Optimization Michael Kanellos: December 16, 2010 AC or DC? Should We Switch Our Electric Current?
The world runs on AC. Most of the stuff you own runs on DC. Can we all speak the same language?
Direct current didn’t go away. It just went underground.
In 1893, George Westinghouse won the “war of currents” over Thomas Edison and the decision paved the way for electricity to conquer the globe. However, it also created a conflict that has been growing ever since.
Although AC remains the ruling standard transmission, most devices that consume electricity -- cars, planes, light rail systems, computers, consumer electronics, and pretty much anything with a battery -- actually run on DC.
“The old telephone system always worked,” said Brian Fortenberry, a program manager at the Electric Power Research Institute, citing another DC success story. “The reliability is exceptional.”
Solar panels and fuel cells, meanwhile, natively produce DC power.
To pave over the mismatch, electricity is converted from AC to DC and vice-versa, often several times, before it gets consumed. In data centers, AC power gets converted to DC by an uninterruptable power supply, which reconverts it to AC before sending it to the servers, which reconvert it to DC. Each conversion results in losses. The multiple conversions also boost the number of times power has to be stepped from a high to lower voltages.
In buildings, DC power from solar panels becomes AC in an inverter, and DC again when it gets to LED lights. The heat coming off your notebook brick? The waste product of an AC-DC conversion.
Thanks to advances in power electronics, tremendous amounts of power could be saved by curbing these conversions. Validus DC Systems has created a system that converts AC into DC at the data center door and then uses DC throughout the building, effectively turning the data center into a DC microgrid. General Electric, IBM and Sun have partnered with the company.
A recent Duke University test showed that DC data centers consume 15 percent less power. Others peg the potential savings at closer to 30 percent.
As an added bonus, making a data center a DC island reduces the number of necessary components: that boosts reliability, cuts costs and increases the number of computers that can fit in a room, according to James Coakley, CEO of Power Loft Services, which designs energy-efficient data centers.
“The greater number of devices between a power source and a computer, the greater number of opportunities for failure,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nextek Power Systems and conglomerates like Panasonic and Sharp are studying ways to bring DC to commercial buildings or homes so solar panels could directly power appliances or electric cars. A 380-volt DC charger can charge an electric car in 10 minutes, said Liang Downey, director of digital applications. A 220-volt AC charger needs five hours.
Even transcontinental DC is on the way: over 145 high voltage direct current (HVDC) projects are underway in China, Texas and elsewhere to bring DC straight from wind farms to urban DC microgrids.
Critics, though, note that power supplies have continued to become more efficient over time. Hybrid buildings also create potential headaches and confusion for tenants and homeowners. AC works everywhere, and that’s a big advantage.
But with policymakers and corporate customers seeking out any way possible to reduce power consumption, going back to the past has a lot of appeal.
2010年12月27日 星期一
Voltage Conservation, Cellular Big Issues for Grid in 2011
Infrastructure/AMI Michael Kanellos: December 20, 2010 Voltage Conservation, Cellular Big Issues for Grid in 2011
The IPO quiet period is over. We speak to Mark Munday, CEO of Elster Solutions.
One of the next big opportunities in smart grid will revolve around curing substation blindness.
Reducing voltages on transmission lines by 6 percent to 8 percent with the help of networking could result in power savings of 4 percent to 6 percent “all day long, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Mark Munday, CEO of Elster Solutions, the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) giant, in an interview.
Nationwide, voltage reductions like this could add up to gigawatt-hours of saved electricity. Voltage conservation technology and intelligent distribution equipment, additionally, could reduce transformer overload and highlight maintenance issues before they spill over into full-blown disasters. Utilities could even begin to switch to smaller, less expensive transformers. Lower capital budgets -- and lower bills -- could follow. Toronto Hydro has already installed voltage conservation equipment.
“You will see a lot more commercial products on the distribution side,” he said.
Like a number of smart grid ideas, voltage conservation is possible because of the gap between nineteenth-century grid functionality and twenty-first century communications. Technically, utilities do not precisely know how power gets consumed in homes or businesses.
“Utilities are blind from the substation down,” he said. “But a synchronous motor needs a certain amount of voltage or they stall and burn up.”
To get around the problem, utilities crank up voltage. Smart metering, however, can feed precise information back to the utility on current consumption patterns. Ideally, then, information will let utilities operate with a better, but also thinner, buffer.
Elster is in some ways the poster boy for the new-old nature of green technology. Elster Solutions, which Munday oversees, produces gas, power and water meters, among other equipment. It works with companies like AT&T and Tropos Networks to hammer out smart grid standards. In October, it held an initial public offering.
At the same time, it’s no startup. The conglomerate began as the American Meter Company in 1836.
What else is coming?
--Utilities will begin to gravitate toward putting some of their smart grid infrastructure on public celullar networks. To date, most utilities have elected to build their own networks rather than run meter or other communications on cellular or WiMax networks.
Many have attributed this trend to the fact that utilities in most states can shovel the cost of their own network into a rate increase. Munday, however, asserts this is sort of a myth. The big concerns have been reliability and disaster preparedness.
“They want to know what the bandwidth is. With their own network, they don’t have to worry about someone calling grandma to make sure she is all right,” he said. “Utilities have a strong need for prioritization after a disaster."
“The utility infrastructure is a critical infrastructure. You see what happens when there is a blackout,” he added.
The public carriers now realize this and have begun an effort to create technologies for hardened partitions of bandwidth. The more extensive bandwidth on 4G networks will help this effort; so will IVP6.
In the end, the industry will likely see a spectrum of hybrid networks. Individual meters might link to the grid to collectors via low-bandwidth wireless mesh. The collectors then might send signals via 4G to substations with communications then rolling onto fiber networks. With some remote communities, satellite communication might be employed.
“You will have to be able to deal with multiple technologies simultaneously.
--The lines between power delivery, demand response and building and home management will continue to blur as applications get layered onto these networks. Elster, in fact, moved into energy management with the purchase of EnergyICT.
--Standards? Yes, lots of them. Interoperability will be one the goals because utilities and their customers will want to maintain compatibility with equipment over the course of decades.
--Providing the bigger picture and wider benefits of smart grid technologies also stands as a looming task for Munday and other smart grid execs in 2011 and 2012. To some sectors of the public, “smart grids” are synonymous with rate hikes, potential security breaches and electromagnetic radiation.
The benefits often get lost. Smart meters, for instance, allow utilities to shut off power, or turn it back on, remotely instead of sending a truck. Remote account management has allowed Centerpoint in Texas to cut more than 220,000 truck rolls.
Does that benefit the utility? Yes, but it can also be customer benefit. A smart meter could detect when a consumer is $50 in arrears on their bill and send a text message to alert them of the problem, Munday said.
If an account drops $100 behind, utilities could then partially cut off an account: shutting off power between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to conserve but then letting a family have light in the evening. When the bill gets paid, power could be restored in minutes, he said.
It would beat being permanently plunged into darkness.
“All of this is about the consumer. If we don’t approach it that way, we are going to continue to see the problems that we’ve seen,” he said.
The IPO quiet period is over. We speak to Mark Munday, CEO of Elster Solutions.
One of the next big opportunities in smart grid will revolve around curing substation blindness.
Reducing voltages on transmission lines by 6 percent to 8 percent with the help of networking could result in power savings of 4 percent to 6 percent “all day long, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Mark Munday, CEO of Elster Solutions, the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) giant, in an interview.
Nationwide, voltage reductions like this could add up to gigawatt-hours of saved electricity. Voltage conservation technology and intelligent distribution equipment, additionally, could reduce transformer overload and highlight maintenance issues before they spill over into full-blown disasters. Utilities could even begin to switch to smaller, less expensive transformers. Lower capital budgets -- and lower bills -- could follow. Toronto Hydro has already installed voltage conservation equipment.
“You will see a lot more commercial products on the distribution side,” he said.
Like a number of smart grid ideas, voltage conservation is possible because of the gap between nineteenth-century grid functionality and twenty-first century communications. Technically, utilities do not precisely know how power gets consumed in homes or businesses.
“Utilities are blind from the substation down,” he said. “But a synchronous motor needs a certain amount of voltage or they stall and burn up.”
To get around the problem, utilities crank up voltage. Smart metering, however, can feed precise information back to the utility on current consumption patterns. Ideally, then, information will let utilities operate with a better, but also thinner, buffer.
Elster is in some ways the poster boy for the new-old nature of green technology. Elster Solutions, which Munday oversees, produces gas, power and water meters, among other equipment. It works with companies like AT&T and Tropos Networks to hammer out smart grid standards. In October, it held an initial public offering.
At the same time, it’s no startup. The conglomerate began as the American Meter Company in 1836.
What else is coming?
--Utilities will begin to gravitate toward putting some of their smart grid infrastructure on public celullar networks. To date, most utilities have elected to build their own networks rather than run meter or other communications on cellular or WiMax networks.
Many have attributed this trend to the fact that utilities in most states can shovel the cost of their own network into a rate increase. Munday, however, asserts this is sort of a myth. The big concerns have been reliability and disaster preparedness.
“They want to know what the bandwidth is. With their own network, they don’t have to worry about someone calling grandma to make sure she is all right,” he said. “Utilities have a strong need for prioritization after a disaster."
“The utility infrastructure is a critical infrastructure. You see what happens when there is a blackout,” he added.
The public carriers now realize this and have begun an effort to create technologies for hardened partitions of bandwidth. The more extensive bandwidth on 4G networks will help this effort; so will IVP6.
In the end, the industry will likely see a spectrum of hybrid networks. Individual meters might link to the grid to collectors via low-bandwidth wireless mesh. The collectors then might send signals via 4G to substations with communications then rolling onto fiber networks. With some remote communities, satellite communication might be employed.
“You will have to be able to deal with multiple technologies simultaneously.
--The lines between power delivery, demand response and building and home management will continue to blur as applications get layered onto these networks. Elster, in fact, moved into energy management with the purchase of EnergyICT.
--Standards? Yes, lots of them. Interoperability will be one the goals because utilities and their customers will want to maintain compatibility with equipment over the course of decades.
--Providing the bigger picture and wider benefits of smart grid technologies also stands as a looming task for Munday and other smart grid execs in 2011 and 2012. To some sectors of the public, “smart grids” are synonymous with rate hikes, potential security breaches and electromagnetic radiation.
The benefits often get lost. Smart meters, for instance, allow utilities to shut off power, or turn it back on, remotely instead of sending a truck. Remote account management has allowed Centerpoint in Texas to cut more than 220,000 truck rolls.
Does that benefit the utility? Yes, but it can also be customer benefit. A smart meter could detect when a consumer is $50 in arrears on their bill and send a text message to alert them of the problem, Munday said.
If an account drops $100 behind, utilities could then partially cut off an account: shutting off power between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to conserve but then letting a family have light in the evening. When the bill gets paid, power could be restored in minutes, he said.
It would beat being permanently plunged into darkness.
“All of this is about the consumer. If we don’t approach it that way, we are going to continue to see the problems that we’ve seen,” he said.
2010年12月14日 星期二
ABB Plunks $4.2 Billion Into Motors, GM Goes On Hiring Spree, and More
ABB is at it again.
The Swiss equipment giant today said it is buying Baldor Electric Company, one of the biggest manufacturers of electric motors out there for $4.2 billion. New efficiency regulations, among other factors, are expected to push the market for high efficiency motors up 10 percent to 15 percent in North America in 2011. Canada, the EU and other jurisdictions may follow with stringent regulations of their own.
Baldor is one of those large companies you've likely never heard of. It employs 7,000 and had an operating profit of $184 million on revenue of $1.29 billion in the first nine months of the year. Motors have also attracted startups like NovaTorque.
ABB, of course, is one of the four horsemen of the grid, with the three others being General Electric, Siemens and Schneider Electric. All four companies have long histories in the utility and industrial equipment market, and all have been showing marked and increasing interest in acquisitions and partnerships. Earlier this year, ABB inked a deal with General Motors to study how to recycle partially depleted lithium-ion battery packs for cars. It also put money into data center management specialist Power Assure.
Elsewhere:
--General Motors will hire 1,000 engineers in the Michigan area over two years to work on EV technologies. Low costs, strong government policies, lots of engineers and empty factory space for miles and miles give the state a number of advantages when it comes to becoming a green hub. VCs have been circling too.
--General Electric has created an internal group that will look at ways to weave together the lights, appliances and other products the company makes into a cohesive solution for consumers. Dave McCalpin will head up the Home Energy Management Group. No word on whether he also wields control over the television and microwave oven programming division.
--Dan Reicher, who spent the last four years speaking on behalf of Google on energy, will now do the same at a new $7 million interdisciplinary department at Stanford that straddles both the law and business schools. Earlier this year, Ed Lu left Google.
--Soitec and Sumitomo announced that they will collaborate on gallium nitride wafers for semiconductors. GaN is the basis of LEDs and lasers and can be used in power electronics.
--Finally, Liviu Mirica at Washington University in St. Louis has been conducting experiments on exploiting palladium (the element, not the two-drink-minimum dance hall) as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into fuel. Right now, converting carbon dioxide into a liquid ends up consuming more energy than it produces. The coal-to-liquids process deployed by the Third Reich -- thankfully -- was hobbled by the same problem.
Palladium reduces the energy required for successive hydrocarbon reactions. In the end, you could make a liquid fuel from methane with a relatively low carbon footprint with this process.
If it works, start passing out the Nobel prizes.
The Swiss equipment giant today said it is buying Baldor Electric Company, one of the biggest manufacturers of electric motors out there for $4.2 billion. New efficiency regulations, among other factors, are expected to push the market for high efficiency motors up 10 percent to 15 percent in North America in 2011. Canada, the EU and other jurisdictions may follow with stringent regulations of their own.
Baldor is one of those large companies you've likely never heard of. It employs 7,000 and had an operating profit of $184 million on revenue of $1.29 billion in the first nine months of the year. Motors have also attracted startups like NovaTorque.
ABB, of course, is one of the four horsemen of the grid, with the three others being General Electric, Siemens and Schneider Electric. All four companies have long histories in the utility and industrial equipment market, and all have been showing marked and increasing interest in acquisitions and partnerships. Earlier this year, ABB inked a deal with General Motors to study how to recycle partially depleted lithium-ion battery packs for cars. It also put money into data center management specialist Power Assure.
Elsewhere:
--General Motors will hire 1,000 engineers in the Michigan area over two years to work on EV technologies. Low costs, strong government policies, lots of engineers and empty factory space for miles and miles give the state a number of advantages when it comes to becoming a green hub. VCs have been circling too.
--General Electric has created an internal group that will look at ways to weave together the lights, appliances and other products the company makes into a cohesive solution for consumers. Dave McCalpin will head up the Home Energy Management Group. No word on whether he also wields control over the television and microwave oven programming division.
--Dan Reicher, who spent the last four years speaking on behalf of Google on energy, will now do the same at a new $7 million interdisciplinary department at Stanford that straddles both the law and business schools. Earlier this year, Ed Lu left Google.
--Soitec and Sumitomo announced that they will collaborate on gallium nitride wafers for semiconductors. GaN is the basis of LEDs and lasers and can be used in power electronics.
--Finally, Liviu Mirica at Washington University in St. Louis has been conducting experiments on exploiting palladium (the element, not the two-drink-minimum dance hall) as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into fuel. Right now, converting carbon dioxide into a liquid ends up consuming more energy than it produces. The coal-to-liquids process deployed by the Third Reich -- thankfully -- was hobbled by the same problem.
Palladium reduces the energy required for successive hydrocarbon reactions. In the end, you could make a liquid fuel from methane with a relatively low carbon footprint with this process.
If it works, start passing out the Nobel prizes.
訂閱：
文章 (Atom)
訂閱
發表文章
所有留言
