José Morales Barroso – P2P energy and the information grid

The rapid increase in energy consumption, says José Morales Barroso, makes advisable to invest strongly to expand the information and communications technologies. In our society, the only real possibility for the energy saving and the protection of the environment is to substitute, literally, the “Asphalt Freeways” for “Information Superhighways”. There is no doubt that the current model, based on growth and consumption is not sustainable, even if free and inexhaustible energy sources were to be discovered.

Electricity and Telecom shared infrastructure

The convergence of infrastructures will play a central role in meeting the world’s growing electric power demands, energy efficiency, and distributed generation. Extending the optical fibers to the intelligent electricity meters, these would become telecom access devices, the “TRUE METER” illustrated in Figure 1. Telecom will be a utility just as electricity, water, or gas, allowing a distributed and controlled energy system to shape and secure the grid of the future, sharing the civil work’s costs, and solving the problem of supply electric power to the network nodes. The users will enjoy more economic services that are easy to use and have rich content. In turn, this could drastically reduce the costs of electricity and telecom services. To make an analogy, imagine we were consuming the water from bottles, and we were now to install a water tap in the houses. How much would we save comparing the costs of half a litre of water from a bottle to half a litre of water from the faucet?

Energy prices continue to spiral upward and the electrical distribution grid is overtaxed; therefore, more frequent blackouts and brownouts, combined with increasing per kilowatt-hour costs, are inevitable. At the same time, the electric power infrastructure is designed to meet the highest expected demand for power and, as a result, is underutilized most of the time. Power control and other advanced techniques of the new UETS technology would be included within a future power-saving strategy to create only one infrastructure to deliver energy and information. Here is the wonder, the 21st century paradigm change in the energetic system, supported by the paradigm change in the communications system.

Figure 1: “FTTM” FIBER TO THE METER: Electricity meter and Telecommunications access device.

From the “Smart Grid” to the “Intelligent Grid”

At the beginning of the 21st century, our energy and information infrastructures operate with a high degree of inefficiency and inconvenience. This is not appropriate to meet the dynamic needs of energy and information in the years to come. Smart energy technologies can offer exceptional gains in energy efficiency, allowing two-way communications between power providers and customers, opening the way to adjust power to real time grid conditions and power prices. This “demand response” contrasts with the traditional utility system in which supply adjusts to meet all demands.

Figure 2: The “Smart Grid”.

The “Smart Grid” is based on the usage of smart energy technologies, the application of power control by means of digital information systems (smart meters and smart appliances) that communicate through the Internet with the electricity power providers, to optimize electrical power system generation, delivery, and end user energy demands. This model implies the use of two independent and separate infrastructures: “Smart Grid” and Internet. See Figure 2.

This vision of a shared Energy and Communications’ Infrastructure will pay off, but the “Smart Grid” is only halfway there. What still needs to be done is to create a common infrastructure that will cost-effectively and efficiently deliver real time data to meet the needs of a dynamic energy market, the foundation for businesses and consumers to make choices about their energy use on the basis of cost and pricing.

Figure 3: The “Intelligent Grid”.

The “Intelligent Grid” is a shared energy and information superhighway, turning the vision into reality. See Figure 3. This infrastructure can offer the “Universal Service” that guarantees the access to the electricity and communications for all citizens, although they live in non profitable locations for the telecom operators, with a high potential to be used henceforth in the developing world, where communications and power needs could be aggregated/integrated from Day One. The integration, through the “TRUE meter” of advanced metering modules for gas and water, to manage energy supply and demand in real time, will shave peak loads, allowing the new energy market to work in a more reliable and cost effective way.

The combined electric metering system and telecommunications access device will be used to build the P2P network to interchange information between users and utilities to allow for power management. The power needs are dynamically adapted to availability and direct need for power. Management of power loads will significantly reduce the need for expensive peak power generators and wired infrastructure. It could also be deployed to help prevent blackouts and brownouts. Connecting renewable and cleaner small-scale local power generators distributed throughout the grid will become more economical, taking stress off the grid, improving energy efficiency, reducing the need for transmission capacity, and providing secure regional power supplies.

The new Paradigm: saving energy and protecting the environment

Most of the inhabitants of countries that enjoy a high standard of living, only a small part of the whole Earth inhabitants, are not aware about the reasons for which they live so well. Very few understand that our status owes to the consumption, or rather to the squandering, of raw materials, specially fossil fuels and, in particular, petroleum. We live in a kind of illusion, thinking about diverse “achievements” (social, technological, political…) when the crude reality is very different: we are consuming, in an outrageous and unjustifiable way, the planet resources and, at the same time, destroying our environment. We cannot have an endless growth in consumption, in wealth, in goods of all type or, in whatever, in a limited system as Planet Earth: it is unsustainable.

Everything, after all, has relation with energy. There is no doubt that it is essential to make something in relation with the saving and conservation of energy, because without energy, today’s world cannot work. But yet, we cannot continue wasting without control, to be rich today and poor tomorrow, we must be competitive in our way of using energy and information. The main objective would be not to grow in the electricity usage, but on the contrary, to have better goods and services based on saving and efficiency. The energy system of the future should be more distributed, decentralized, efficient, clean, jointly liable, and close to the consumption. It would enable us to be better prepared to address the issues of energetic efficiency and safety, renewable energies, climatic change and competitiveness. This implies a change in the energy paradigm. It should be pointed out, however, that it is easy to say, but difficult to understand: energy experts know what needs to be done, but they do not know how to do it, and telecoms experts are not familiar with either energy or grid operation.

Where to act? Electric generation, buildings, and transportation are the largest consumers of energy and pollution generators: these should be, therefore, the focal points to take action for energy saving and environment preservation. The application of Information and Communications Technologies is fundamental to achieve these objectives. Today, the electric power grid face with the necessity of the energy saving and the input of renewable energies, and telecommunications are evolving to new services based on Internet and the “multiple play” (data, voice, video and mobility) philosophy.

Although UETS technology grew out of an objective of saving power, the environmental advantages of this new technology have not yet been described. There is no one silver bullet technology capable of solving all energy problems, but UETS technology will help in different aspects related with energy saving and environment protection. First, power control for information processing and network equipment. Secondly, remote control through the network for electric appliances, to use efficiently the mix of conventional and renewable energies by demand/supply adaptation, which would avoid big investments in new power stations and the risk of blackouts. Finally, offer an advanced telecommunications services which allows moving information instead of people or things, reducing drastically their transportation.

Demand Management

One of the most important aspects of generation systems based on renewable energies is the temporal correlation between demand and generation, because they change the basic concepts of conventional generation systems. The key to taking advantage of these resources is the adaptation of demand to supply (demand management) and not the opposite. Here resides the high potential of an integrated or convergent approach to the electricity and telecommunications networks, in agreement with the strategies defined by the European Union, “the implementation of intelligent power networks, the savings of energy, and the development of knowledge for the incremental or radical formulation of power policies and technological innovations”.

Energy saving in the final consumption is much more effective than in any other part of the system, opening up the future of integrated remote control for home automation from the network. To manage power demand, the new intelligent meters report moment-to-moment power usage digitally to the utility, through UETS network, and cycle up and down appliances in response to grid needs and signals. This enables variable pricing, providing economic incentives to shift power use between high and low demand periods.

Home appliances containing onboard intelligence reduce demand when receiving signals that the grid is under stress, or activate appliances when power rates are lower. That can take pressure off overloaded grid infrastructure and power costs, dramatically increasing grid reliability and security, and accelerating the growth of cleaner power generation. Since peak demand is lower, need fewer poles, wires, and remote power plants.

To get this objective, it is mandatory that telecom operators and electric utilities work to standardize and certify the smart energy appliances’ power and communications interfaces, to manage energy use and reduce energy costs.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

A very interesting application is the connection of hybrid electric cars to the electric network, concept known as Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), and making them an integral part of the grid, a concept known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). A PHEV is an electric appliance, governed by a smart battery-charger management system. The battery is charged during off-peak hours or when has a power excess from renewable resources. Equipment, using power cables (PLC/BPL) or wireless communications (WiFi/WiMAX) to connect with the “TRUE meter”, can adapt charging, instantaneously and optimally, to the real-time conditions of the electric grid.

Smart management systems could provide additional reliability using the storage capacity of the PHEV by reversing the power flow from the battery to the grid during peak periods, using battery’s stored energy to provide power back to the grid in order to meet peak demand, rather than adding new generating capacity. It is even possible to start the combustion engine “in a stopped car” in critical moments of consumption, in order to supply energy during blackouts, or to complement the conventional generation.

Figure 4: A self-sufficient system.

Hybrid electric cars should have as much surface as possible covered with solar photovoltaic panels to charge the batteries or to supply electricity to the grid. Given the amount of cars over the world, the effective solar panel area will be impressive, and would not need any additional space. A home with a DC micro grid controlled by UETS, solar photovoltaic panels, wind generators, and a PHEV plugged into the home circuit as a complementary source of energy is the perfect model of a self-sufficient system. See Figure 4.

Move Information instead people or things

The increase in energy consumption makes advisable to invest strongly to expand the information and communications technologies. In our society, the only real possibility for the energy saving and the protection of the environment is to substitute, literally, the “Asphalt Freeways” for “Information Superhighways”. Excessive mobility is a fundamental reason of energy consumption increase, and the corresponding environmental pollution of human origin. As fuel prices rise, it makes even more sense to move information to people, and avoid moving people whenever possible. The UETS system can offer the required network capacity for the evolution from the “Consumption Society” to the “Knowledge Society”.

The efforts made to transform into virtual what is material will necessarily mean an improvement in processes efficiency. Electronic delivery is far more efficient than physically moving people to a site, saving time and reducing costs (transport, hotel, and restaurant). The fiber optic system of the Intelligent Grid will provide speeds in the range of Gbps at the interface, bringing “virtual reality videoconferencing” with high definition full motion video to the home and office. This is an interactive technology to connect people dynamic and interactively at multiple locations, an effective alternative to reduce drastically travel costs, providing a cost-effective way of remote meetings and distance learning. Rural areas benefit particularly from this kind of videoconferencing, making every village a “knowledge centre”.

Telework, often referred to as telecommuting in the U.S., means the death of distance. Work is not a place; teleworkers drive information, not cars to work, saving lives in traffic accidents, commuting at the speed of light, reducing transportation, fuel, and pollution, rising work/home life balance and reducing stress. It does not mean to “work at home”, but decentralizing the office, and using telecommunications to bring the work to the workers. The best solution is not the “home office”, but the “office near home”, in a place accessible by walk. Telework is great for the economy and the environment, and the advantages of “telework” must be emphasized, because allows people to work without going into big cities and avoids the abandonment of the rural environment. The opportunity that this presents for the rural world would have a positive environmental effect, helping to prevent forest fires and to improve conservation and biodiversity. Each teleworker would save yearly some 1,400 kg of CO2 emissions; 500 liters of fuel; 4,000 kilometers of driving on highways and streets, and 200 hours of time, to spend with family or dedicate to leisure.

Conclusions

The UETS system will break up with the trend towards an increased complexity and inefficiency, allowing, due to its simplicity, the Electric Grid and Telecommunications Networks’ convergence in the “Intelligent Grid”, a clean energy technology for power saving and sustainability. This could be the seed of new applications and services, the foundation to achieving the transition from the “Consumption Society” to the “Knowledge Society”. There is no doubt that the current model, based on growth and consumption is not sustainable, even if free and inexhaustible energy sources were to be discovered, due to the degradation of the environment that this model causes. This paper proposes a new model, technologically viable, for sustainable development based on the combination of Advanced Communications Networks, Renewable Energies, and Energy Saving (NEGAWATS). In summary, use the technology to make the Earth habitable.

Work Ahead

A huge amount of money will be invested to use new technologies in the electric power grid, requiring extensive field-testing before widespread integration. The current crisis is really an occasion to invest in new technology for power saving and reliability, making an exceptional opportunity the development of the “Intelligent Grid”. This white paper provides a head start and lays the groundwork for many research topics that will allow us to put the power of information to work in our energy delivery infrastructure. The result will be the affordable, safe, and reliable energy and information supply, essential to the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

Special issue: p2p energy
Tags: energy, innovation, José Morales Barroso, p2p