Electricity and The Grid Back to PSC 320 Main Website
Monday’s Class : The Electrical Grid
Before Class
- “The Grid” is the interconnected electricity generating facilities that carries this electrical power to all the consumers. The internet is to information as the grid is to electrical power. Read about it on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
- Please watch Electrical Grid video and see Grid Slides.
- Learn about how electricity is purchased with the video Electricity Markets and see slides from first part of Markets/Crisis/Smart Grid
- Slides from Lecture 9 on Grid and Electricity Markets
- Remember Gapminder.org ? Please see this popular video by the recently deceased Hans Rosling.
- Consider joining Engineers for a Sustainable World (even if you are not an engineer).
Here’s what I had on the PPT today: Big Exam! #3:
1) I use a 100 W motor for 20 minutes. How much electrical energy did I use? How much did it cost? How much CO2 is produced if the electricity was generated from burning coal? NGCC?
2) Difference between Cogen / Combined cycle.
3) What is AC? Why do we have AC? Why do we have transformers? How does a transformer work?
During Class
Hand in PS #3
After Class
Wednesday’s Class
Before Class
- ADDED LATE (posted under a blood, blue moon)!!! Please read a short energy excerpt from Trump’s State of the Union Address.
- See video: California Energy Crisis and the Smart Grid with slides from grid video.
- What is “the internet of things”, and what might it have to do with “smart grid”?
- * You MUST** check out the California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) Webpage VERY IMPORTANT. In particular:
- Go to the “Today’s Outlook” and see the past and projected demand (consumption) of electricity in California.
- Consider what is the average electric power per California person.
- Check out today’s demand, and compare it to the “hour ahead” forecast and the “day ahead” forecast. Do they predict the demand pretty well? Why do you think this is important?
- Then click on “Supply” link and see what the different sources of electricity are.
- I posted (rudimentary) solutions to PS #3 on the main class website.
- What portion of our electricity is from wind, solar, and other sources? How about yesterday? Do you see a day coming when we will have excess renewable electricity? What time of day and time of year will this be? Is there a time when we will need to ramp up conventional facilities really quickly?
- Take a look at these articles… you can read them briefly or intensely as you like, but certainly make sure you understand the California Duck Curve and what we are doing to mitigate the challenges to stabilize the grid with increasing renewable energy. Read The Duck Has Landed. Here’s a more recent article April 24, 2017… the Duck is Underwater! Consider the question, “what is the marginal electricity at 9 PM? in the middle of the day? Is it ever nuclear.
- I updated solutions to PS#3 at 3:45 PM Wednesday.
During Class
- Discuss all this stuff and prepare for Midterm.
After Class
- Prepare
Friday: Activity Section: Midterm #1
Hey, check out the table I found with regard to our discussion of criteria pollutants in different fuels:
Note that natural gas is way purer than coal and oil.
Friday: Peak Oil
Before Class
- PS#4 posted, get it started!
- Please see Peak Oil and the Peak Oil Slides
- Please see Getting Tight Oil and Gas and the Tight Oil Slides
- Please read Fracking and Earthquakes NPR
- January 2018 sinking of oil tanker
- NPR new reserve found Haas publication of fracking and learn by doing
- US Gasoline Consumption Back Up Again
- Keep it in the Ground NPR 2018, the Response of the American Petroleum Institute
- Trump administration is opening up new off shore drilling – except in Florida because of the importance to tourism… What about California?
During Class
After Class