Smart Grid Library

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) recently initiated rule making for the state’s cap and trade regulation as part of AB 32, and it’s an important tactic towards reducing California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  The first step to reduce the state’s GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, and then an additional 80% reduction [...]

Our electrical grid is a magnificent machine, but it is an aging infrastructure that is expected to deliver more electricity to more consumers, creating capacity stresses to equipment.  Transmission lines are constructed to safely deliver high voltages of electricity from generation plants to substations for distribution to residential and C&I (commercial and industrial) consumers.  Like [...]

The NARUC (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners) Summer Committee Meetings last week revealed a few sobering projections about our future electrical supply.  First, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) anticipates that the cost of electricity will increase by 50% by 2030 even with use of all possible energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables.  [...]

Back in September 2009 I blogged about six rules that tell you when you have a Smart Grid.  The third rule is:  You know you have a Smart Grid when the transmission and distribution portions of the grid are optimized for distributed energy generation/storage.  This rule becomes reality when microgrids are ubiquitous.  The Smart Grid [...]