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Has the time come for the decentralized power grid?

In some circles, the centralized power grid most nations have is on par with the dinosaur: big, clumsy and a thing of the past.

 

Whether it be the excessive costs of building and maintaining a centralized power grid, the occurrence of too many power blackouts from centralized power, or the risk of hackers and other bad actors impacting its power reliability, the need for a decentralized power grid on a national scale is critical to human civilization.

 

A decentralized power grid can include solar, geothermal, wind, or any number of innovative renewable technologies. They can include microgrids or even what I like to call the home grid. Power is generated locally and more cost effectively.

 

Here's the question: Has the time come for the decentralized power grid?

Anonymous
  • in reply to DAB

    Hi , nice to have that assurance, especially during winter months. Do you use a diesel generator?

  • My local power net has been so unreliable that I installed a whole house generator about 5 years ago.

    Now while my neighbors are in the dark, I have full power.

     

    So I would have to encourage everyone to set up your own local power source just in case.

    It reduces your dependence and provides you with options should anything happen to your local power network.

     

    DAB

  • The system is a collection of power producers each willing to buy and sell electricity like any other commodity.  There are safeguards between major suppliers that protect one producer from another, allowing them to sell their additional capacity (loss due long haul transmission is part of the consideration, i.e., New York will not purchase from North Dakota).  So maybe the problem you are describing is how well managed are each or our producers and how willing are they to risk a blackout by overselling/providing electricity to another provider.

     

    The solution best solution seems to allow a greater number of producers, an individual with a collection of solar panels would be able to sell their excess to their regional producer to help offset the cost of implementation/maintenance.

     

    Note: there are opportunities for one regional utility to buy from second utility and then selling the excess capacity gained to a third utility.

  • There are lots of unproven assertions in the opening statement.

     

    eg: "Power is generated locally and more cost effectively." -

     

    and it seems to unclear in its definitions - what we need is a national scale or larger power grid with multiple inputs - possibly down to individual homes with solar panels or batteries.

     

    But we need the ability to cope with the intermittent nature of many renewable sources such as wind, solar or tidal - so we have to be able to transport a lot of power over long distances.

     

    MK

  • Decentralized microgrids using renewable energy resources (solar PV, wind, etc.) coupled with energy storage technology have many potential benefits including decreased need for major electricity generation and transmission expansions, ability to generate power locally upon loss of grid supply (island mode), and reduction of green house gas emissions.  Distributed energy resources may also be helpful in solving the emerging problem of charging an increasing number of plug in electric vehicles.  Existing centralized grid infrastructure is not well suited to charging a cul-de-sac filled with Tesla's.

     

    The technology is largely available, but costs need to be considered. The impacts on customer behavior created by switching to a new energy model will need to be carefully thought through.

  • in reply to clem57

    True, and in some cases power is more easily generated in one community than another, so moving power around works well.

     

    I would like to see it more decentralized in the form of having each community, town, or city be more self-sufficient with their power, not necessarily each home having independent power, so that any failure is somewhat localized and doesn't bring down entire provinces or states.

     

    For example, I live on Vancouver Island (about the size of Belgium, and bigger than several US states), and we have had island-wide outages due to supply lines failing (snow last time, I think). It doesn't happen often or last long, but I think it would make sense to break up such dependencies.

     

    -Nico

  • With cities centralized power is only practical way.

  • The time has come for central power grids to be augmented (not replaced) by small local power sources.

    When this becomes a significant portion of the total power and we start to depend on it, I expect to see a much bigger infrastructure to inspect and license micro-installations.