Diesel Working Group

Comment

Comment by David Karabelnikoff on March 21, 2010 at 2:34pm

Sorry Martin, I got off topic... I'll move my posts to the policy one...

Comment by Markus Mager on March 19, 2010 at 11:53am

I want to comment on “To see policies which simulate renewable look at Germany - Feed in Tariff, it works. That's why they use it.”

It’s correct, we stimulate renewable energy with certain energy policies but we also created an artificial solar-boom at a tremendous cost. The solar-boom could make electricity really expensive for customers in Germany and companies are afraid of losing their competitiveness b/c of the rising “Öko-Abgabe”. They campaign to cut solar subsidies and to limit the yearly increase in solar system capacity. The rising cost of electricity (b/c of solar) could also negatively impact the acceptance of the entire renewable energy sector.

Here is an example:
A producer of solar electricity gets 43 cent/kWh. Electricity costs 8 cent/kWh at the energy exchange. The difference is paid by all customers via their monthly bill.

3000 MW of solar systems were installed in 2009 in Germany, for the next 20 years, customers have to pay more than 14 Billion Euro (only for systems installed in 2009). BUT: Solar accounts only for a little bit over 4% of renewable energy produced (Wind, Biomass and Hydro are the main renewable energy resources). Is it worth it?

Bottom line: Policy makers have to be very careful designing Feed in Tariffs for different technologies.

Comment by Don Eller on March 18, 2010 at 6:06pm

The debate is a public policy debate and I whole heartly agree with you that the public policy regarding rural Alaska energy needs a through examination, review and change.

However what techonlogy gets deployed should be the technology that generates energy for the lowest sustainable cost to the customer and meets the customers needs. Not diesel generation because it is in place nor renewable energy because it is the latest fad and the social responsible thing to do but the lowest cost sustainable energy. The comparison should not be skewed by government programs like PCE or solar tax breaks but should be an honest comparison of what energy costs the least at this point in time. As of this point in time all the data I have seen shows diesel as the lowest cost energy solution for most of rural AK. I welcome other data that has a different conclusion.

Here are a couple of links to articles on the unintended consequences of the best intended public policy, such as solar deployment in Germany. Like the PCE program when government interferes with the market place a lot of unintended things occur.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/mar/11/sol...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/mar/05/sol...

Comment by David Karabelnikoff on March 18, 2010 at 4:34pm

perhaps I should clarify by stating that it may not be sufficient to constrain the scope of the investigation to the technical issues of integration. The comments were to general trends in behavioral and technological lockin' identification with the how we do (technology) the what we do - (electrical production).

This is coming from the place of doing a technical integration and optimization of a high penetration wind hybrid system at the moment for my thesis. But this is not sufficient in and of it's self to be implemented, the first barrior is the presumption by lack of ruling by the RCA on compensation for IPP beyond that of PURPA which is not the type of policy likely to see high levels of renewable deployed. If we infer a message sent by the policy it goes like: business as usual, no innovation. @ cost avoided and subsidized costs of conventional fuel it seems that the policy is more effective at hindering competing technologies than deploying them.

To see policies which simulate renewable look at Germany - Feed in Tariff, it works. That's why they use it.

Better use of money than the PCE program and bulk fuel loan in that pulls renewable into the market rather than encouraging continued reliance on fossil fuels.

Alaska is in the stone age of energy regulatory policy with PURPA as the backstop and cost avoided compensation.

Yes the RCA does need to get their act together, Why have they come out with a ruling on rail belt retail rate compensation before dealing with rural electrical production? What is setting the agenda there?

In using the term social institutions it would apply to both the regulatory body RCA and Utilities. These are abstract concepts from anthropological epistemology on technological innovation so if the scaling it's always accurate it's a rough approximation to understand the interrelations between humans, technology & the interaction of the two - the economy

The issue is in paradise shifting or methodology, This can be seen

There are other dynamics, iterations which need be taken into account to adequately and appropriately address the issue. The ones I mentioned are non-technical barriers such as institutional resistance to renewable. This is such as opinion makers, policy makers, market regulators exc.

But for all the expense being spend for electrical production that is economic productivity for other parties.

Comment by Don Eller on March 18, 2010 at 10:29am

I am interpreting the meaning of pronouns in David’s comments. I interpret social and economic institutions being referred to in the following as electric utilities: Established social/economic institutions which stand to benefit the most will still strangely resist change espically when it comes to relinquishing control, or altering a component of their identity such as the producer consumer relationship or control over electrical production.
The statement significantly minimizes the legal obligations that have placed on the utility. Electric utilities have significant demands made upon them by the legislature’s regulatory agency, the RCA. The RCA has two primary concerns: Cost and reliability. Harvesting power from IPPs directly impacts both the cost and reliability of the utility power. While the reliability issue can be addressed through technology in a much more complex grid and control system the cost issue is not addressed. Building a complex grid and control system to integrate IPPs at a village scale would in most cases cause the cost of energy to increase. So the issue is much more of a regulatory and public policy issue than one of electric utilities not wanting to change or accommodate IPPs.
I would argue that both the regulatory agencies and energy development agencies have done a terrible job in there oversight of rural electricity in Alaska. One of the easiest examples of this is the request for village load curves and the inability that the State of Alaska has to provide these in spite of the fact that the State of Alaska pours millions of dollars into both capital and operational costs for electricity in rural Alaska annually; the State can’t even provide fundamental data. You cannot management what you do not measure. If utilities are going to take public funds, the public has a right to expect the utility to perform at a specified level and record basic information; basic information which directly impacts the ability to manage the utility properly and efficiently. If the utility cannot measure and record fundamental data about electrical demand required for proper management, I seriously question whether the utility meets the RCA operational requirement of being “fit, willing and able.” There must be accountability within the rural energy industry but the State of Alaska does not enforce much accountability.
Yes the technical requirements for IPP integration can be overcome but the entities stopping this are not the electric utilities it is the public policy and regulatory policy of the State of Alaska. If it is deemed in the public interest to create a complex grid to accommodate high IPP energy penetration then public policy should create the regulatory frame to allow this to happen. However, before going down this road I would hope that the same regulatory and energy development agencies would take care of the basics first, like load data acquisition and recording, before starting down the much more complex path of public policy to create a complex grid.

Comment by Steve Drouilhet on March 18, 2010 at 8:47am

Martin,

There are at least the following technical issues associated with connecting multiple small distributed renewable generators to a village diesel power system:

1. Small PV or wind installations are generally single-phase systems. The utility diesel power plant is inherently three-phase. When individual residential generators start feeding in power (or subtracting load) on individual phases, it becomes very difficult to keep the load balanced among all three phases. An unbalanced load causes the diesel generators to operate inefficiently and makes it difficult to maintain proper voltage on all three phases. This problem can be solved using a central load balancing inverter that will dynamically balance the three-phase load seen by the diesel power plant.

2. Because of the intermittency of renewables, the utility power plant and distribution system must still be sized to meet the peak load with no contribution of the renewables. With IPPs effectively reducing the average load on the system, the utility's infrastructure will operate at a lower load factor (percentage of its rated power). This causes the utility both to lose revenue and operate less efficiently. The utility doesn't mind when they own the renewable generation, since they don't lose revenue, and the decreased load factor on the diesel plan is more than made up for in fuel savings.

3. An objection that used to be raised frequently was that it would be difficult to ensure lineman safety if a bunch of independent power producers were connected to the distribution system and could potentially backfeed the lines when they were supposed to be de-energized for maintenance. With the advent of interconnection standards such as IEEE-1547, which effectively prevent such occurences, this has become a total non-issue.

4. Many Alaska village power plants are still manually operated. The operator knows the daily load profile and can operate the plant fairly efficiently with just a few diesel dispatch decisions per day. When you start adding renewables to the mix (especially wind), the variations in net load become larger and less predictable. To keep the diesel plant operating efficiently requires that it be automated. The system supervisory controller continually monitors the net load and dispatches the diesel generator that can meet that load most efficiently. This is why that in every wind-diesel village power project of medium to high wind penetration, the first step is always to automate the diesel plant.

As David K says, utilities do indeed often have a conservative mindset and tend to oppose change that threatens their monopoly on generation. But there are real technical issues raised by distributed renewables, especially on small isolated mini-grids. Nevertheless, just because it raises issues for the utility doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed. It is good for the environment and good for the consumer. The village utilities will have to learn how to adapt, just as the big utilities had to learn how to adapt to wind and solar farms on their distribution grids.

Comment by Martin Leonard III on March 9, 2010 at 5:13pm

Alan, Don, Kat (anyone chime in)

What are the technical issues surrounding connecting multiple Independent Power Producing (IPP) homes to the typical village power utility in rural Alaska. Assume IPP systems sized 2-10kW - micro hydro, small wind and/or solar PV! Assume centralized Diesel Power generation.

Comment by Don Eller on February 10, 2010 at 8:15am

Graph is a calculated value taking fuel consumption (gph) and load (kw) directly from the ECU.

Comment by Alan Fetters on February 10, 2010 at 8:00am

Whats the source of the trending data and where is the sensor? We typically use both the engine computer and the daytank or other fuel tank. Could the fuel used to cool the injectors and being returned to the tank be the cause?

Comment by Don Eller on December 17, 2009 at 10:18am

Check out the efficiency verses time graphs attached for a DD Series 60. Efficiency graph seems to be very cyclic, anyone have any ideas why?

Efficiency DDSeries60.pdf

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