The 24th Edge Debate: 25th April 2005

Energy Step change the view from the future

Positions

Walt's argument is with fundamental concepts. A much more radical rethink of the nature of our energy use and the infrastructure necessary to support it is required.

Matthew's argument is that we need to value technical innovations (like the ones Joe and David will describe) in a completely different way. This is possible by establishing simple ways of looking at the energy system objectively from the customer perspective and by thinking from the kind of future Walt describes. By creating market institutions that value innovations properly, there is potential to release significant market forces, and deliver radical change very fast.

Joe's position is that appliances can play a part in distributed control and provide an autonomous self- stabilising mechanism to the grid thereby allowing greater use of intermittent renewables.

David's position is to show how fridges can cause the grid frequency to become a useful control signal to all players on the grid and how we can use this signal to control a new type of substation, which probably uses DC. Such substations can prevent cascades of power failure, so avoid big blackout, and distribute control decisions throughout the network. Finally, that it may be useful to have small substations of this sort in the house. And, of course, the final question: What voltage should the DC be-hence the title of the debate 42?

Issues Raised

How to cope with consumers?

Cannot rely on green consumerism.

Consumers have to drive this. Cannot rely on manufacturers. Also requires aggregation . need financial services involved. Intermediaries to put together the technologies.

Slightly worried about relying on the inefficiency of domestic appliances. Do you set the setpoint lower to allow for inefficiency, thereby not fully optimising it

Idea of intermittent generation. Traditional electricity is always operating a rate worse than the inefficient fridge - need massive headroom. - hot spinning reserve.

Folly condensing boilers - never changed the system characteristics. With this you can have a system where you do not need to change the equipment

Walt - what would you do first - government, regulatory or infrastructure
Start with journalists. How many commentators accept that there is a strong case for decentralising electricity. The technical community understands already.

Question of getting it right. Everything pointing in the right direction. How to incorporate electricity for rotational energy with energy to produce heat. Need some way to differentiate this - AC and DC grids? Heat process by-product of generation.

Has been a frustration that we do not talk about electricity as a process. There is being proposed a way of stabilising things, thermal inertia to stabilise the grid. What is electricity for, how much of demand ends up as heat and what is oil for?

We are treating supply and consumption that is mature and discrete. What happens if you can extend life by buying more electricity. It would be worth more than the price. We don't know how people are going to use electricity

1Kw/h is not equal to another. Cannot substitute one form of energy for another at will. You can't run car on coal. Technology part of the system. Presumption with electricity that price of Kw/H is the price of a Kw/H. Unless we can recognise the whole system and the role of electricity within it. Huge differences between different uses.

Electricity is transformable into different things. If we are going to live with ambient energy, we need to make our demand match the available generation. An inversion from where we have been. Electricity is storable by shifting the time of consumption (making it a thermal store, and so 100% efficiencies).. A lot depends on how often you are switching. If no cost on the switching, no loss. Likely the temperature will actually be more narrowly controlled. Doesn't look like there are any food safety issues. Why should a consumer have it? Do the sums on the life time of the fridge, it comes out at £42. National grid should pay to have the device fitted. - its capital value. How do get the consumers to move - you bribe them.

Electricity / oil is for what the consumer wants them to be. Have different value for time and use.

One of key things not in price of electricity is the cost of failure to supply. This can cost $m/hour. How much did NY shutdown cost.

Used to have DC grids. When suggest mini girds for towns, seen by old guard as going backwards in time.

Existing electricity market is for big boys of 3MW ??? threshold

Informated electricity supplies. Have a phone line that tells you the price. Who is going to tell you. Logical people are DNOs.

Frequency reinforcement only one aspect of grid reinforcement. Local voltages are going to go up and down - voltage boost locally. Down to intelligent local substations. Have a whole section of grid and control missing.

A lot of things happening on periphery Market undergoing changes, from classical physics to quantum mechanics. Cf Weimar Republic.

In DC days did not have intelligent chip.

What about developing world. Electronics now cheap.

Other than changing the market perception, does the message need improving. Need to communicate the potential market offering.

Not fully convinced. Number of counter arguments:
How many appliances are there in the home where you can postpone consumption?
Even accepting this, only able to postpone it for a certain periodl Comes the point when fridges will want to turn themselves back on. Only buying an hour

Subgrids at low DV voltage. De-optimising the system.

Why is this not happening? Energy efficiency is dull. Contrast cavity wall insulation with plasma tv. People switched on by some kinds of technology. Energy efficiency needs to be seen in these terms.

Numbers around frequency response. Market for primary response for £80m/year. for 1320MW - it gives you 6p/watt of held frequency. Means £15/year for a fridge. It about knocking £100 off the price of fridge.

Your fridge would be part of your mortgage.

What happens if people then use the saving to consume more electricity?

Not much of the energy use of the stock is ameniable ??? Condenser boilers cautionary tale - design and lack of training for installers.

Energy price and social relativity. For most businesses cost of energy is such that not worth investing the time. Cost not relevant for lifestyles For those for whom it is relevant they do not have the money to invest. Cost does not reflect long-term climate consequences. Therefore not possible to use market mechanisms when you have too large a polarisation between rich and poor in society.

As a consumer, responsible for running 5000 hotel rooms. As a householder, have been exposed to the key ideas. What does this tell me. Not by buying heat pump cheaper that we will persuade consumer. Project in US run by distributor who is having trouble to meet demand. Imitative targeted at large use appliances. Needs to be focused on large-use devices. How to apply to the hotel rooms. Not standardised or in same place.

Summary

AC / DC issues. Westinghouse won. AC used for electric chair. Issue of standards and the fragmentation of standards. Need agreement for standards of the appliances. CEGB- true that thinking from 1950s does not make it easy for new ideas to be adopted. Very reactionary. There are impacts on the network. Issue of voltage control is being actively considered. Information and communications - have been attempts in the past for meter reading. Not there yet. Cost of communications is too high. internet to the house not suited to real time communications. This is criticial. For fridges the device is autonomous. Figure of £00 is probably too optimistic.
Third world, possibility to leapfrog developed world technologies.

Energy costs for domestic example. Wide range. If you take common performance in distribution you get 1970s house without cavity wall. £200 /year. Take this over the lifetime of a mortgage. Being developed in the UK and in Germany.

Point about not being weighty enough in the market because only deal in 3MW units. Aggregate this. Company about to do this for building services. Not all about fridges they are just the most radical example. Range of options. Response is only short term. But has the potential to play over longer period. How is this to be rewarded on the market.. What is electricity for. Needs long-term planning. We would know what to do if we knew we needed a hydrogen economy in 30 years. The long term vision is the thing that we are missing.

Idea of surge of electricity after a football match is water pumps in sewage plants.

Not the unit price but the bill - for the service. With better service might need fewer units. New houses equipped with bragging rights, not for carbon footprint. The people we need to get involved are the advertising industry. We want to make sustainability fashionable.. Need to work out what people want. If they want it they will be able to afford it. All google references to fuel poverty is the UK. Just a UK problem. Quality of the housing stock. Most energy goes out of the roof.

Cost of failure. Idea of not putting standby generation in is not considered.

Smart bombs for knocking out electrical infrastructure. Incentives and the scale of the problems governments could face..