Electricity of future
Every piece of world evolves over time.
And electricity and its generation is of no exception. We have been seeing a growth of Renewables in the last two decades. In the first five decades of the twentieth century, renewables were called hydro power.
Though the concept of renewables, tapping wind energy, solar and even wave or tide was very much on the cards, few people gave it much thought. They were all on the researchers tables!
Today, the world is seeing the growth of renewables. The last two decades have seen the rise of solar power. Wind power continues to grow for the last three decades. Today, this world has over 650 GW of wind power installed. Solar is not too far behind. As of today, we have nearly 600 GW of solar power plants under PV technology installed across the world!
That is quite some capacity in just about 20 to 30 years!
Where do we go from here?
One of the major areas of development is expected to be transmission and distribution in days to come. We lose anywhere between 8 to 10% on an average, of the total power generated across the world. That is, in a world that produces nearly 35,000 Trillion Wh (1000 Wh is one kWh or one unit), the loss will be as high as 2,800 TWh. India generated about 1,750 TWh in 2019-20! The loss itself would be more than sufficient to meet India's requirements! By the way, India's transmission and distribution losses is close to 22%! That means, out of the 1,750 TWh that was generated, India lost 350 TWh!
Gross wastage of power! China, by the way, operates at 5% transmission and distribution loss!
Well then, technology will help us optimise this loss in the future. We will have distributed generation which will reduce the losses by locating the generation stations close to the consuming stations. For example, we now have roof top solar plants. These are right above the consuming point which could be a residence or a shop or an office.
In all of these cases, the transmission and distribution losses will be minimised. This will exactly be the case with distributed generation. It will bring down the cost of transmission and distribution on a vast network.
Utilities have to morph themselves to meet the demand of having distributed small generation happening across the entire country and not at one single large generating plant! This has happened in Europe and is expected in other countries too!
The result of such a system would be utilities will be paid to evacuate excess power! Or in other words, power prices could go negative! India might not allow it, knowing that the markets here are made up and not dictated by real market forces.
Second major change that could come into the electrical market could be a consumer dominated industry. Till the first decade of the new millennium, the price of electricity in India was more a decision of the price fixing done by regulatory bodies. But today, the market decides the price of power.
However, with a control on who could take power from the market, there seems to be a strongly skewed market place. The future might see an hard fought victory for the consumer. He may after all get value for his money. Every house in India can choose their power supplier the way they choose their telecom provider.
The advantage of this will be: more efficiency of operation, better price for power!
You will most possibly sit at home and choose a power company to supply power to you, in the near future!
Thirdly, you may find that any excess generated by the wind power plant located in Tamil Nadu getting stored at an office power storage in Mumbai! A smart intelligent software driven grid management system will know when the power is excess in the grid and it would immediately push it into various storages where it could be stored and retrieved back. All meters in the country will be two way meters. How much do you put in? How much do you take back? Use the storage available at all homes / offices and factories only to retrieve it back during peak hours.
Software driven intelligent systems will see a sea change in power administration and regulation!
More on the future changes in electricity industry later.
And electricity and its generation is of no exception. We have been seeing a growth of Renewables in the last two decades. In the first five decades of the twentieth century, renewables were called hydro power.
Though the concept of renewables, tapping wind energy, solar and even wave or tide was very much on the cards, few people gave it much thought. They were all on the researchers tables!
Today, the world is seeing the growth of renewables. The last two decades have seen the rise of solar power. Wind power continues to grow for the last three decades. Today, this world has over 650 GW of wind power installed. Solar is not too far behind. As of today, we have nearly 600 GW of solar power plants under PV technology installed across the world!
That is quite some capacity in just about 20 to 30 years!
Where do we go from here?
One of the major areas of development is expected to be transmission and distribution in days to come. We lose anywhere between 8 to 10% on an average, of the total power generated across the world. That is, in a world that produces nearly 35,000 Trillion Wh (1000 Wh is one kWh or one unit), the loss will be as high as 2,800 TWh. India generated about 1,750 TWh in 2019-20! The loss itself would be more than sufficient to meet India's requirements! By the way, India's transmission and distribution losses is close to 22%! That means, out of the 1,750 TWh that was generated, India lost 350 TWh!
Gross wastage of power! China, by the way, operates at 5% transmission and distribution loss!
Well then, technology will help us optimise this loss in the future. We will have distributed generation which will reduce the losses by locating the generation stations close to the consuming stations. For example, we now have roof top solar plants. These are right above the consuming point which could be a residence or a shop or an office.
In all of these cases, the transmission and distribution losses will be minimised. This will exactly be the case with distributed generation. It will bring down the cost of transmission and distribution on a vast network.
Utilities have to morph themselves to meet the demand of having distributed small generation happening across the entire country and not at one single large generating plant! This has happened in Europe and is expected in other countries too!
The result of such a system would be utilities will be paid to evacuate excess power! Or in other words, power prices could go negative! India might not allow it, knowing that the markets here are made up and not dictated by real market forces.
Second major change that could come into the electrical market could be a consumer dominated industry. Till the first decade of the new millennium, the price of electricity in India was more a decision of the price fixing done by regulatory bodies. But today, the market decides the price of power.
However, with a control on who could take power from the market, there seems to be a strongly skewed market place. The future might see an hard fought victory for the consumer. He may after all get value for his money. Every house in India can choose their power supplier the way they choose their telecom provider.
The advantage of this will be: more efficiency of operation, better price for power!
You will most possibly sit at home and choose a power company to supply power to you, in the near future!
Thirdly, you may find that any excess generated by the wind power plant located in Tamil Nadu getting stored at an office power storage in Mumbai! A smart intelligent software driven grid management system will know when the power is excess in the grid and it would immediately push it into various storages where it could be stored and retrieved back. All meters in the country will be two way meters. How much do you put in? How much do you take back? Use the storage available at all homes / offices and factories only to retrieve it back during peak hours.
Software driven intelligent systems will see a sea change in power administration and regulation!
More on the future changes in electricity industry later.
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