13.+The+Super+Grid

toc =Chapter 13= The Super Grid

What is a super grid? A ** super grid ** is a wide area transmission  network    that makes it possible to trade high volumes of electricity across great distances. It is sometimes also referred to as a "mega grid". It like a connection of internet were everyone shares files and stuff around the world but this is with electricity.

In our world right now we use many technological machines. For them we have to use **electricity**. At the beginning when humans created electricity and ways to store it, all was fine. The grid was perfect for the time and the storage units were good. Now we have more and more technological advance machine that need more electricity. Our grid is outdated but we have everything to build a better upgrade. The only thing stopping us is the government.



There are four things to make an efficient gird or a “Super Grid”:


 * More efficient higher-voltage long distance transmission lines, which can be connected to any source of power (A.K.A. wind or solar)
 * A “Smart” distribution network connected by the Internet to smart meters at element of transmission and distribution grid.
 * Efficient electric-energy storage units placed throughout the transmission and distribution networks.
 * Distributed intelligence with robust, information-rich, two-way communication throughout the gird

How it would work:
 * People will pay the amount of electricity and use it however they want.
 * Cars would be charge like huge batteries so that fuel will be gone.
 * Every house and building will have a roof solar panel for use when wind power is gone
 * If both powers are gone then giants batteries will power up the city. It will also store energy with more efficiency
 * Internet will control the system so that its more efficient, we get real time feedback and it can self repair itself when the problems appear
 * Smart meters will be plugged in each building to determent how much electricity is needed and store the amount that is left.

**__The benefits of grid Modernization__**
The cost of our now outdated grid is growing pretty rapidly and it’s really inefficient. In 2007 the annual cost of the outdated grid will be $206 billion per year. This has to change, we have to put the super grid now and these are the benefits:


 * Modern, highly efficient long-distance transmission lines must be put in place in order to unleash the potential of these CO2 –free sources of energy. This will cut down the use of fuels and more than millions of metric tons of CO2 would stop to be sending out to the air each year.
 * We will reduce peak-load losses by more than 10 gigawatts (enough to power 2.5 millions of houses)
 * The gird will use more power of the renewable energy efficient resources like wind and it will be smart enough that it could repair itself. We now pay lots of dollar to repair the damages that our old grid get so if we install this new one we would loss less money.

Europe is proposing to join with North Africa and countries near Iraq and Iran to create an efficient renewable grid were all these countries will get electricity in different ways and share it between each other. Iran will use solar thermal panel while Spain will use wind and hydroelectric units to create electricity.

**__Dealing with peak Demands/ Storing Electricity__**
Storage units will have to be place so that when these renewable powers are gone (like the sun) storage units will have to power up the cities. Right now we are using **pumped hydro** and **Compressed air** to store electricity. The thing is that electricity never wants to stay put, it __constantly want to be in motion__. This creates a big problem, were now we are using ways that work well but are neither nimble nor smart. Right now many countries and companies are in a race to see who get to create the new efficient battery storage unit. Right now, Japan is in the lead with a sodium-sulfur battery that had high energy and power density and high efficiency.

__**Hybrid Electric Vehicles**__


Another challenge is creating new better and efficient power for cars. Electric cars would be safe to drive, use and healthy for the environment. The problem is that we haven’t found the perfect battery for it yet. Many companies are finding more info on what is the best way to store the electricity and they are thinking that lithium-ion batteries could be the key.

__**Community Energy Storage**__
In America they are creating lithium-ion batteries for storage in community energy storage for each five houses. The advantage is few power outages, greater system reliability and the installation of a storage infrastructure. This will create a Neighborhood were everyone will share their electricity in a efficient way were no power is unused. This will also help everyone when we have renewable souces of energy so everyone will have a solar panel and if one house has it broken then they can still have electricity. This will help bring a community together and to create a kind of sharing electricity device.

__**Micro-Power**__


They also have created many ways for us the people store and create our own electricity by panels or windmill. We are planning to see if we can open like a sharing system that would seem like the internet. The super grid will create the kinds of markets for electricity generations, distribution, and storage that the internet created for small devices that process, transmit, and store information.

__**New regulations**__
They are thinking also to open up and make not only one company’s electricity but many. This will allow the costumer choose which the electric company you want is and how you want to use this amount of electricity. This may cost a problem because some of them may have more expensive prices but creating multiple companies will balance the price were they have the right price.

**__Making a Unified National smart Grid a Reality__**
There are other ways to create a more efficient smart grid instead of the one we have now. Some of these are:
 * Explicitly break the link between electricity sales and utility profits through what is called “decoupling.
 * Offer performance-based rate-making incentives linked to smear grid investments, renewable generation interconnection, additions of energy storage, and distributed generation.
 * Eliminate the up-front capital risks for utilities desiring to invest in transmission, end-use efficiency, distributed generation, and on-site storage by guaranteeing the recovery of cost for these investments.
 * Mandate that a certain percentage of utilities’ resource portfolios be dedicated to efficiency improvements and demand response options.
 * Deny full-cost recovery for investments in facilities that do not include smart features.
 * Develop national interconnection standards and unifying protocols to help eliminate distortions in the way electricity-generating capacity is now developed, and facilitate distribution generation.
 * Enact new laws and regulation allowing the rational and most efficient allocation of the costs and benefits of the new super grid among all commercial entities involved and society as a whole.

Still these methods even if they are more efficient the partial deregulation of utilities was complicated and frustrated by the continuing political power of the utilities in their dealing with state regulators. The electric utilities continue to play a crucial role, and even advocates of micro-power usually acknowledge the need to make this transition in a way that protects the overall energy economy from the consequences of large-scale utility bankruptcies and the burdens of enormous stranded costs.

Nevertheless, most experts agree that it is now only a matter of time before the electricity grid is completely redesigned to fully integrate widely distributed generation and storage in a unified smart grid that is far more efficient, far less costly, and far more environmentally responsible than today’s grid.

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