1:20 pm Oct 17 2009 area B

 Facilitated by Duncan Kinney.  10 participants

In Jan 2009 Alberta legislated that if you generate energy, the Utility must pay you for that. (flat kWh rate same as when you consume)

Feed-in tariffs:  Utility pays you extra (some cents / kWh) if you produce power, and in turn the "average user" pays for that.

ROI = return on investment 

comment: currently there is no accounting for the social cost of power generation (by any given method)

carrot & stick...

e.g. from BC - green producer gets paid more than what BC hydro can sell it for... could lead to problem if program is successful.

e.g. from Spain - had an aggressive feed-in tariff policy, recently stepped back a bit. 

question: can a community of producers transmit back "up" through the transformer? (consensus = yes)

Edmonton has good solar potential.  Alberta foothills have very good wind potential.

Sterling engine = heats your house AND can produce electricity.

smart meters (bidirectional) count electricity going to & from your house. 

infrastructure does not include batteries (in this scenario), therefore we still need a grid.

The grid cost is currently billed as your fixed costs / connection costs.

argument: producing own power and still paying for connection, you will be paying more.  True, if looking at $ then it is not "economical".  comment: we must include the big picture "costs", then this might make sense.

argument: power providers don't want to encourage conservation. counter argument: ...

time-of-use pricing:  This currently happens on the generation side of the grid via the power pool.  Could be beneficial if customers are billed at variable price (instead of fixed price).

Smart grid might not make things cheaper for us, but provides for ability to watch your consumption & price, and decide when you want (for example) to run your appliances. 

prediction: we are moving to metered billing (time of day variable pricing)

Think of Google... it seems free.  They make money by enabling their advertising function.  If utilities adopt that model, it may be better for all (though, not necessarily cheaper).  If some of us become generaters, you could go off grid (IF you store your energy), or stay on the grid.

So if you don't have your own energy storage you need the grid and pay its connection costs.

Solar electric efficiency... over time this technology is still improving.

Solar hot water can capture more energy per sq m. than solar electric panels do.

question:

assertion: coal CCS price will go up... they would need to burn 30% more to compress CO2 for storage.

CCS = carbon capture & storage

read Chris Turner - Alberta views, August 2009 issue.

Alberta is uniquely positioned to grow the local production (solar etc)

there are smart appliances  (kill-a-watt, TED) to monitor your power

(Alberta) Bill 19: 

(Alberta) Bill 50:

in Edmonton, project Red (rezoning... what else?...) to deal with solar access issues (e.g prevent neighbor from blocking your sunlight) 

Other dynamics: price of natural gas.  Where in the province will the next Nat.Gas electric plant be built? (makes planned transmission lines unneccessary?)

assertion: If distributed power catches on, there would be generally less need for long distance transmission. 

LINKS:  gigaohm network has a cleantech site.   Follow smartgrid and duncankinney on twitter.  Energy Club at ualberta.ca http://www.ualberta.ca/~energyua