At the beginning of the 20th Century there was a vicious struggle between Edison and Westinghouse over power paradigms. Edison was the proponent of small distributed power stations using DC and Westinghouse proposed using large centralized plants to generate power using AC and then transmit the power over long distances.
It is pretty obvious who won that battle.
Now at the beginning of the 21st Century things are changing. The Blackout of 03 has made people aware that the transmission grid is aging, becoming overloaded and less reliable. New public policy will be made in the next couple of years and tons of money will be thrown at the problem. Should we upgrade the grid or should we spend money on new paradigms such as distributed power?
Here is one scenario: The mechanical power in Watts produced by the auto industry each year is equal to the electrical generation capacity of the US grid. If there is a 10% penetration of fuel cell cars, each capable of powering 10 houses, it would only take ten years to completely displace centralized generation.
Here is an EPRI presentation that gives costs to install various generation technologies:
afe39.org
($/kW)
Coal 900 - 1300
Gas Turbine 650 - 900
IC Engine 400 - 625
Microturbine 750
Fuel Cell 3000
Wind Power 1000 - 1500
Solar Cell 6500
Here is a presentation by NREL that discusses the costs associated with reliability.
energy2002.ee.doe.gov. |
