XYLENE POWER LTD.

ELECTRICITY INTRODUCTION

By Charles Rhodes, P. Eng., Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION:
This website section reviews practical aspects of distributed electricity generation, transmission, distribution and control.

ELECTRICITY:
Electricity is a form of energy that can be transmitted over long distances with minimal loss and then used to do work. Typical end to end (generator shaft to load shaft) efficiencies of commercial electricity systems exceed 80%.

Measurement of electrical energy provides a good measure of capacity to do work.

During the last century most electricity generation in Ontario has been done at large central plants. Electricity is transmitted to customers via high voltage transmission lines that feed local distribution networks.

After Ontario Hydro exhausted the large easily accessible hydro-electric resources in southern Ontario, it built large nuclear and coal fired thermal generation plants. The nuclear plants were expensive and the coal fired plants emit carbon dioxide and toxic products of combustion.

Excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now a threat to the continued existence of mankind. The toxic products of combustion of coal are also a major public health problem.

Ontario must now take its coal fired electricity generation plants out of service and must develop distributed electricity generation using non-fossil fuel technologies. There must be sufficient new non-fossil fuel electricity generation capacity to replace the coal fired plants, and to permit displacement of fossil fuels in the transportation and heating sectors. Distributed energy storage must be added behind electricity meters to level outputs from wind generators and to improve the utilization of the transmission/distribution system. Large reservoir pumped hydraulic energy storage and synthetic liquid fuel production are required to provide both daily and seasonal balancing of intermittant renewable electricity generation.

The electricity generation, storage, transmission and distribution infrastructure must be sufficient to allow rapid population growth in Ontario to accommodate people who are forced to migrate from other countries due to rising sea levels, agricultural failures and conflict resulting from global warming.

The change from an electricity transmission and distribution network based on central generation to a network containing much more distributed non-fossil fuel electricity generation requires changes to the metering methodology, electricity rates, fault isolation switchgear and system control. The output variability of individual wind, solar and hydraulic generators requires additional investment in electricity transmission and energy storage.

In order to financially enable behind the meter energy storage electricity rates must substantially reward parties that input or output electricity at a nearly constant rate. Such parties use transmission/distribution resources far more efficiently than do parties that are intermittent generators or intermittent loads.

In order to financially enable construction of required transmission/distribution, generators must pay for transmission/distribution costs at the same rate as load customers. Otherwise required transmission/distribution is not built when and where required. Unless the distributed generators directly pay for transmission/distribution the distributed generators lack direct influence over transmission/distribution planning and construction.

This web page last updated December 1, 2011.