How Feasible Is Smart Grid?

Here’s a bit of pessimism on the prospect of building out the grid in the U.S. to foster the massive integration of renewables.  “It’s not going to happen, anytime soon, at least,” reports a FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) spokesperson.  The culprit? Balkanization, i.e., the absence of agreement and standards across many small regions.

I don’t doubt that this is a major issue.  The creation of standards on anything takes time, effort, and political horsepower that, needless to say, the renewable energy industry lacks badly.  Until recently, I needed separate “EZ-pass” RFID devices to drive my rental car from Virginia to New York; if it’s tough to create a standard for something as simple as that, one can only imagine the challenge of establishing commonality for something as complex as smart grid.

But somehow I believe that we’re on our way; the need here is so compelling that I have to think we’ll fight our way through this.  I also point out that microgrids and distributed generation are important concepts in our energy future.  To the degree that standards remain elusive, microgrids are that much more attractive.  Keep in mind that it brings with it other goodies, e.g., reducing line-losses.