Power grid

“ If I'm having a debate about windpower, with my various -- the various members of my energy team, having somebody like Ken at the table -- who can say, here's our experience in Colorado; here's what we're seeing; here's how we can drive down unit costs; here's what we'd do to set up an electricity grid that will be able to get the power from wind farms to population centers that use it -- that's going to be extraordinarily important. ”

“ SELF-HEALING GRID- The term `self-healing grid' means a grid that is capable of automatically anticipating and responding to power system disturbances (including the isolation of failed sections and components) , while optimizing the performance and service of the grid to customers. (8) SPINNING RESERVE SERVICES- The term `spinning reserve services' means a quantity of electric generating capacity in excess of the quantity needed to meet peak electric demand. ”

“ After what happened in Texas, can anybody really doubt that electricity and the electric grid is part of the foundation of who we are as a nation? And we need to invest in it if we want to make sure power keeps coming to our homes. ”

“ Power development and transmission are also being accelerated. Feasibility studies are being made for the construction of a power transmission grid throughout Mindanao together with the gradual increase in power generation at the Maria Cristina Plant. ”

“ All this modernization of our electricity grid is contained in the electricity title in the energy bill I submitted to the United States Congress.
To power our growing economy, we also need to generate more electricity. Electricity comes from three principal sources — coal and natural gas and nuclear power. To ensure that electricity is affordable and reliable, America must improve our use of all three. Coal is our nation's most abundant energy resource, and it provides about half of your electricity here in Virginia. ”

“ With the set operating continuously, power drainage is small, but begin changing your signal beam and the power has to break down the grid resistance several hundred times for every short signal sent. ”

“ Since a global data set for electricity lines was not readily available, we have estimated a ‘distance from infrastructure’ as a marker for electricity grids based on the approach described in the following. Each grid cell was either classed as ‘with infrastructure’ or ‘without infrastructure’, based on land cover, population density and railways as detailed below. For each grid cell without infrastructure we then calculated the distance to the nearest grid cell with infrastructure and then grouped grid cells into distance classes based on the results. ”

“ In the case of persons or entities other than electric utilities owning and operating a distributed electricity generator, the documented expenditures of enabling that generator to be monitored, controlled, or otherwise integrated into grid operations and electricity flows on the grid utilizing Smart Grid functions. ”

“ Statement of Policy on Modernization of Electricity Grid. It is the policy of the United States to support the modernization of the Nation's electricity transmission and distribution system to maintain a reliable and secure electricity infrastructure that can meet future demand growth and to achieve each of the following, which together characterize a Smart Grid: (1) Increased use of digital information and controls technology to improve reliability, security, and efficiency of the electric grid. ”

“ It follows at once from this fact that there must be cogent reasons, apart from the matter of first cost, if the general substitution of steel towers for wooden poles on transmission lines is to be justified on economic grounds. During fifteen years the electric transmission of energy from distant water-powers to important centres of population has grown from the most humble beginnings to the delivery of hundreds of thousands of horse-power in the service of millions of people, and the lines for this work are supported, with very few exceptions, on wooden poles. ”

“ Motor-driven Sewing Machine
However, the convenience and cleanliness of electricity are fairly well known and appreciated, but the means by which electric currents may be generated economically, and by which this form of energy may be applied to bring about sufficient returns, financial and otherwise, to warrant the installation of an isolated plant for a farm or country home, are not so generally understood.
Electric current may be generated by means of a dynamo, or generator, with any kind of a power-producing plant. ”

“ In order to bring significant amounts of renewable energy online, we need to invest in tens of thousands of miles of new, high voltage national transmission lines. With more than $11 billion for investments in a new smart grid, the ARRA will jumpstart the modernization of electric grid. ”

“ The final, practical questions as to conductors in electrical transmission relate to their cost per kilowatt of maximum working capacity, and per kilowatt hour of delivered energy. If the cost of conductors per kilowatt of generator capacity is greater than that of all the remaining equipment, it is doubtful whether the transmission will pay. If fixed charges on the conductors more than offset the difference in the cost of energy per kilowatt hour at the points of development and delivery, it is certain that the generating plant should be located where the power is wanted. ”

“ It has been found that some electric stations, working twenty-four hours daily on mixed loads of lamps and stationary motors, can deliver energy to an amount represented by the necessary maximum capacity during about 3,000 hours per year. Applying this rule to the present case, the transformers at the sub-station, if loaded to their maximum capacity of 10,000 horse-power by the heaviest demands of consumers, may be expected to deliver energy to the amount of 3,000 × 10,000 = 30,000,000 horse-power hours yearly. ”

“ But as the history of energy in the United States has shown, these trends don't stay in one direction very long. And America still has an aging infrastructure in terms of the electric grid. It still has an aging infrastructure in terms of the ability to get natural gas from one part of the country to the next. ”

“ Abstract Nearly all long-term energy projections rely heavily on renewable energy sources on the assumption of abundance. Yet, already today, wind and solar projects can encounter local objections and competition with other uses. This paper presents the ranges of realistic potential supply for solar and wind electricity, using a 1 km 2 grid level analysis covering the whole world at country level. In addition, the potential for building-based solar electricity is assessed. ”

“ The electric generator, the dynamo, is explained in detail; and there are chapters on electric transmission and house-wiring, by which the farm mechanic is enabled to install his own plant without the aid and expense of an expert.
With modern appliances, within the means of the average farmer, the generation of electricity, with its unique conveniences, becomes automatic, provided some dependable source of power is to be had—such as a water wheel, gasoline (or other form of internal combustion) engine, or the ordinary windmill. ”

“ We not only take into account technological development but also attempt to address implementation constraints such as grid connection, competition with other uses or possible local opposition. Most significantly we try to quantify real availability of these surfaces, beyond simple technical or geographic limitations, using an availability factor. ”

“ The grid that powers the tools of modern life -- computers, appliances, even BlackBerrys -- looks largely the same as it did half a century ago. Just these first steps towards modernizing the way we distribute electricity could reduce consumption by 2 to 4 percent. ”

“ There are a great number of magnificent water power sites, within very easy access of the surveyed route of the railway, all of which can be easily developed to furnish almost unlimited electrical energy. Hydro-electric energy could be developed at any one of these sites within a distance of thirty miles from the road, which would make transmission to points along it, or possibly operation of it actually, by electricity. It certainly assures cheap power for any manufacturing or milling centre which may develop. All these power locations must inevitably become very valuable. ”

“ Even a small water-driven electric station that can be operated by a single attendant at any one time must have two attendants if it is to deliver energy during the greater part or all of every twenty-four hours. But a single attendant can care for a water-power plant of 2,000 horse-power or more capacity, so that two plants of 750 horse-power each will require double the operating force of one plant of 1,500 horse-power. ”

“ By means of electricity the work, not only of factories, but also of the home and the farm may be done in any place where electricity can be installed. We must bear in mind that electricity is never a source of power, but is only the agent that carries power to the user. The source of all electric power is either steam or water, produced by water-wheels, turbines, steam-engines or gas-engines. The economical way to furnish electric power is to establish central power plants, and electricity may be conveyed from them for many miles. ”

“ Remember, in estimating the size of your plant for light, heat, and power, that it does not have to be big enough to use all the devices at one time. Also remember, that two water horsepower to one electrical horsepower is a very liberal allowance; and that a generator working under one-half or two-thirds capacity at normal loads will require less attention than a machine constantly being worked above its capacity. Therefore, let your generator be of liberal size, because the difference in cost between a 5 and 10 kilowatt machine is not in proportion to their capacity. ”

“ When assessing long-term potentials across larger areas, however, the distance from existing electricity lines may be important, depending on the share of the cost of connection in the overall cost for the installation. To get a first impression of the distribution of our calculated potentials across differing distances from existing electricity grids we have tried to assess the distance of each grid cell from an electricity grid that connects to a significant demand for electricity. ”

“ If the discharge of a stream during each twenty-four hours is just sufficient to develop the electrical energy required in a supply system during that time, the water may be made to do all of the electrical work in one of two ways. If the water-power has enough storage capacity behind it to hold the excess of water during some hours of the day, then it is only necessary to install enough water-wheels and electric generators to carry the maximum load. ”

“ All through that town the lighting and cooking in even the humblest homes is by electricity. The few small factories use no coal or steam-power. In the mountain region over one hundred cities, towns, and rural communities have electric wires in their houses. All are lighted by them and very many have thrown out coal ranges and cook by electricity.
The region is one of mines everywhere, some of them the largest in the world; and nearly all of them have discarded their gigantic steam-, hoisting-, and pumping-engines for electric motors. ”

“ Agencies shall use off-grid generation systems, including solar hot water, solar electric, solar outdoor lighting, small wind turbines, fuel cells, and other off-grid alternatives, where such systems are life-cycle cost-effective and offer benefits including energy efficiency, pollution prevention, source energy reductions, avoided infrastructure costs, or expedited service. ”

“ There are many small electric lighting plants which furnish current from sundown to midnight only at fifteen cents per kilowatt hour, with little profit. The transformer (Fig. 127) makes it possible to gather all this generation of electricity for sparsely settled districts into large central stations, located sometimes far away from the consumer perhaps, where there is abundant power in some water-fall, thus saving the expense of coal for running the dynamos. ”

“ In the aggregate these are used in collecting water from mountain streams, in conducting it for considerable distances to power house where the force arising from its descent through the pipe lines is transmuted into electric energy, and in transmitting that energy to places beyond the reservations, where it is sold to whoever has occasion to use it for power, lighting, or heating. In each case some part of the works is on private lands, but much the greater part is on lands of the United States. ”

“ Owing to the relatively small load factor (say 8 or 10%) of a station giving electric supply for lighting only, the object of every station engineer is to cultivate a demand for electric current for power during the day-time by encouraging the use of electric motors for lifts and other purposes, but above all to create a demand for traction purposes. Hence most urban stations now supply current not only for electric lighting but for running the town tramway system, and this traction load being chiefly a daylight load serves to keep the plant employed and remunerative. ”

“ An objection to operation with a single circuit in a transmission line that supplies widely separated sub-stations with lighting, power, and railway loads is the consequent difficulty of pressure regulation on the distribution lines at each sub-station. Such a transmission line necessarily delivers energy at different and fluctuating voltages at the several sub-stations, and these fluctuations are of course reproduced on the secondary side of the step-down transformers. ”

“ Thus they will shortly be in complete control of the hydro-electric and superpower field in America and controlling the power they will control every phase of modern civilization. For electricity is the power of the future. For the home, for industry, transportation, mining and for agriculture—electricity from now on is the one absolute essential. He who controls the power controls all.
Hence the commanding need for public ownership in this larger field. ”