Energy Efficiency Finding New Approaches
Author:
Richard Schlesinger
Location: New York
Date: 2013-08-29
Unquestionably, the power industry needs to cut emissions, modernize the grid and increase capacity as the economy recovers and demand grows. The public conversation inevitably turns to renewable sources, substituting gas for coal, smart grid innovations and the ever-green topic of a nuclear renaissance. Often lost in the discussion is the topic of efficiency. When the public thinks about energy efficiency, it generally thinks about improving home insulation and switching to more efficient appliances and lighting. Numerous government programs, mostly in the form of incentives, are designed to encourage taking those steps. Utilities generally participate to some extent, often through education programs and, in the case of central HVAC systems, incentives. Smart meters have also received considerable attention. Their deployment continues and is acceler¬ating in some areas. But the real payback awaits the broad availability of appliances that can communicate with the grid, and these are unlikely to be deployed in large numbers for years. Some programs using smart meters are in place that allow utilities to control central heating and cooling systems, cycling them or adjusting thermostats in exchange for pricing incen¬tives. However, they are not widely deployed, even in areas where smart meters are installed. They have sometimes met with customer resistance, mainly over privacy concerns. Most of the pilot programs to manage demand are on the residential side. Dealing with large-scale commercial or industrial customers can be challenging for a utility, which may not have the industry-specific knowledge to identify likely areas where efficiencies can be realized or the technical expertise to implement them. Increasingly, utilities are turning to outside firms that specialize in identifying and implementing energy efficiency in such industries. AEP Texas, for instance, is experimenting with a load management
program directed at agricultural customers, specifically targeting
large-scale agricul¬tural irrigation. A similar efficiency program targets small commer¬cial facilities, those with peak summer demand of less than 100 kilowatts, such as convenience stores and retail facilities. Open, as the program is known, works with outside specialists and contractors to identify areas such as lighting, insulation and refrigeration, that are good candidates for improving energy efficiency. Another program, SCORE/CitySmart, targets K-12 schools and city government electric distribution customers and provides the expertise to help them benchmark current usage, create an energy master plan, identify and evaluate opportunities for energy efficiency measures and monitor savings in usage. AEP Texas uses CLEAR Result Consulting to imple¬ment the program. The demand response approach to energy efficien¬cy generally
requires the active participation of end users, but distribution
companies have alternatives that don't depend on customer
participation. Control¬ling voltage levels and reactive power -
Volt-VAR - is fundamental to all electric transmission. EPRI is working on a broad spectrum of new tech¬nologies to
increase energy efficiency. Revis James, director of EPRI's
Generation R&D Sector, points to the broad spectrum of EPRI research
on increasing efficiency in every stage of the power process, from
generation to end-use distribution. At the end of the line, inte¬gration of distributed energy generation and storage will play a major role in increas¬ing overall energy efficiency. But this area, too, is in the basic-research phase. "There are two fundamental param-eters," James said. "One is how much energy you can store. The other, which is just as important, is how fast you can discharge the energy you've stored and then recharge it. There are numerous approaches: com¬pressing air, using hydro storage, and employing batteries. The home run would be a very efficient battery technology so you could develop scalable storage. But that's a material science and basic physics issue. And that's going to take some time." Time and money. The business case for energy efficiency is complex. It's easy to see the case for cutting generating costs. But when it comes to cutting demand or increasing transmission efficiency, the profit motive generally won't suffice. Utilities are driven to improve efficiency as much by regulatory demands for increased efficiency and the mandated move toward renewable sources as they are by the possibil¬ity of increasing profits or cutting the need to invest in increased capacity.
To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.riskcenter.com http://riskcenter.com/articles/story/view_story?story=99915775 |