The North American bulk electricity delivery system is not keeping pace with the escalating demands of competition, or with the exacting requirements of a rapidly expanding digital society. For example, over the past decade, electricity demand in the US has grown by roughly 30% while additional transmission capacity has only grown by 15%.
In the next decade, US demand is expected to grow by 20%, while planned transmission system growth is expected to be only 3.5%. If the bulk power delivery system cannot dependably supply the so-called “silicon power plants,” which raise the reliability level of bulk power to the digital level of reliability and quality, then it will be displaced as the primary energy supplier for the digital society.
The power delivery infrastructure is already a complex, interactive network. But if it is to keep pace with the digital revolution, it too must become much more interactive and complex. Today’s infrastructure, composed of relatively few large power plant nodes and limited real-time connectivity, must expand to provide greater precision and efficiency to meet the needs of the microchip networks it serves.
In terms of energy supply, the emerging infrastructure requires the incorporation of smaller stationary and mobile distributed power supply and storage nodes. For example, five truck-mounted diesel generators have just been approved for use in meeting peak demand in the San Francisco Bay area next summer. This will result in a more nearly seamless electricity/natural gas network infrastructure with power available at a myriad of locations. It is paradoxical that the very electricity industry that made others obsolete (e.g.. gas light and ice refrigeration) in the 20th century, is itself threatened by a new wave of disruptive technological change as we enter the 21st century.
In the digital economy there will also be a new level of customer involvement in energy markets. This new concept engages customers directly with Internet based information on energy availability, prices, and assets. The digital information economy enables all players in the market to be tied together through instantaneous and ubiquitous communication, forming a dynamic network, opening up the possibility for new and more creative relationships between buyers and sellers. A three-step, electricity infrastructure transformation is thus envisioned:
- The first order of business is to keep the lights on.
- The second is to use existing technology to upgrade the power delivery system to handle the new volume and patterns of traffic created by wholesale and retail electricity competition.
- The third is to begin the process of transformation of the entire power system so that all elements, from generation to end-use, form the equivalent of an integrated circuit, able to respond at the speed of light while retaining the necessary levels of power stability in all parts of the system.
The high-power electronics needed to complete this transformation are about 20 years behind micro-circuitry but are now becoming available (e.g., solid state transfer switches, FACTS, custom power, etc.). The research goals are to drive down the capital costs of these high-power electronics, to saturate the entire system with low-cost sensors and feedback loops, and to develop the wide-area management systems for continental-scale integration and control.
A similar, synergistic technology transformation opened up the telecommunications business. For example, microwave transmission enabled new companies to build long distance telephone networks. This was followed by digital switching that allowed telephone companies to offer new services, and to process the information needed to coordinate traffic from different service providers. Next, fiber optics enabled competitive local networks, while wireless enabled users to bypass traditional services. Most recently, the Internet offers all the conventional communications capabilities plus more, and it is leading to unlimited real-time connectivity and plunging transaction costs.
From the standpoint of technology, business and policy alike, the telecommunications transformation is stimulating a corresponding transformation in electricity service. Digitalization of all forms of communication is also driving convergence among the networked utility industries. Conversely, the emergence of full-fledged wholesale and retail power wheeling will require enormous amounts of data to be captured, processed, and made available to buyers and sellers of power, thus placing new demands on telecommunications.
Part I: Transformative ERA of Digital Society and Power Requirements I
Part II: Requirement of Electricity in Digital Society II
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