| Developing the Smart Grid: from Breakdown to Breakthrough |
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bridges vol. 25, April 2010 / Feature Articles By Johannes Divjak mp3 download On the 4th of September in 1882, Thomas Edison turned on his Pearl Street power station in Lower Manhattan, New York, for the first time. It unveiled the possibilities of electricity by providing light and electric power to customers in an area of one square mile. The age of electricity had begun and a new era of power was brought to life. Some 120 years later, on August 14, 2003, New York City and an additional 40 million Americans experienced what it feels like when the electricity we all rely on suddenly shuts down. This 2003 blackout was one of the largest in US history, and it gave proof that the aging US power grid is in need of an update. According to the White House, power outages cost American consumers more than $150 billion a year. Originally the US electrical power grid was built to transfer a relatively small amount of electric power from monopolistic utilities to local customers by generating energy in large and centralized power plants. Today, there are more than 10,000 generation units (the vast majority of them over 30-years old) with more than 1,000,000 megawatts of generation capacity. These units are connected through more than 300,000 miles of transmission lines and cater to more than 300 million consumers in the US. And while the demand for electricity has increased by about 25 percent since 1990, construction of transmission facilities has decreased about 30 percent. Another reason for upgrading the electrical power grid now is the goal of the US Administration to generate 20 percent or more of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020. With nearly 40 percent of all energy sources used to produce electricity, those new renewable energy sources need to be integrated on a large-scale into the electric power grid. Access to the full article is free, but requires you to register. Registration is simple and quick – all we need is your name and a valid e-mail address. We appreciate your interest in bridges. |
