Sioshansi F.P. Smart Grid: Integrating Renewable, Distributed & Efficient Energy
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neighborliness, a strong sense of place,
and a relatively slow pace of life [9, p.
616].
While AC is evidently only one influence among many, and
some of these changes are clearly positive, Arsenault
convincingly argues that AC was a significant agent of such
changes. For example, the demise of a vernacular
architecture—open porches, high ceilings, breezeways, and so
on—that AC helped bring about not only facilitated the
replacement of front porch conversations by a retreat behind
closed doors and windows, but “also influenced the character
of southern family life” [9, p. 624] in more subtle and
fundamental ways. In tandem with other, sometimes linked,
developments, such as air-conditioned shopping malls and
TV, Arsenault concludes that “even if, on balance, residential
air conditioning strengthened the nuclear family, the impact
on wider kinship networks probably went in the opposite
direction” [9, p. 625]. That AC affected fundamental aspects
of southern culture more generally is underlined by how it
“modulated the daily and seasonal rhythms that were once an
inescapable part of southern living…assault[ing]…the South's
strong ‘sense of place’” [9, pp. 627–8].
Figure 2.2 shows how recent statistics bear out this trajectory.
From 1978 to 1997 centrally air-conditioned households
increased from 23% to 47% across the United States as a
whole while in the South 93% of households were
air-conditioned by 1997 [10]. Figure 2.3 highlights how this
broader influence of AC was not simply a function of its
availability but also of the degree of use, with AC use in the
South more than double that in the rest of the country.
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Figure 2.2
Type of air-conditioning equipment by census region, 1978, 1987, and 1997.
Figure 2.3
Frequency of air-conditioning usage by census region, 1997.
Table 2.1 shows how, across the three main residential
categories of U.S. electricity end use (AC, space heating, and
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water heating) AC demonstrated a small but notable increase
in share from 1987 to 2009, up from 15.8% to 17.9%, while
the share of both space heating and water heating declined
from 10.3% to 9.1% and from 11.4% to 9.1%, respectively
[11].
Table 2.1
Percent of U.S. Electricity Consumption by End Use
End Use 1987 1990 1993 1997 2001 2009
AC 15.8 15.9 13.9 11.8 16.0 17.9
Space Heating 10.3 10.0 12.4 11.4 10.1 9.1
Water Heating 11.4 11.2 10.3 11.0 9.1 9.3
Total Appliances 62.5 63.0 63.4 65.9 64.7 63.7
Source: EIA –http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/
enduse2001.html; http://www.eia.doe.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=96&t=3.
Similar patterns are now evident across the globe. In the
authors’ home state of New South Wales, for example, 50%
of households were air conditioned by October 2006 [12],
while the rapid growth of AC in Western Sydney, particularly
the use of split mini-systems, is putting a considerable strain
on local electricity substations [13, p. 5].
In a highly stylized article Prins [14] indicted Americans as
“condis” addicted to “coolth.” “Condis”
abhor the heat and the wet. They inhabit
civilization: Their natural habitat is the
civis…They fear and detest the things that
live in the Wild Woods. They insulate
themselves from the Wild. In summer,
they take Coolth with them to do this, to
tame it. They seek predictability. They
hate the spontaneous. Their lives
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celebrate the linear and overthrow of the
cyclical. Day is as Night and Night is as
Day to them. Time is Digital [14, p. 252].
While Prins's article has been subject to considerable
criticism
5
it's notable that others reinforce the charge that
AC-related practices and behaviors meet standard definitions
of addiction [15, pp. 183–85]. Prins ultimately argues that
“fracturing the right to Coolth…[requires] the need to
reconstruct America's contemporary cultural norms” [14, p.
258]. Interestingly many of Prins's critics charge that he
overlooks key structural issues, such as how AC emerged in
parallel with networked electricity supply. This underscores
how “condis” addicted to “coolth” are not only the result of
the psychological makeup of consumers but also the systemic
imperatives embedded in networked electricity supply
systems. Today, the emergent opportunities presented by DG
and smart grids put such historical imperatives under a
particularly interesting spotlight.
5
Prins's [14] highly stylistic piece was published in a special volume of
the journal Energy and Buildings on the social and cultural aspects of
cooling and was contested by a number of invited commentaries (the
commentaries and Prins's rejoinder can be found in volume 18, 1992, of
Energy and Buildings: 259–268).
The Lessons of History
As electricity grids grew rapidly in the early decades of the
twentieth century it became clear that optimal use of the
thermal generating plant then dominating supply provision
required significant additional loads, beyond those of
industry. As a result a number of energy service options were
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developed reflecting, primarily, corporate, institutional, and
other professional preferences rather than those of consumers.
These were then aggressively marketed by those set to profit
from them. This provision and structuring of both energy
service options and of the means by which they might be
obtained were not therefore the result of unconstrained
consumer choice, as economic perspectives still tend to
assume, but rather gave the consumers exercising that choice
an ever-broadening range of services to choose from. The
current dominant suite of energy services and the means by
which they are delivered are thus as much a result of the
decisions and actions of utility managers, engineers, and
regulators as they are the result of the decisions and actions of
consumers. To characterize contemporary decisions regarding
these services as simply a straightforward matter of consumer
choice, with “choice” narrowly conceived as little more than
the responses of end-users to their own perceived needs,
electricity prices, and information is, therefore, misleading
and does not square with the empirical evidence. Some of the
most telling relevant contemporary examples are some of the
best known, such as the cheap off-peak, and highly inefficient
heat and hot water storage systems embedded throughout
centralized grid systems today. In other words the evidence
suggests that our current energy-intensive lifestyles are as
much about the systemic framing and conditioning of the
choices available to consumers as they are about the exercise
of individual consumer choice. Consequently, addressing this
systemic framing and conditioning of the choices available to
consumers requires that those currently responsible for
overseeing and delivering current energy provision reinstate a
substantive decision-making role for end-users.
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Pressures for Change: Rising Demand, Energy
Security, and Climate Change
It is interesting to note that one of the stated objectives of the
electricity industry restructuring undertaken in numerous
countries over the last two decades was to facilitate customer
choice [16]. However, restructuring centering upon the
development of competitive electricity markets, and the
associated corporatization, or privatization, of previously
government-owned or regulated private monopoly industry
participants, has had mixed results in this regard. While
nominally focused upon improved efficiency, innovation, and
consumer choice there have been some highly counterfactual
outcomes such as the collapse of the Californian system, and
the experience of the energy user has not yet been markedly
changed in many cases (see, for example, [17]).
Now, however, current industry arrangements are under a
growing range of pressures that hinge critically, on the nature
and scale of desired energy services. They include growing
energy demand and particularly peak demand, rising energy
security concerns centering upon energy resource depletion
and the increasingly concentrated distribution of what
remains, and the threat of dangerous climate change.
Growing Demand
As documented in the previous section, growing demand has
been the normal state for the electricity industry since its
inception. While conventionally conceived as being driven by
aggregate growth in population and wealth, it was rather the
systemic intersection of this growth with the entrepreneurial
exploitation of emerging technological possibilities that has
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been pivotal to growth in electricity demand. This remains the
case today; consumer electronics, for example, is a sector
particularly dynamic in proliferating new and/or augmented
energy services (e.g., flat screen TVs; gaming consoles with
enhanced functionality such as control via bodily movement;
ever greater integration and augmentation of the features of
hand-held digital devices, etc.), which is illustrated in Table
2.1 in terms of an ongoing growth in appliance penetration.
As a result end-users continue to find, and are indeed
encouraged to adopt, new energy services. Some of these,
such as air-conditioned homes and offices, require appliances
and equipment with high energy and, particularly, peak power
demands, and while there has been, and continues to be,
energy efficiency improvements, peak demand has been less
affected by these improvements. This steady growth in
electricity demand, relative to other domestic energy sources,
is shown in Figure 2.4.
Figure 2.4
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Percent of total U.S. residential site energy consumption by energy source.
The economics of end-user equipment has also changed with
respect to supply. For example, electric kettles can cost as
little as $10 while drawing 2 KW, and portable air
conditioners can now be purchased at a cost of around $300
while drawing 1KW. In addition, the electricity industry has
generally relied on diversity—that is on people not running
toasters or kettles at same time—yet air conditioning is
generally a highly correlated use. If your neighbor is running
their air-conditioning unit then there's a reasonable chance
you are running yours because use is driven by the weather.
On the supply side about the cheapest generation technology
available is the Open Cycle Gas Turbine at around $1000/KW
[18]—1 to 2 orders of magnitude greater expense per KW
than these electrical loads. Furthermore existing electrical
networks don't have low-capital cost-peaking options as seen
with generation (plants that are cheap to build but expensive
to run and, as a result, are better for infrequent peaks than
expensive to build but cheap to run baseload options). Many
industries around the world, including in Australia, spend
more on networks than on electricity generation. One result of
this is a potentially significant imbalance, with private
investment by end-users in particular new appliances
potentially requiring the supply side of the electricity industry
to invest equivalent levels in generation and network
infrastructure if reliability is to be maintained. Air
conditioning is a good case in point, having stressed some
local sub stations beyond capacity in recent years in the
authors’ hometown of Sydney [13, p. 5].
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Energy Security
This has both short and longer-term dimensions. While the
longer term is focused upon concerns with primary-fuel
security, the short term is focused upon peak demand, which
tends to drive a longer term focus on investment in generation
and networks. The impact of the oil crisis in the early 1970s
provides an exemplary example of primary-fuel energy
security concerns in the electricity industry. Many countries
at the time had significant oil-fired generation, which is low
cost, easy to transport, and easy to use, and the 1970s price
shocks resulted in electricity industries globally turning to
alternatives. Some countries, France and Japan for example,
gave nuclear a significant role from this time, while the R&D
attention and funding this granted renewables, most notably
in the United States, significantly spurred the further
development of some renewable technologies such as PV and
wind. Furthermore, it had a very significant impact on
improving the energy efficiency of many countries.
In some ways the electricity industry has lower energy
security concerns than sectors like transport where
alternatives to oil are more limited. By comparison a very
wide range of potential primary energy sources can be turned
into electricity although the industry worldwide remains very
dependent on fossil fuels. Oil in particular and gas, to a lesser
extent, have likely constraints on supply in the near to
medium term, with likely upcoming price impacts. However,
the geopolitics of significant fossil fuel reserves is a
significant factor with more countries with gas than oil, for
example. Coal is far more abundant and geographically
dispersed but is also witnessing tightening demand and
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increasing prices. However, the most pressing constraint on
fossil fuel use is that we cannot afford to continue to utilize
existing reserves as we have historically because of the
associated greenhouse emissions.
Climate Change
It currently appears that we will run out of an atmosphere
amenable to life as we know it before we run out of fossil
fuels. Figure 2.5 shows how 25% of global greenhouse
current gas emissions are from the electricity sector, primarily
coal, then gas, and then oil. It may be possible to continue to
use fossil fuels while restricting emissions through carbon
capture and storage technologies but these are proving to be
more difficult to develop into a viable working technology
than many proponents originally argued [18]. Climate change
is increasingly the driver of transformation, involving a range
of fundamental changes that move significantly beyond
traditional concerns with economics and reliability.
Figure 2.5
World greenhouse gas emissions by sector.
Source: http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/world-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-sector. Designer:
Emmanuelle Bournay, UNEP/GRID-Arendal.
Ultimately, climate science suggests a requirement for a near
complete decarbonization of energy supply by about
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