Where does the future power system (G/T/D) go?

[QBplanner]

I open this thread is to get any fresh ideas. It is not necessary professional ones.

I always seek what the future power system look like. After 50 years or 100 years when we all gone.

Power system engineers stop working on UEHV long time ago and personally I don't think UEHV will be ultimate solution.

But with the load increases, more and more generators will be in service no matter where.

Even though I am a transmission guy, I am prone to distributed generations and believe distributed generator (Wind, solar, small Nuclear) and local power supply will be a trend for future power system instead of bulk transmission system.

Any ideas???

By the way, I still believe wireless power transmission one day will become ture. Thanks for the great Nikola Tesla.

 

[slavag]

Hi,
Yes you are right.
"local power supply will be a trend for future power system instead of bulk transmission system".
I've seen today more and more local small (40-120MW) power station--->GT and DG. Lot of our job today P&C for this small power plants are installed on the mnf. sites.
As far as I know, company like to ORMAT energy have today a great solution for the alternative sources
( geothermal,recovered energy, etc..).
I don't know about wireless transmission in the future, but next step I think will trafo and generators with superconductors

Regards.
Slava

 

[ELEP]

I think Solar panels will be installed in the space and power will be transmitted wireless(laser beam etc..)
Reflectors will be installed in the space & beamed towards solar collectors on earth ?

 

[slavag]

Hi.
I think in middle/end of 80's started this thinking: build power plants in the space and transmitt energy to earth/terra and in open space build reflectors and invertors.
Next big source of energy is ocean.
Few such stations was build in the word ( I don't remeber exactly the name) base on the change of ocean level per day. I think one in Russia, one in US and ...
Few companies work on the new principles of used energy of ocean. I think few smal for the 2-5MW was build and used in Norway.
Regards.
Slava

 

[cranky108]

What type of space beam to earth? Sounds like a weapon, hope we don't loose conrtol of it (or maybe that's the difficulty to be over come).

In a way the grid is distributed, and I believe it will become more so.
Solar is possible but the land that it requires. Maybe a better use is removing salt from water for more fresh water.
Wind seems to only show up when you don't need it, and requires expencive backup/storage.
Nucular is possible.

I see the next wild card here as energy storage. And the spread in energy costs, off peak vs. peak, needs to be about 50% to make it viable because of the losses/costs.

 

[BJC]

I think it will be distributed generation with the source being hydrogen fuel cells.
The hydrogen will be generated in large wind farms and solar arays.
A hydrogen pipeline can transmitt more power than a half-mile swath of transmission lines.
The electrolisis of water to produce hydrogen may be inefficient but the process from source to customer can be more efficient than what we have now.

 

[ScottyUK]

I think there will be a growing trend toward large centralised nukes, at least here in the UK. The existing nuke fleet is nearing retirement, as are most of our larger coal stations. I think we will also see clean coal become a commercially viable alternative as the cost of gas and oil continues to rise.

Why not localised generation for the lonmger term? The main reasons I see are that our transmission system is designed around large centralised generation, and that the fuels which best suit embedded localised generation such as distillate and gas are becoming increasingly expensive.

On the day wind power has to stand or fall on its own merits without being propped up by subsidy we won't see any more wind turbines being installed in the UK. In the mean time Vestas, GE, Siemens are getting rich off my taxes. I'm not against renewables per se, but at present we can't make them pay for themselves.

Regarding hydrogen based solutions: where does the hydrogen come from initially? It requires more energy input to produce it than it gives in return, making it a consumer of energy, not a source of energy: hardly the solution to an energy crisis!



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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

 

[QBplanner]

Many Thanks for everybody's inputs!!!

I heard that UK has the world first tide generation plant in service just not long time ago. That is really a good news.

I also heard that Japan has developed the next generation small nuclear generator rated at 200kw for home use. No idea the price and other related technical concerns. If they can fix them then it may be installed in the future for single home together with energy storage system I guess.

Hydro station is still not a bad ideas however, almost all the possible places where the hydro gen. can be built were all operated or planned in the place I work. Plue you have to build transmission system to send them out.

Maybe the future power system will be localized with some format of enery resources which today we still have bottle mecks to put them in service.

 

[cuky2000]

There is not a single solution to the energy demand. Power electronic and nuclear generation may be a partial solution in several countries. There is significant interest in the HVDC and nuclear in the US and China lately. Several projects pass the development and permitting stage.
Most transmission projects are viable using underwater/submarine transmission lines. Most land lines projects are struggling obtaining permits.