I was really impressed by the Webcast by Mary Ann Piette I found yesterday so I did a search and found this one as well. Its even better! This evening I rang Mary Ann and asked her who produced the boxes that she demonstrated during her talks. The Synergy Module type device she demonstrated is made by Akuacom (www.akuacom.com).
The following YouTube video gives a good idea of the state of research into automated energy demand management.
Tom gave the following explanation of Energy Demand Management at Interlog 2008 in Las Vegas.
This EU video is an interesting insight into the renewable energy strategy of the EU.
The key challenge facing the development of a commercial EDM project in Ireland is to create a market reward for consumers who modify their electricity consumption to match available supply. There is an active wholesale, but not retail, market for electricity in Ireland. This market is bid in by the Generator Units (market name for companies that operate generation plant) on the day prior to production based on expected demand. Computer software optimises for lowest cost the various bids and publishes the run schedule.
A projected system marginal price for one day during the past week is shown above. On that day the highest price was three times the lowest price. The X axis is one day divided into 48 hour segments and the Y axis is Euros per MWh.
If retail electricity prices varied by the same amount as wholesale prices then demand would start to match supply as users availed of cheaper electricity.
The objective of EDM is to get retail electricity prices to vary in real time and to give consumers the tools (Synergy Module and Synergy Service) to manage their demand to minimise price.
This week I had my first face to face meeting with the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) and although the challenges were obvious the people I met could clearly see the benefits of implementing EDM. I remain hopeful that we can find a mechanism to monetise EDM on the Ireland of Ireland to make it attractive for consumers to sign up.
If real time EDM is not developed in Ireland then we have no hope of achieving the targetted 30% renewables that our government is aiming for.
I really like this podcast, from IBM, on EDM.
http://www.ibm.com/podcasts/howitworks/20060731_hiw_no1.mp3
Please take seven minutes to listen to it….
This article relates to the same project if you prefer to read.
http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/utilities/doc/content/news/pressrelease/1586103119.html
In the 1970s, IBM’s position in the computer industry was akin to Microsoft’s position today. Over the last week I heard a news bullitin that IBM are now larger the the combined capitalisation of the Irish stock Exchange. Its interesting that such a large company are in the EDM space. This is an IT vertical market that could be very large. The effect will be to create a supergrid of smart electrical devices and smart electricity meters that offer consumers enhanced functionality while delivering energy savings, lower cost and enhanced renewables penetration.
On Thursday and Friday night, 17th and 18th of January, I saw the following advertisement on the main state sponsored television channel in Ireland, RTE 1.
I believe that this advertisement sets out to create a misleading impression regarding the effects of (burning) gas on our planet. Gas is a fossil fuel and, as with every other fossil fuel, if you burn it you release CO2. Gas therefore contributes to global warming.
Obviously, I have no problem with a company selling gas. It will take us a while either to replace fossil fuels or find ways to sequestrate the carbon after we burn the fuel. My problem is that this advetrisment creates the impression that burning gas has no negative effect. I think that in fifty years from now this advertisement will apprear to our grand-children as ridiculous as the advertisements of fifty years ago extolling the health benefits of cigarettes.
I have lodged a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland.
One of the problems with renewable energy is the inflexibility of supply. This inflexibility is the very feature that requires EDM which is the topic of this blog. EDM can only go so far in balancing the supply and demand of electricity. Another technique is to builld supergrids that link broad geographical areas so that meteorological variations can be averaged.
In 2003 the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) was founded by the Club of Rome, the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation and the National Energy Research Center of Jordan (NERC). TREC in cooperation with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed the DESERTEC Concept of linking African, Middle East, and Northern European states electrical grids into one supergrid using high voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnects.
This is a fantastic idea. I recommend you visit http://www.desertec.org to learn more and to register your approval for the project in their ‘Give TREC Your Voice’ campaign.
My good friend, Aidan Lynch, asked an excellent question on my post about energy storage using pumped hydro. He asked, could you use surplus electrical energy from renewable sources to produce hydrogen and then use that as a fuel.
I am not a fan of Hydrogen as a fuel or as a way of energy storage. I am not well disposed to any fuel that burns the way Hydrogen does from a safety perspective. The efficiency of hydrogen production and consumption from power plant to wheel is around 22%. See the following report for an analysis.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E04.pdf
And, this involves a new infrastructure and a new car technology. Electric cars and plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) cars offer far greater efficiencies. If you want to use electricity to produce fuel, then use it to support biomass derived diesel.
Watch this movie to get a taste for why I feel that the diesel-hybrid car is the car of the future. The speaker shares my distaste for Hydrogen and even makes a case that Ethanol is not the direction to go.
So in the future I see us having small electric cars for short distances and hybrid diesel cars for medium and long distances. Both types of car will be charged using energy demand managed electricity. The diesel will be produced from cellulosic materials (not food) via synth gas using energy demand managed electricity as the heat source.
The author of the above report and the speaker in the presentation share this view of the future.
The Eirgrid Generation Adequacy Report 2008 to 2014 was published recently.
http://www.eirgrid.com/EirgridPortal/uploads/Publications/GAR%202008-2014.pdf
The report states that Ireland is facing a tight electricity supply situation:
“The most significant factor influencing this is the poor availability of the generation portfolio. Improved availability performance would greatly reduce the risk to security of supply. However if availability continues at the current low levels, then the system is facing immediate deficits.”
We are moving to less diversity of supply as all new generation capacity planned in the near future is either (Russian) gas or wind generated power.
The report recognises the benefits of moving demand to off-peak hours. “Shifting 1% of annual consumption from peak to off-peak hours would remove the requirement for approximately 135 MW.”
With regard to wind power generation (WPG) the report states. “There is also considerable investor interest in wind powered generation, however, due to its inherent characteristics, it offers limited generation adequacy benefits. Furthermore if WPG is installed at a linear rate of 270 MW per annum there would be just over 1,700 MW installed by the end of 2010. This should be sufficient to enable 18.0% of the electricity requirement to be provided from renewable sources and would mean that the Government’s target of 15% by 2010 is exceeded.”
The problem with wind energy is, of course, that it’s only available when the wind blows. That means that it has very little effect on supply adequacy.
Furthermore the contribution of WPG towards generation adequacy (i.e. Capacity Credit of WPG) has not keep pace with the growth in installed capacity or energy supplied. In fact, while installed WPG capacity has increased by 40% per annum over the last 5 years, in the same period the capacity credit (as a percentage of installed WPG capacity) has fallen from 35 to 24 %, see Figure 4-7. As outlined in Section 2.3(b), this is due to the inherent inability of WPG to behave as a number of fully independent power plants. All WPG in Ireland tends to act more or less in unison as wind speeds rise and fall across the country. The probability that all WPG will cease generation for a period of time (as a result of wind conditions) limits its ability to ensure continuity of supply and thus its benefit from a generation adequacy perspective.
EirGrid recognise the benefits of moving demand to off peak times. They do not acknowledge in the report that energy demand management (EDM) can improve WPG adequacy if the EDM is operated based on actual current wind energy production rather than on tine based tariffs. In particular the possibility of stimulating demand at times of excess wind energy could reduce or eliminate the need for wind farm curtailment.