Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Certificate of Outback Training

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Smart Grid

What is a Smart Grid?

The main factors that concern us is the ability of the grid to accept renewable energy mostly via Solar PV and some Wind.   These sources are low cost and clean, but when the sun goes away, the incoming power goes away.  

So a method to make up that power supply is needed, because the demand will not change quickly.    At lower levels of renewable, it hardly matters, but when you get to say 30% renewable, it will matter quite a bit.     The utility generation rolling reserve has to be ready to quickly pick up the load, AND/OR energy storage devices need to be built into the system.

More on all this later, for now, I just found this Smart Grid write-up under "Governing" which is a good periodical:

http://www.box.com/s/3kldjayjcmq22uu68c3z

I haven't read  this yet, but a quick skim showed it to be better than 90% of the "Internet Fluff" which is out there related to renewable energy.    Seriously, it is that bad ---- 90% of what is on the net is either just plain opposite wrong, non-applicable, or just someone writing stuff who has no engineering or practical application experience.    Much of what is written is done by parties with a vested interest and they have some point to prove or some ax to grind. 

Considering that this is one of the major issues facing humanity right now, all the Fluff is curious at the least.