than the diversified load allowed for, there can be no excess loading issue.
Finally, there are commercial issues. Utilities want their cake, and want to eat it too, and sometimes want icing on the top for lost opportunities. A legally enforced mechanism allowing simple, fair, non-discriminatory access to the distribution networks is required, and is one of the keys to New Zealand’s power system of the future.
The argument mostly used against wind generation specifically, and renewable generation generally is that these technologies don’t provide a dependable or constant source of power, and thus cannot be used to provide more than a fraction (somewhere like 10%-20%) of a countries load.
This is conventional thinking, and it is time for a new approach.
What is actually needed is a smarter strategy to enable intermittent sources of power to be better utilized in New Zealand's electric environment. What is required is Demand Management, often called Load Control
The concept of load control is not new to New Zealand. Ripple control has been used to manage heating loads (and switching streetlights) for decades. The driver behind the implementation of ripple control was to reduce the size of the generation and distribution facilities. Back in the days when New Zealand's electrical system was a government monopoly, this made great sense, as the power system capacity needed to be built system is determined by the size of the peak load. If through load control the peak power requirement can be reduced, then the size of plant required is reduced.
It is important to note that load control doesn’t actually reduce the total amount of power consumed, it merely moves when power is consumed. The overall amount of power consumed is the same.
The existing ripple control systems were designed years ago, and have served their intended purpose well. But they have a large drawback. Ripple control uses the power lines as the data communications medium for the control signals, and the commands are sent slowly. A single control data packet takes several seconds to transmit.
What is needed is the ability to control loads by the fraction of a second. That way non-time- sensitive load (such as heaters) can be switched on and off as required to match the generation capacity available le on the power network.
This is not stuff of science fiction. Although the existing load control equipment is controlled through low speed power line signals, there is no reason why in the 21st century that high speed data connections cannot be used. The Internet is rapidly becoming the fourth utility service, and provides a channel allowing near-instant data communications.
All generators, including distributed generators will be able to provide real time data about how much electricity they are contributing to the grid, and energy exchanges (which are computers, not people, as people are too slow) will match the instantaneous power availability with those customers willing to pay for it.
There is even the possibility that individual customers will at last be able to benefit from competition in the supply marketplace through the use of "smart" electricity meters, that the customer programs (in real time, of course) how much they are willing to pay for electricity at any particular time band.
Customers who have a requirement for continuous power, but who want to save money, will find ways of utilizing intermittent power to reduce their bills, through techniques such as temporary energy storage in flywheel based UPS systems.
New Zealand is a small country, with abundant natural resources, a clean attitude, and a willingness to do things differently. The best future for New Zealand is not to follow the USA and Europe doing more of what has been done for the 20th century, but to forge a new path, based on best technology, to put us in a better competitive position worldwide, and giving us all an improved standard of accommodation and living.
|
Comments on the above article are welcomed Click here to return to the homepage. |