PowerSwitch

I found an interesting report recently released by Greenpeace UK . Some of you might have seen it already:

"Decentralising Power: An Energy Revolution For The 21st Century"

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/me ... 0719100223


It's specific to the UK market, 75 pages long, and not a small read. Seems like massive changes would be needed. My guess is we're too late.

Here's a summary:


"In a decentralised energy (DE) system, electricity would be generated close to or at the point of use. Buildings, instead of being passive consumers of energy, would become power stations, constituent parts of local energy networks. They would have solar photovoltaic panels, solar water heaters, micro wind turbines, heat pumps for extracting energy from the earth. They might also be linked to commercial or domestic operated combined heat and power systems. The massive expansion in renewable capacity that this would represent, and the fact that when fossil fuels were burnt the heat would be captured and used, would lead to dramatic reductions in overall carbon emissions ? at least half of all emissions from the power sector, or 15% of total UK emissions."

there's a 5 page summary of the report here:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Multimedia ... N=61932633

This looks interesting. Haven?t read the full report yet but hope to do so this week.

One thing to add, a radical change in our energy production and distribution is certainly something we will need to do but a radical change in the way we build our cities is also needed and for that matter, society as a whole.

Yes, everyone should read it. It's not too long - mostly pretty pictures.

The Open University/University of Birmingham

Locating renewables in community contexts



One day conference at the OU - Nov 15th, 10.30am - 5.00pm

Venue: The Berrill Lecture Theatre, Open University, Milton Keynes

The overall aim of this conference, which is being organised jointly by the OU Energy and Environment Research Unit and Dr. Dave Toke from the University of Birmingham, is to show that, while a lot is heard in the media about local campaigns against wind farms, communities can get involved with renewable energy, wind and biomass in particular, in a positive way that can support local economic renewal. It will look at the situation in the UK and also in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany.

Programme outline

am: Planning Issues and Local Ownership

Colin Palmer (Wind Prospect) - Fenland Green Investments and local ownership of renewables

Dave Toke (University of Birmingham): review of wind power planning outcomes

Joyce Loring ( ex SPRU) How locally inspired projects utilize local social networks to improve the chances of planning consent

Sylvia Breukers (University of Amsterdam) NIMBYism in the Netherlands and the UK

Patrick Devine-Wright (DeMonfort University) - analysis of NIMBYism

Discussant: Andrea Davies from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)

Stephen Ward, Centre For Sustainable Energy: Enhancing Community Benefits from

large-scale wind projects.

pm: Case Studies

EU Case Studies:

Henning Holst, from North Germany,

Soren Hermansen from Samsoe, in Denmark, plus OU video

Dirk Kestelen, from Germany - the ?Burgerwindparks?

UK Case Studies :

Geraint Davies: The Moel Maelogen project

Adam Twine: The Westmill Wind Co-operative

Helen Davies: Awel Aman Tawe community co-op proposal

Paul Upham : Biomass at Winkleigh

Discussant: Georgina Wong (BWEA)

The Conference fee is ?35.00, which includes lunch and refreshments.

If you would like to attend please send a cheque made payable to ?The Open University? plus your name and address, to Claire Emburey, Dept. of Design and Innovation, Faculty of Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. Alternatively, to register and pay on the day: e-mail C.L.Emburey@open.ac.uk or ring +44 (0)1908 653335.

More information from D.A.Elliott@open.ac.uk

Energy and Environment Research Unit

The Open University

Coping with variability

Integrating renewables into the electricity system

A one day conference on Tuesday January 24th at the

Open University, Milton Keynes.

Can renewable energy provide reliable power?

Will it need extensive back up?

The energy available from the winds, waves, tides and the sun varies in ways which may not match variations in energy demand- sometimes there will be too much power, at other times not enough.

Is this a significant problem, or can these new sources be integrated into the grid system without the need for extensive backup or energy storage capacity?

The conference will look at the technical options for reconciling the differing patterns of supply and demand.



Speakers include:

* Prof. Mike Laughton (Imperial/QMC) overview of issues David Millborrow (Consultant) on integrating variable wind power
* Dr. Graham Sinden (Oxford University) on integrating all renewables,(tbc)
* Robert Gross (Imperial College) on the TPA/UKERC review of Intermittency.
* Dr Mark Barrett (Consultant) who will present results from his modelling work
* Prof. David Infield (CREST) & Prof. Goran Strbac (Manchester), who will be discussants.



Contributions have also been invited from experts from overseas including

Fred Star (Institute of Energy, NL) Brian Hurley (Airtricity, Eire).

We will be looking in particular at the potential role that could be played by CHP,

micro-generation and interactive load management in balancing inputs from variable renewables. Thanks are due to Birmingham University and the DESIRE project for supporting this part of the programme.



The Conference fee is ?35. This includes buffet lunch and refreshments.

If you want to attend please send a cheque made out to ?The Open University? plus your name and address to Claire Emburey, Dept. of Design and Innovation, Faculty of Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK 76AA. Or you can let her know you are coming, and then pay on the day (C.L.Emburey@open.ac.uk or 01908 65 3335)

More details from D.A.Elliott@open.ac.uk

Greenpeace wrote:"Decentralising Power: An Energy Revolution For The 21st Century"

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/me ... 0719100223

It's a pity that Greenpeace are "overselling" Distributed Generation. The major issue is of generators being sited away from demand centres, not the relatively small loss in the grid.

The blackout in London in 2003 was essentially due to poor maintenance; the secondary failure being the fitting of a wrong protection relay during a system upgrade. If London Underground still had their power station then indeed the trains would still be running but everything else in the zone would STILL be without electricity.

Part of the problem with the New York blackout in 2003 was there not being a single point of control; in the UK the grid is controlled from Wokingham so a cascade failure like that in the US is unlikely here.

Feeding electricity into the grid is not like injecting data packets into the internet. Issues such as overload protection, phase synchronisation, reactive power control and the sheer number of "nodes to control" will place limits on how much electricity can be exported to the grid.

More "nodes" and more equipment will lead to lower system reliability overall; there are more things to go wrong.

Distributed Generation has its place but it is not the Holy Grail. It cannot power heavy industry alone.

This entire issue is connecting to a train of logic which I have never seen treated before, neither on the web, nor in print.

It's about systems vs individuals. Systems are composed of individuals. A system which make the individual completely dependent on the system will be more effective than a system which allow the individual to opt-out. A system comprised of individuals who desperately cling to the system for their dear lives will be in a posistion to project more concerted power, and defeat systems which allow independence.

It is difficult to imagine how a society would allow/encourage individuals some degree of independence with respect to electricity.

At least this has been true as long as there has been surplus energy to extract. It might be ineffective to force people into total dependency if there is no surplus energy. Only time will tell.

Bandidoz wrote:It's a pity that Greenpeace are "overselling" Distributed Generation. The major issue is of generators being sited away from demand centres, not the relatively small loss in the grid.

Could you expand on/explain this please; I thought there were two reasons for having power generation close to its use, transmission losses and using waste heat - is it the latter you are refering to?

I was please to find that the govt. is at least funding investigations into re-designing the grid:

A sustainable energy future will look very different. There will be many thousands of small generators (from 1 kW to 100 MW). Some might be quite close to consumers (photovoltaic systems and combined heat and power) while others are remote (wind and hydro systems). Central control will not be possible or desirable. Intermittent sources (such as wind and solar energy) will cease and resume in uncontrolled fashion. Energy in distribution systems will flow one way and then another at short notice. The role of a national bulk transmission system will need to be re-thought.

My emphasis

http://www.supergen-networks.org.uk

Yes - the transmission losses are tiny in comparison to the waste heat.

I've had a brief look around the supergen-networks site - good find!

I reiterate, one of the reasons why there was total grid collapse in the US east coast was that there was no single point of control. Controllers were unwilling to press the OFF button, leading to a cascade failure.

Until privatisation in the 1990s, power stations were centrally dispatched (controlled).

According to NGT, they inherited this single point of control for the UK and that is still the case.

Central control will not be possible or desirable.

Although DG-fed micro-grids would work in an autonomous fashion, the amount of energy they import from or export to the grid will still need to be centrally controlled.