Giving the grid power “controllability”
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Both in Canada and the United States there’s increasing talk of adding “smarts” to the grid and investing in infrastructure modernization and expansion. Google’s and GE’s plan to collaborate on smart grid development is just the latest example. After two decades or more of underinvestment this is a good thing, because if we truly want to tap the full potential of renewables and maximize conservation and demand-management we’ll need a grid that is flexible and has controllability.
Currently, power on the grid generally flows like water — through the path of least resistance. But power electronics do exist that can direct where we want the power to go. These devices are generally called FACTs, or Flexible AC Transmission devices. They are important, because they allow us to use the capacity in the grid more efficiently and make it easier to manage the intermittency of renewables and a grid where distributed generation is growing. (more…)
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
