Institute For The Future

Energy grid limitation on the growth of alternative energy

The New York Times recently had an article on how the U.S. electric grid is turning out to hinder the development of wind power:

 

When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.

 

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

 

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

 

The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads....

 

The basic problem is that many transmission lines, and the connections between them, are simply too small for the amount of power companies would like to squeeze through them. The difficulty is most acute for long-distance transmission, but shows up at times even over distances of a few hundred miles....

 

The power grid is balkanized, with about 200,000 miles of power lines divided among 500 owners. Big transmission upgrades often involve multiple companies, many state governments and numerous permits. Every addition to the grid provokes fights with property owners.

 

I've heard that some utilities also have trouble with buying power from consumers-- running the meter backward, as some like to call it-- because their grids aren't designed to take power from the edges (i.e. households): grids are designed around what you might call a broadcast model, not a peer-to-peer model.