Even if you have good control of the grid, if you have a shortage of input then you are forced to consider either brownouts or cutting loads. This probablem may eventually equalize itself if things get so bad in terms of reliability and expense that industries start to jump ship (which some are doing as it is).

Few new plants are being built. About the only ones that even *can* be built (or more reasonably signifficantly upgraded) are gas and that is one of the more expensive and less price-reliable ways of doing it. Consequently old dirty coal plants are being run even though they’re dirty and past their prime, because they are what we have already and have to hold out as long as nothing else new comes around.

That is the bigger concern I think, the lack of power generating. If you don’t have power generators then your grid is not of that much use and net metering is never going to change this because it’s so tiny.

        Brad F said:

That’s basically the way I see it too. I’m intrigued by the dynamic demand concept. I think it’s holds some promise, but I’m concerned about unintended consequences. Let’s say some manufacturers incorporate frequency response into their products, using the same, industry-standard control. All programmed with the same response characteristics. After a few years, millions of devices will react at the same time for a frequency drop, dropping more load than is required to compensate for the deficiency in generation, resulting in an overfrequency condition that may result in tripping some generation, and on and on. I’m pretty sure the guys who are pushing this concept are well-aware of these types of problems, but the implementation in low cost controls might not be so intelligent.

You raise an excellent point, which hasn’t really been addressed by dynamic demand supporters. Clearly this has to be dealt with or indeed one could see the grid going into a positive feedback of ‘interesting’ proportions.

        DV82XL said:

Absolutely no question, I just don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, in as much as there is a lot good about the ’smart grid’ that has nothing to do with net metering or distributed microgenerators.

That’s basically the way I see it too. I’m intrigued by the dynamic demand concept. I think it’s holds some promise, but I’m concerned about unintended consequences. Let’s say some manufacturers incorporate frequency response into their products, using the same, industry-standard control. All programmed with the same response characteristics. After a few years, millions of devices will react at the same time for a frequency drop, dropping more load than is required to compensate for the deficiency in generation, resulting in an overfrequency condition that may result in tripping some generation, and on and on. I’m pretty sure the guys who are pushing this concept are well-aware of these types of problems, but the implementation in low cost controls might not be so intelligent.

There are other aspects of the smart grid that are way cool and will help me to operate a more efficient and reliable power system. The trick is to demonstrate the economics in a cost-of-service regulation environment.

While I don’t see problems with low penetrations of DG, there is a lot of head-scratching going on in the industry about what’s going to happen as we get to high penetrations (if that ever happens). Certainly there are some model “green” (how I’ve come to despise that word) communities about, where some of these issues can be accurately analyzed. As some of that research is published we will learn more about larger-scale effects.

But the only way we’re going to see high penetrations of DG is if one of 2 things happen. Either DG will become economic, or it will acquire sufficient utility and status that it becomes a must-have, like dishwashers or cell phones. Either one of those events could happen, but I’m not holding my breath. That’s why my initial comments above only referred to low penetrations of DG. I’m watching for it,
I’m interested in the effects, but I won’t really believe it until I see it happening.

        drbuzz0 said:

Right… but again, that’s a totally seperate issue than the whole idea of vehicle-to-grid or having thousands of microgenerators, having net metering as a major energy source etc. That stuff is all smoke and mirrors and smoke being blown around. Politicians and interest groups like to talk about things like solar roofs and wind turbines on apartment buildings and so on. Those are basically worthless and only make the problems more difficult to deal with

Absolutely no question, I just don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, in as much as there is a lot good about the ’smart grid’ that has nothing to do with net metering or distributed microgenerators.

        DV82XL said:

As I said up thread FACTS (and other modern control protocols) will be implemented on the grid because they are needed for reasons other than to allow DG.

As for passive load management, the technology is available Dynamic Demand in the UK has a ready-for-market device waiting to go.

Right… but again, that’s a totally seperate issue than the whole idea of vehicle-to-grid or having thousands of microgenerators, having net metering as a major energy source etc. That stuff is all smoke and mirrors and smoke being blown around. Politicians and interest groups like to talk about things like solar roofs and wind turbines on apartment buildings and so on.

Those are basically worthless and only make the problems more difficult to deal with

        Cat Man Do said:

Could the argument be made then, that the focus on microgeneration, which is clearly the most hyped aspect of the so-called ’smart grid’ is really just obscuring the actually useful portion of the plans? If we spend most of what we have on the idea of net generating and that kind of thing then it’s just taking away from a worthy portion.

As I said up thread FACTS (and other modern control protocols) will be implemented on the grid because they are needed for reasons other than to allow DG.

As for passive load management, the technology is available Dynamic Demand in the UK has a ready-for-market device waiting to go.

Could the argument be made then, that the focus on microgeneration, which is clearly the most hyped aspect of the so-called ’smart grid’ is really just obscuring the actually useful portion of the plans? If we spend most of what we have on the idea of net generating and that kind of thing then it’s just taking away from a worthy portion.

        Bruce said:

Net metering just requires proper safety methods to be used, I still think it’s a good idea.

Also, this is unrelated to the current post, but I wonder about your opinion:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/12/farmers-restricted-chernobyl-disaster

This really ought to make people think twice about nuclear power, I think.

Pure unadulterated radiophobia exacerbated by bureaucratic overreaction.

        Bruce said:

Net metering just requires proper safety methods to be used, I still think it’s a good idea.

Also, this is unrelated to the current post, but I wonder about your opinion:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/12/farmers-restricted-chernobyl-disaster

This really ought to make people think twice about nuclear power, I think.

The article makes no sense to me. For one thing, the British Isles are a considerable distance from Ukraine and given the prevailing winds they would have gotten a minuscule dose even in 1986 and now, more than twenty years later, that tiny amount of fallout is well under .1% of the original activity.

It sounds from the article like there is less concern about the “Chernobyl fallout” than the radioactivity levels in general – even tiny ones. Sheep which test positive for “high radiation” are restricted as are sheep which grazed in the same area.

More than 130,000 people were resettled from the immediate area and experts say there should be no farming there for at least 200 years. The Food Standards Agency said the release of radiocaesium-137 in upland areas of Britain is still able to pass easily from soil to grass and accumulate in sheep.

The European Commission imposed a maximum limit of 1,000 becquerels per kilogram (bq/k) of radiocaesium in sheep meat affected by the accident to protect consumers. Under a “mark and release” scheme in the restricted areas, a farmer wishing to move animals out of the area must have them monitored by a hand-held device.

“Any sheep that exceed the working action level are marked with dye and are not released from restrictions,” said a spokesman, who added that mass summer surveys of sheep are performed at farms where there is confidence that restrictions are no longer needed.

Okay… cesium-137 is about the only major gamma emitter from Chernobyl that would not have completely decayed to nothing, but it still would have been reduced signifficantly both by radioactive decay and weathering and sedimentation. That said, if there were levels of concern, it’s easy enough to reduce the plant uptake with some extra potassium fertalizer.

1000 barquells = 0.027 microcuries. So no more than .027 microcuries of radioactivity is allowed per kilogram of meet.

That is… not much… at all…

I believe Brazil Nuts are considerably more radioactive than that. Anyway, it would be dwarfed by the amount of exposure one gets from potassium-40 in foods.