Happy Earth Day.
There is a series of articles on electric grids in a recent Economist news magazine.
The cover says ‘Hug Pylons Not Trees’, recognizing that while it’s good to protect Earth’s resources, it’s not enough. There needs to be a wholesale change in the way we produce energy.
From the magazine:
At present, 62% of the energy delivered as electricity comes from fossil fuels. That has to come down to more or less zero. A lot of its replacement will be in the form of cheap wind and solar, and that presents a serious challenge to grid operators. It means a lot of new connections, which are troublesome. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that renewable installations typically generate less power than steam turbines do. That means more connections per unit of capacity.
As well as adding a great many new connections, grids will also have to change shape. The places best suited to the generation of renewable energy in very large amounts are often not the places where today’s generation is concentrated. So new transmission lines will be needed. And because grids are complicated things, some of these expansions will require compensating changes elsewhere as bits of the grid become congested.
