A Solution of Best Fit
A solution, like everything else on earth, is subject to constraints. We are constrained by the laws of the physical universe, of society, and by the state of enabling technology.
The laws of physics are immutable, and subject only to discovery. The constraints themselves define what we can or cannot do, while our knowledge of them defines what we can choose to do. By contrast, the laws of society are arbitrary, resistant, and instead subject to a consensus of ideologies. They do not govern what we can do, not even what we should do, what they truly describe is a previous consensus of what it is we perceive it is valuable to do. The weight of a kilogram does not change between societies, but the weight of opinion can.
Finally, the state of enabling technology is a temporally conditional constraint and correlated to the first two. The state of technology is our capacity to deliver from the upper limit of our understanding in the physics to the greatest value defined by social constraints.
By defining our constraints in the physics, we confirm that there are controllable phenomena; in doing so we arrive at the point where we can begin to design the technological solution of best fit.
Globally, we face the simultaneous challenge of meeting a massive increase in demand due to electrification, and a total change to the nature of AC power supply as we decarbonise. However, our present electrical grid was not designed with these constraints in mind.
The grid from 1886 to the present assumes dispatchable spinning mass generation, phase balanced supply, power factor regulation by supply, a low level of signal transients, relatively high-power quality, a low level of total harmonic distortion, and a balance of load to supply that is manageably regular by phase, load profile and quantum to generation. Without the flexible dispatchability and energy density of carbon fuels or nuclear, this will not be done using the historic hub and spoke grid.
Its design does not anticipate and therefore meaningfully does not allow for switched generation, distributed generation, or reverse power flows, phase imbalances, load imbalances, reduction in power quality and material transients. All of which are elements or consequences of renewable generation and supply.
This is a problem of energy supply, but we are not constrained by quantity, rather we lack reliability in distribution. Counter to common perception there is no shortage of energy. Life on earth will have sufficient energy to meet any realistic demand till our sun’s fusion reaction depletes its supply of hydrogen in about 5 billion years. And despite our self-evident importance, anything humans do is highly unlikely to impact on the transitive energy flow from the sun to the entropic edge of time and space. The sun is unaware of our expectations, and cares less. It will or will not shine, and while it shines it will be the most significant source of all energetic input that we are ever likely to be able to make use of. The problem is not the availability of energy.
The energy potential of coal is as much a function of the sun’s main sequence as the solar irradiation we capture in solar farms every day. It is ancient, captured sunlight, finite as the past is finite. While we access a fraction of the carbon free energy available to us in real-time, we need to understand energy as valuable in and of itself, transformed into the fundamental capacity to do work in the physical universe. The difference between coal and solar farm, in dispatching terms, is the ease with which quantity generated and consumed can be matched.
Compare two bags of flour. A Flemish monastery in the 13th Century owned a technologically advanced windmill. It ground hundreds of kilograms of flour a year determined by the available wind and energy density of wind. Flour and quality bread were luxuries for royalty and aristocrats, starvation and malnutrition were common amongst the masses.
Today, the esteemed company Vandemoortele produce 25% of Belgian flour, flour is cheap, plentiful and no Belgian need starve. In fact, Belgium is famous for pastries and baked goods, and if photographic evidence can be relied upon the royal family don’t eat more of them than the average Belgian. Cheap, reliable electricity allowed Vandemoortele to invest capital, and their investment has produced an abundance joyfully consumed by Belgians and visitors alike.
This is the difference between a society for whom work was dependent on transitive energy like solar and wind, constrained by the state of technology bound to the constraints in the physics and the same society able to innovate and invest assuming a low cost, reliable, regular AC electricity signal. Reducing electricity costs to consumers is extremely progressive, the economic benefits it brings materially benefits our poorest and most vulnerable proportionately more than the wealthiest in society. Conversely, increases in the price of electricity, decreasing productivity, disproportionately disadvantages them.
If the intention is to decarbonise the economy, we must also maintain energy affordability and security. Best matching supply and demand in time and in space across the network is the essential first step to providing the consumer, the provider and the economy with the best outcome. This requires being able to provide energy from anywhere to anyone and being able to temporally align energy consumption and generation at the lowest cost. The grid built by our great, great, great grandparents cannot do that.
The only viable option is to adopt a shift from a centralised to a decentralised system, and in doing so it becomes essential to coordinate a network of nodes in that system. The existing system is not controlled. Rather, the ‘system operator’ has until now dispatched a small number of large typically thermal spinning mass generation assets to try and match demand. Life in 2050, in our post energy transition system, will require coordination of millions of end points across the system.
A solution fit for purpose needs to deliver cheaper, more reliable, carbon free energy without compromise. Given legislative intent for both decarbonisation and energy security, and the economic imperative for low-cost energy, any truly scalable solution fit-for-purpose will necessitate change to the arbitrary rules that have governed the energy system in a period that valued other trade-offs. To enable those outcomes, a new technical solution will need to be agnostic to the nature of generation and consumption, and rearwardly compatible with the infrastructure of the largest system in the world. The options available within the constraints of physics, and the present state of technology are by definition novel and rare.
As wind and solar have a marginal cost of production at or below zero, a solution that facilitates the essentially distributed nature of renewables by being bidirectional will allow consumers to benefit from low-cost renewable primary power. What matters is the lowest consumer cost of energy, rather than the lowest levelised cost of electricity generation, so to be a truly scalable solution the capital, operating, and carbon costs to the system need to have the lowest opportunity cost. These are extremely challenging technically and economically, but soluble. We need to ensure the legislative, regulative, and institutional environment are fit for our purpose and its significance to the future all of us share.
