Smart grids could help environment and economy

October 28, 2008 (source: www.thestarphoenix.com)

When asked what was his greatest achievement, Tommy Douglas said rural electrification through the creation of a province-wide electrical grid.

Sixty years later, our current slate of leaders could have a similar impact on the province by creating a "smart grid." Smart grids may be one of the most important solutions to the world's energy and climate problems.

A smart grid is "a transformed electricity transmission and distribution network or 'grid' that uses robust two-way communications, advanced sensors and distributed computers to improve the efficiency, reliability and safety of power delivery and use." Transforming our current electrical grid into a smart grid is an essential step toward effective demand-side management and the adoption of renewable power sources such as wind, solar, micro-hydro and biomass.

The current electrical infrastructure that delivers power was devised in the 19th century and built out in the 20th. It was created to facilitate the delivery of base load power from a small number of centralized sources, like coal-fired power plants and hydro dams. However, today's supply of, and demand for, power is shifting.

Today, the most desirable power sources, from an environmental and economic perspective, are decentralized power from wind farms and a host of other sources such as combined heat and power generators in buildings, and ultimately rooftop solar.

Current grids are not "smart" enough to manage highly complex renewable sources that are constantly coming on and off stream, as often as the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind gusts.

For example, at times the grid can't handle all of the power produced from wind farms, not necessarily because the supply is not needed, but because it can't be integrated rapidly into a system that relies heavily on base load from coal. Producing power from thousands of sources, like rooftop solar, instead of a few big power plants, will be impossible without smartening up the grid.

The smart power grid uses communications and computing to operate more efficiently and reliably and support additional services to consumers. Microelectronics, and especially microprocessors, open new ways to significantly improve power grid control through the evolutionary integration of intelligent, distributed and highly adaptive systems.

A smart upgrade would be comparable to bringing the power of the Internet to the transmission, distribution and use of electricity.

An intelligent power distribution network would open up possibilities to reduce power consumption at the client side during peak hours. It would facilitate grid connection of distributed generation, grid energy storage for distributed generation load balancing and improved reliability against many different component failure scenarios. Significantly, it is expected to save consumers money and reduce CO2 emissions.

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