This, the fourth and final installment of our four part article series on the report on the Smart Grid put out by the U.S. Department of Energy, titled “The Smart Grid: An Introduction”, covers the DOE reports section that deals with how the various constituencies are working to realign themselves so that they participate in and are positioned to thrive in the emerging Smart Grid future that is beginning to be built out. It summarizes the five fundamental technologies that will drive the Smart Grid. It illustrates concrete examples of current Smart Grid projects ranging from West Virginia to California to Hawaii, that illustrate how a smarter grid is already taking shape. Finally it asks: What’s Your Stake in All This?
This, is the third installment of our four part article series on the report on the Smart Grid put out by the U.S. Department of Energy. The report is titled “The Smart Grid: An Introduction”. The current installment covers the DOE report’s section that defines what is meant by Smart Grid; what it is and conversely what it is not. It covers the various critical aspects that working together will form the Smart Grid. It continues with a summary of the DOE Smart Grid report’s “Compare and Contrast: A Grid Where Everything Is Possible” section that outlines the many benefits of creating a smarter grid.
This is the second installment of our four part article series on the excellent report on the Smart Grid put out by the U.S. Department of Energy that delves into this complex subject matter in considerable detail. The report is titled “The Smart Grid: An Introduction” and is dedicated to the education of all interested members of the public to the nature, challenges and opportunities surrounding the Smart Grid and its implementation.
This installment of our article series covers the DOE reports section that deals with where our current electric grid currently stands and what are the risks that it faces.
The U.S. Department of Energy has produced an excellent report on the Smart Grid that delves into this complex subject matter in considerable detail. The report is titled “The Smart Grid: An Introduction” and is dedicated to the education of all interested members of the public to the nature, challenges and opportunities surrounding the Smart Grid and its implementation. Building out the Smart Grid is a colossal task comparable in scope to the construction of the interstate highway network or the construction of the Internet. It is daunting, but it is a task that can no longer be postponed; one that simply must be done; as well as something we need to do as a nation for reasons of national security, to lay a foundation for our continuing prosperity and to preserve our nations global influence.
Quite a bit is happening in the smart grid sector. In this post I quickly look at the breaking announcement by Vice President Joe Biden of more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funding for grants to drive the rollout of a nationwide electrical smart grid.
I continue to follow the hacking of the grid story and try to give some various perspectives on this issue and what is being done about it.
Finally I post on how the growing adoption of renewable energy like solar and wind will require the grid to evolve into a much smarter, robust system and to incorporate systems for storing transient excess energy.
Offshore Wind Gets Major Boost with announcement by President Obama that the Department of the Interior has finalized a long-awaited framework for renewable energy production on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Wind energy continues rapid growth according to new report from the American Wind Energy Association. The US has surpassed 25 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind energy capacity in 2008. Construction of a new wind farm has begun in Texas. Seatle firm proposes floating offshore wind farms.
The wind energy industry will brings badly needed jobs to Detroit. Local green jobs are rising as San Francisco solar and energy efficiency incentive programs expand. Terra Community College in Ohio will be offering a new wind power certificate. A new study shows that investment in solar generating facilities could bring thousand of jobs to Nevada. Green initiatives bring new jobs to Brooklyn Navy Yard. Planned ‘Solar City’ in Florida will bring 20,000 jobs to the region.
The clean tech green energy sector is hurting badly – along with the rest of our economy. A lot of promising new firms are on life support finding it very difficult to raise desperately needed venture capital. We need to be laying the foundations for future growth now and there is no time to waste, I would argue that this is a paramount issue of national security, that it is not just about jobs or being “green”, but that it is an urgently vital necessity for our country’s future security. This is not an optional choice; it is not a luxury, a nice to have kind of thing; this is the very life blood of our country, of our industrial society. An industrial society needs energy and lots of it. America needs to urgently begin a national crash program of investing in domestically controlled renewable energy supplies, such as wind and solar right now while we still have a little breathing room to begin laying the foundations for a new American energy economy. It is a matter of national security.
In 2008 the US experienced an explosive rate of growth in installed wind power capacity. Last year the US added an additional 8,358 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity (enough to serve over 2 million homes) surpassing Germany as the world’s largest producer of wind energy.
