Distributed generation - two more words that prompt discussion (in my circles anyway). Think solar panels on an office building that uses that solar power. It’s also called on-site generation, decentralized energy and a bunch of other names.
Today we have centralized generation - large power plants, usually far from where electricity is needed, with energy distribution via long distance power lines. This model is fantastically inefficient.
From the power plant to an industrial pipe, inefficiencies along
the way whittle the energy input of the fuel by more than 90%.
(Click on the graphic to make it larger.)
There’s been little technological advancement in long distance distribution over the past 50 years. Big power plants way out in nowhere will still be in the mix so investment in efficiency makes sense.
Distributed Generation
Today, this is largely solar. In the future, it will include wind, methane harvesting, algae and god knows what. The good stuff about distributed generation:
- Highly reliable energy when power comes from many small sources rather than a few big ones
- Less dependence on imported fossil fuels (and hence, improved national security)
- Variety of feed stocks
- Fewer new high voltage power lines decorating the landscape
- Efficiencies of short transmission distances
- Lower maintenance costs
- Tastes great
- Less filling
Public policy. (Two more words.) Regulatory rules have encouraged construction of big power plants and long transmission lines, and the energy industry business model has long been predicated on this. Legislators are beginning to rewrite the rules but democracy moves slowly when big industry money is at stake.
It’s like this. Big Energy is analogous to big railroads in the mid-1800s. If you needed to move something from
Railroads are part of the mix today, but they no longer control the transportation industry. Now it’s the energy industry’s turn to evolve.
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