Grid Architecture for Energy Ladder Products and Services

Grid Architecture[edit | edit source]

Grid architecture generally describes the basic equipment types and sizes that are used to serve different utility functions. In the history of electric utility companies serving specific geographic territories, companies determined the basic infrastructure components used to deliver services to their end-use customers. This includes all of the basic components, like poles, wires, and transformers, plus communications and control technologies. As the electricity system is potentially subject to new types of equipment and functions, notably to distributed energy generation, multiple kinds of energy storage at many scales, and sensors and controls to better manage both supply and demand flexibility, new kinds of grid architecture are being introduced. [See especially U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity, 2022 and 2019.] In the past, grid architecture for utility services (broadband & telecommunications, electric, natural gas, potable water, wastewater) was almost always discussed in terms of facilities that are interconnected with a wide-area utility grid and using highly centralized and very large scale components. Primary examples include gigawatt-scale electric generators serving customers using hundreds or thousands of miles of high-voltage electric transmission.

However, much more attention is being paid now to highly distributed-scale resources (serving individual end users, small clusters of users, neighborhoods, or small villages). Some of those facilities are likely to begin serving consumers as remote, off-grid facilities which might never be interconnected with a wide-area grid. The World Bank estimates that as many as 200,000 remote mini- and micro-grids are needed to serve customers who might never have access to a wide area grid, or for those that wide area grids might not reach in the coming decade.^[1]

Energy Ladder[edit | edit source]

The essence of the "energy ladder" concept is that customers who previously lacked them should be afforded the opportunity to obtain access to clean and modern energy technologies and services, in small and gradual ladder-like "steps." Each subsequent step up the energy ladder can lead to improved outcomes in terms of economic growth and prosperity. This concept is frequently discussed in conjunction with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 [SDG7]. That goal is intended to "ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all." [See Appropedia on Sustainable Develoopment Goals].

The image (at right) provides a conceptual overview of one concept of "Energy Ladder," at orders of magnitude from "no service" to single-digit watts (in what is frequently called a "solar lantern"), and then upwards in scale to include consideration of the smallest microgrids up to the largest microgrids for major campuses or whole communities, and even larger wide-area-grids at sizes that can exceed 100MW.

As Stanton and Nordman (2017) explain

There is an opportunity for all utilities to create value for their stakeholders by enabling and implementing a well-designed energy ladder, meaning a sequence of products and services that leads to increasing well-being for customers that are presently unserved or underserved.

Ideas about requirements for new grid architecture[edit | edit source]

• Upward compatibility in steps forward up the energy ladder
• Downward/backwards compatibility in steps down the energy ladder
• AC/DC interoperability
  • See how far along the eMerge Alliance is in developing standards at each voltage level. https://www.emergealliance.org/standards/our-standards/emerge-technical-standards-hierarchy/
• Affordability and ability to pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) for users at each step of the energy ladder.
  • Report on literature showing that good results at each lower step in the energy ladder can lead to improved health and economic opportunities, which can then lead to increased opportunities to take the next higher step(s) in the energy ladder.
  • PAYGO reports: https://isolaralliance.org/uploads/docs/540dc1da191598c88320bf07b42e8d.pdf, https://www.mercycorps.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/Mercy-Corps-Energy-Access-Approach-2020.pdf, https://gaia-impactfund.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/GAIA-2023_EN_final-web-2.pdf, https://www.aecfafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AECF-Annual-Report-2021-Final-5.9.2022.pdf
• Flexible supplies matched with flexible demands and flexible energy storage.
  • Virtual power plants
• Integrating highly local food/energy/water systems
• Do legal and regulatory structures prevent, or present barriers to, high-efficiency technology options?
  • In fairness, all customers should pay reasonable utility charges to make sure that the grid architecture needed to serve them is adequately maintained and will remain functional. But, customers should also have a reasonable expectation that their energy providers are not spending more than necessary to provide the necessary grid architecture. To the extent that utility companies are not fully engaged in continuous improvement, towards optimizing their own grid architecture, then shareholders (not consumers) should bear the costs associated with building (or overbuilding) less cost efficient resources.
  • The potential alternative to such continuous improvement threatens load defections and/or grid defections, where increasing numbers of consumers will decide to serve themselves without making financial contributions to any grid architecture needed to take maximum advantage of the equipment necessary to serve themselves (and their neighbors).

Appropedia links[edit | edit source]

Other links[edit | edit source]

• Stuart Bruce (Ed.), 2014, Legal Aspects of Sustainable Energy for All -- Legal Resources Database, https://www.academia.edu/7927457
• Search for "Energy Ladder" in (1) SSRN (formerly the Social Science Research Network) https://papers.ssrn.com/. and (2) in key terms used to index research at Academia.edu.
• E. Rettig, I. Fischhendler, and F. Schlecht, "The meaning of energy islands: Towards a theoretical framework," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 187, 2023, 113732, ISSN 1364-0321, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2023.113732.
• Tom Stanton and Eric Nordman, "Regulating ‘Energy Ladder’ Productsand Services -- Delivering Vital Energy Services Using Off-Grid,Mini-Grid, and Micro-Grid Power Systems." The ICER Chronicle 7 (2017), https://www.academia.edu/34590249/The_ICER_Chronicle_Regulating_Energy_Ladder_Products_and_Services
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Grid Architecture -- focusing on structure for deep insight about the grid [Web page, retrieved September 2023), https://www.pnnl.gov/grid-architecture
• U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity, 2022, A System in Transition -- The Influence of Next Generation Technologies, Report for Advanced Grid R&D Division by E9 Insights and Plugged in Strategies, https://www.smartgrid.gov/files/documents/A_system_in_transition_5.13.22.pdf
• U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity, 2019, Applying Grid Architecture to Grid Transformation [Web page, retrieved September 2023], https://www.energy.gov/oe/articles/applying-grid-architecture-grid-transformation
• U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Modernization Initiative, 2017, Grid Architecture [Presentation slides], available at: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/06/f34/System%20Operations,%20Power%20Flow,%20and%20Control%20Posters.pdf
• World Bank, 2022, Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report 2022 -- State of the Sector. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/68035134-9106-52d4-a2a4-3db90cf46947
• World Bank, 2022, Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report 2022 -- Outlook. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/97ae6fbe-3373-5f10-8d3d-a82be5481eca