It is without a doubt that the need for energy is now greater than ever. The demand for energy is growing on a daily basis, as countries continue to develop and global population continues to increase our understanding of the “Grid” should grow. By the end of this blog you should clearly be able to understand what the Energy Grid is, how the infrastructure works, and pros/cons involved.
During our class discussion I was astonished when I was told it took 10^15 BTU to run the global economy. On top of the already ridiculous demand, demand continues to grow by 2% every year as the appetite countries continue to develop. Without getting into the global demand lets take a look at how the grid works.
Please click on the link below and take a minute to watch the video. Thank you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dZjohZPIqE#t=128
Lets now try and recap what we just learned by watching the video. The Grid lives in the now, meaning it continuously adjusts to the demand. Although our households do not consume a ton of electricity, in order for electricity to travel long distances high voltage is required (230,000 – 250,000 volts).
Key points:
- 3 main interconnections (Western interconnection, Eastern Interconnection, and Texas Interconnection)
- Nikola Tesla discovery ALTERNATING CURRENT helps make the grid possible
- Transformers are the key to lower the voltages
For class purposes we will disregard any opinion presented towards the end of the video.
Know that we understand the infrastructure of the energy grid and how it works lets try and understand both the pros and cons of our current infrastructure. I would love to hear your opinion concerning this matter, please feel free to comment and discuss. First lets list some of the known commodities the grid currently presents us with.
After researching the pros and cons I found that it’s fairly difficult to find detailed pros. It seems like we have used the system for so long that the only real benefit it provides us with is comfort. Americans do not really worry or are informed on how the grid works. We know it’s there and it’s reliable, besides the reliability and comfort we have no economic benefit. The cons clearly outweigh the pros.
“A typical coal-fired electrical plant might be 38% efficient, so a little more than one-third of the chemical energy content of the fuel is ultimately converted to usable electricity. In other words, as much as 62% of the original energy fails to find its way to the electrical grid. Once electricity leaves the plant, further losses occur during delivery. Finally, it reaches an incandescent light bulb where it heats a thin wire filament until the metal glows, wasting still more energy as heat. The resulting light contains only about 2% of the energy content of the coal used to produce it. Swap that bulb for a compact fluorescent and the efficiency rises to around 5% – better, but still a small fraction of the original”.
Our grid is very inefficient, partly because the equipment is outdated. It’s easy to suggest an update of equipment but the cost of upgrading the grid is enormous.
The con that stood out the most is the inefficiency; I would not care for old equipment if the grid were as efficient as currently possible. That is not the case there are many brilliant ideas that I believe will help improve our energy grid.
Luckily there are companies currently working on improving our grid. National Grid has a vision to “ to deploy Smart Grid technology in order to optimize the flow of green energy resources, enhance the performance of the electric distribution grid, and provide customers with the ability to make informed decisions about how they use energy”.
I believe the Smart Grid is the future!
References:
http://energy.gov/articles/top-9-things-you-didnt-know-about-americas-power-grid
http://www.nationalgridus.com/energy/
http://www.nap.edu/reports/energy/sources.html