Centauri's Thoughts

While working within the FluxWorld power grid, and enhancing the system, I have come to understand some interesting things while simulating a live power grid with loads.

Even though my system knows all of the loads and all of the sources (which a real-time power grid may not), there is always room for management. I can see why the implementation of a “smart-grid” is so important.

I spend my time managing turning sources on and off as needed, for maximum efficiency.

Even though my loads dont change from day to night, they very well could, and because of solar and wind power, my sources change as well.

The effective management of energy resources on the grid by not putting more power than is needed on the wires, and yet, not having insufficient power (causing brown-outs or black-outs) is indeed an interesting ad tricky balance. Of course, the “brute-force” method of ensuring there is never a black out is to over-power the grid all the time. Unused power sits on the wires as “potential”, but it was still generated and used resources to put it there.

None of this, of course, speaks of storage. TheGrid is TheGrid, and has never utilized storage (like a battery). There are a few methods I have heard of, like pumping water up into a reservoir at night, to generate power during the day, but thats about it. There is just no good (efficient) way to save off terawatts or petawatts of energy at this time.

As we use more and more energy, all of this will become more critical, if we are to survive.