Gold

Today's blog post is a tribute to "Gold" by Chet Faker. Extremely powerful music video, extremely powerful song, extremely powerful music.

"You gotta know, I'm feeling love..."

Album Cover for Chet Faker's "Built on Glass".

Focus

Focus, focus, focus. I have found a new focus. And this time I think that it may be the one. 

I think it's time to enter phase 4, the 4th and final phase in this blog. 

And that is... software engineering... and the smart grid... and the GRID EDGE... and the LV grid (low-voltage, that is). And DER's. DER's! DER's. Smart home energy management systems.

Smart home energy management systems.

Take me, and put me at the heart of the renewable energy transition, and leave me there. Leave me there. Leave me there. For there I must stay...

Revising over the grid edge and edge management one more time 💚

So the most important thing to remember on the grid, and on the grid edge, of all, is: the way that we consume electricity is changing.

As a result of this, we need real-time monitoring to maintain the reliability and quality of the grid. I.e. in order for the grid to be good for us - and work for us - we need a way to make sure that the grid is working properly. We need a way to make sure the grid is working as it should. We need to make sure that the grid is reliable and that it won't turn off. We need to make sure that we have enough electricity and that it is flowing through to us consistently. And this only makes from being away of what is going in with the grid, and being aware of what is going on with it in real time.

When it comes to managing the grid edge, and to monitoring the grid to maintain reliability and quality in real-time, enhancing data collection and enhancing data quality can increase customer engagement. This in turn can support the demand management and support the usage optimisation of the grid. This can be done by using digital software demand management solutions and grid metering solutions.

One of the most important things to remember right now is that consumers are now prosumers of electricity - that is to say they are both producers and consumers.

We are now generating electricity in our own homes. We are now our own power stations.

Therefore, and as in the paragraphs above, as customers are now prosumers, due to the fact that they are producing their own electricity, better customer engagement would help to support usage optimisation and help to support demand management.

Moving onto the next article

here it is btw

One of the very first thing that the author points out is that DER's are getting cheaper. However as they are generators of power we are going to have to increase the complexity of the electricity grid over the next few decades and beyond to support this.

They are also the solution to the gas crisis and a part of the solution to the climate crises. We need EVs, electric heating, and heat pumps, I believe.

So we are going to need to increase the capacity of the grid by at least 3x as much over the next ten years.

This massive increase in the quantities of DERs that we are having in our homes "is opening up spaces for new service providers - from installations to maintenance and flexibility."

Electricity Provider Relationships

In the near future as opposed to just having one energy supplier it could be that one customer has multiple electricity provider relationships in terms of digital apps and technology - OR I would argue that energy suppliers are also going to engage in increasingly advanced tech to provide for the needs of all of the DERs of their customers.

And this is what I do at work! Yes really! I build white label technology for other energy suppliers to support their customers with electrification and assist them.

This increasing demand in electricity-supplier products "creates opportunities for new players in the energy tech space (believe me, I would know!!!).

Potential of Technologies

This article has a wonderful or at least a wonderfully accurate quote: "there is a huge disconnect between the potential of these new technologies and our current systems setup."  

This reminds me of what the DI article said: “There is a need for visibility and control at the grid edge because of the evolving sophistication of how consumers are using electricity, and that’s lacking in the systems that exist today,”. 

We are entering into what the author of the first article calls the "computing era of energy" - we have "affordable and mainstream harware." 

"But," what she goes on to say, "is missing is an internet-like connective tissue that enhances the opportunities of these new hardware and lowers their risks."

An internet-like connective tissue that enhances the opportunities of these new hardware and lowers their risks.

From my past blog posts: ideas

One of the biggest things that is going to create a significant pressure on the LV grids of the Western World is the electrification of transport. This will need to be monitored and managed, as we will need to control the load near the grid edge.

But if we are going to go to net-zero and etc., then "we are going to need to move the ability to monitor and manage our load to the grid edge." (As the article cited above says).

This thing is all about decentralising some of the functions of the power grid - therefore, to be more localised. Remember what the quote above says? "There is a need for visibility and control at the grid edge because of the evolving sophistication of how consumers are using

One of the sentences that I love is...

... this concept of "the LV grid as the final stage of energy distribution." I love that, and I love this idea -I love this, and I find it so beautiful. I believe this came from chat GPT - after I asked it to summarise a bit more about the LV grid, or something.

So beautiful. Then my favourite quote ever for "Renewable Energy: A Very Short Introduction" as well: "We are only at the beginning of the smart grid evolutions with its digital technology."

"We are only at the beginning of the smart grid evolution with its digital technology." 

"The LV grid is the final stage of the electricity distribution system." 

Final thoughts from my previous blog posts

We need the right software that will integrate all of the data from all of the DERs into the smart grid, whether that will be via intelligent hardware or via the back office as well. And it talks a lot about "hyperconnectivity solutions" to strengthen the power of the smart grid - but I still don't understand these. Thank you.

And remember:

there is a huge disconnect between the potential of these new technologies and our current systems setup.