"Wisdom begins in wonder" – Socrates
Tag: The Grid
How Battery Storage can help Black Starts
11/27/18
“How can battery storage help with black starts?”
In order to recover from power outages, black starts are a necessary firsts step. This can be helped with battery storage since their geographically distributed nature will make them more resilient. This is How Battery Storage can help Black Starts.
Black Start
11/20/18
“How can we recover an electric grid from a blackout?”
Blackouts can cause enormous devastation to communities. Although recovery can be a long process, If generators are used to create power for a portion of the system. This is known as a Black Start and is one of the many ways to increase grid resilience.
How Load Shedding Helps Fight Climate Change
11/19/18
“How can load shedding be beneficial for the planet?”
When power grids receive a demand overload, they often go into load-shedding to prevent a blackout. Not only does the reduced load prevent a blackout but also emit less carbon dioxide! Without having to worry about an infrastructure recovery or extra emissions, the grid’s impact on climate change will be reduced.
Rolling Blackouts
11/16/18
“Do utility services sometimes need to intentionally stop electricity services?”
Power grids can suffer blackouts when there is too much demand in comparison to supply. As a result, utilities might institute blackouts for certain periods of time to artificially cut desire. These are known as Rolling Blackouts and are commonly found in developing parts of the world.
Power Pooling
11/15/18
“How can multiple utilities share electricity with each other?”
Electricity demand and supply can fluctuate greatly. And sometimes, one utility might become overwhelmed. To prevent this from occurring, a utility can enter into a Power Pool with other utilities. A Power Pool is a compilation of terms in which multiple utilities agree to share energy and resources. This can decrease operating costs and enable more reliability. However, pool agreements can be complex and might lead to some friction between different utilities.
Image Credit https://blogs.worldbank.org
Dispatchable Generation
11/14/18
“What is energy that can be sent off at any time?”
Energy can be generated by many different sources, but they will have different properties. Some energy sources can be turned on and off and adjusted to the utility operator’s whim. This is known as Dispatchable Generation and can be supplied by energy sources such as geothermal.
Grid Capacity Expansion
10/11/18
“How can we expand the capacity of the gird?”
Like everything in the universe, the demand for electricity changes with the flow of time. And when demand exceeds supply, more generation needs to take place. This occurs in the form of Grid Capacity Expansion, increasing the energy potential of the grid.
Photo credit Windpower Monthly
How Microgrids will Help Rural and Remote Communities
10/08/18
“How will Microgrids be useful for rural and isolated communities?”
Traditional power transmission infrastructure is not beneficial for rural and remote communities. Long power lines from centralized generation sources are prone to failure and are expensive to maintain. Plus, due to their limited lifespan, they will have to be replaced which can greatly drive up costs!
To solve this, we need to completely rethink how we transmit electricity. One possible solution is to implement microgrids with distributed energy resources. This will take away the need for complicated transmission, and can enable grid independence. This is How Microgrids will Help Rural and Remote Communities.
Image credit: smedia2.intoday.in
How a Supergrid can help Grid Stability
09/28/18
“How can a Supergrid help Grid Resiliency?”
Distributed Energy Resources have a problem. They tend to generate a large surplus of energy at midday when it is not needed, and a dearth at night when usage goes up. But some outside of the box thinking can fix this problem. We know that because the Earth revolves around its axis every day, different parts of the surface will be exposed to the sun at different times. So what if we were to take the surplus energy at the sunny parts and send it over to parts where the sun is absent using a Supergrid? In this way, A Supergrid can help Grid Stability.
Photocredit Wikimedia
Isaac's Science Blog 