As reported elsewhere in this issue the New York Power Authority hopes to ward off California style problems this summer with a crash programme involving the installation of about 450 MWe worth of GE LM6000 gas turbine-generators (see pp 21-22). A graph in that article projects an imminent shortfall in generating capacity. Let us hope the NYPA has got to grips with the problem in time. As someone who plans to be in New York for a few days this summer I must declare a personal interest here.
Meanwhile, over on the west, the energy crisis that started in California has widened to ensnare all eleven of the states in the western grid*, with disruption spreading from Silicon Valley to pulp and paper producers and aluminium smelters in the Pacific Northwest, and the potential to expand further.
As suggested before in these pages, building a few more power plants would certainly be a step in the right direction. As a temporary measure, even rented plants will do – and it would certainly seem to be a very good time to be in the energy renting business. GE is one among several vendors enjoying a boom on the rentals side – perhaps providing some modest diversion from its blocked $45 billion merger with Honeywell. GE Energy Rentals is supplying no less than 22 trailer mounted gas turbine generator sets – rated at 22.8 MWe apiece – to temporary sites in Arizona, Utah and Washington state (see p3).
However, building new capacity is only part of the cure. The problems go a little deeper than that.
A white paper issued on 28 June by the utility-sponsored California-based Electric Power Research Institute gives a useful and considered analysis of the causes of the continuing energy problems confronting the USA’s western states and what to do about them (www.epri.com/WesternStatesPowerCrisisSynthesis.pdf). The white paper reflects insights from a workshop on the crisis held on 7-8 June, which boasted a very impressive array of utility participants. It cautions against oversimplification of the issues, noting that “as soaring electricity prices and the threat of blackouts spread beyond California to engulf the Western United States in an escalating power crisis, the unique nature and technical complexity of the underlying power system continues to be generally ignored.” To illustrate this the white paper quotes the Wall Street Journal:
“Keep in mind that the electric power industry is an old and fairly simple business….You build a building, install some turbines powered by water, steam or gas that make a big rotor spin and generate power. You then stretch some delivery lines. As demand increases, you install more generators.”
If only it was as easy as that. In fact, as the EPRI white paper points out, the vast North American power network has been called “the most complex machine ever built.” One problem is that, at least up to now, it has been difficult to store electricity in bulk so it must be produced and consumed at the same instant, requiring interconnected and synchronised networks with sophisticated controls. I say “up to now” because the burgeoning electricity energy storage community is promising great things, eg in the form of regenerative fuel cells and large compressed air installations.
But what is to be done now? The EPRI white paper says “the California crisis is only the most visible part of a larger and growing energy problem in the US, resulting from more than a decade of inadequate investment in power generation, transmission, distribution and customer demand-response programs.” It estimates the direct economic losses to the USA of power interruptions and inadequate power quality to be a staggering $100 billion per year – and it calls that a conservative estimate.
The white paper recommends a number of actions that should be taken immediately to reduce the impact of blackouts and lessen the likelihood of a widespread power outage in the summer of 2001 or 2002, eg improved emergency planning and expanded load management programmes.
In the mid term, 2002-2003, the white paper calls, among other things, for the repair of dysfunctional wholesale power markets, expansion of “the ability of real time customers to engage with the marketplace”, upgrade of existing plants to increase their generating capacity by 5 per cent or more (eg through retrofits and better maintenance and diagnostics), improvement of existing transmission capability to achieve higher throughput, and expansion in the use of smaller, modular forms of distributed generation.
In the longer term the white paper wants to see nothing less than a transformation of the electricity infrastructure, with a “fully functioning competitive marketplace”, but also greater fuel diversity, reduced dependence on gas, and accelerated R&D on “advanced nuclear, renewables and coal-based sytems.”
European observers of the Californian crisis have categorically stated that it couldn’t happen here – and certainly reserve margins are generally much higher. But complacency is a dangerous vice and the EPRI white paper should be on everyone’s reading list.
Not the end of the line in Germany
Who says the concept of power line telecommunications is dead? Certainly not the lucky residents of Mulheim and Essen in Germany. They are enjoying the benefits of RWE’s persistence in plugging away at this technology, despite difficulties that have led to the demise of some of the other players in the field.
As from 1 July RWE’s PowerNet has been commercially available in these towns. Using Swiss technology, RWE PowerNet offers high speed internet access through the domestic power socket, and at 2 MB/s is said to be 30 times faster than an ISDN connection – allowing an MP3 file to be downloaded in 8.5 minutes and paving the way for the delights of what RWE calls “3D shopping”. Another advantage: RWE PowerNet is always on – you pay for the quantity of data transferred and don’t have to bother with that time consuming business of logging on and off.
There is just one small snag. The technology in its current form is unlikely to past muster with regulators in other European countries. It seems the German regulators are more tolerant of RF interference than elsewhere. This is one issue that has dogged the development of powerline communications and it must be addressed before the technology can take off in any significant way – at least outside Germany.
