The North American Electricity System includes not only the electrical grid, but also a myriad of organizations that invest in, manage, operate and regulate the grid.  The electrical grid, from energy production, conversion, transmission, and ultimate use is arguably the most complex engineering structure in North America.  It is also becoming obsolete.  Creating a modern Electricity System for North America will require the successful integration of research, technology, policy, regulation, and planning together with adequate human and financial resources to overcome the risk of system collapse resulting from the ever increasing demands. 

We are using the term "Electrical System” to include the entire infrastructure that supplies electricity.This includes not just the transmission grid but also the facilities that convert other forms of energy into electricity as well as the environmental, social, and economic context within which this system operates)

The Energy Futures Network has launched a challenge dialogue - a process for securing alignment, debate and discussion - on the future of the grid. Below we outline the critical issues and encourage your feedback - drop a note to steve.moran@energyfuturesnetwork.com

Background Issues and Events leading to this Challenge: 

1.      The electrification of North America has been identified by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as the “greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century”.   The US electricity delivery system has over $600 billion in assets, larger than either the telecom or automotive industries.  The electricity system is the most important part of our energy infrastructure, providing a multitude of vital services to 450+ million people who form the world’s most integrated economy.  It is a complex system, designed around the paradigm of centralized power generation and built in the last century.  Average age of power plants is nearly 44 years; designs are 1950’s vintage. However, the system’s reliability is under increasing pressure.  Reliability related costs in the US alone are estimated to be $100 billion annually. Reaction to major system outages, growing demand, growing transmission congestion, NIMBY, environmental (local and global) impacts, and attempts at market restructuring are examples of forces that are creating a complex web of change. 

2.      A new modern grid needs to emerge from a pallet of research, technology, regulation, policy, and long-range planning.Significant amounts of financial resources and human ingenuity need to be assembled so as to make this happen.Citizens in three countries, Canada, the United States and Mexico, must co-operate in an integrated fashion.Initial efforts to tackle this challenge have blossomed in the past five years, all in the US, as shown in the following list of such initiatives:

3.     The fact that there are so many new initiatives is reflective of the challenge as well; the grid is a collective of many actors with no one “in charge”.A newly formed ad hoc group,Grid Modernization Collaborative, is attempting to “corral” these new efforts.In Europe, the EU Commission created theSmartGrid vision in 2004. Within Canada, I am not aware of any formal grid modernization efforts, but no doubt they exist in some form.The Canadian Electricity Association, for example, issued a white paper in March 2006 outlining a view that future investment in electricity infrastructure must be undertaken from a North American (i.e. integrated) perspective.The National Energy Board just released a discussion paper on alternative power generation technologies.This indicates awareness but I think the grid modernization challenge is very low on the Canadian agenda.

4.The existence of all these initiatives focusing on the issue of “grid renewal” allows two interpretations.

(a) The topic is already adequately addressed and any new conversation would only muddy the waters, or

(b) Many of these efforts are narrowly focused from the perspective of one set of stakeholders, e.g. the power generation industry, or are strongly US centric and therefore consider the Canadian context only peripherally or not at all.

5.  In this second view, a new conversation, that is whole system oriented and grounded in Canada, but with a North American perspective and participation, would add significant value to the debate.

6.      There are 3 major electrical interlinks between Canada into the United States, (1) British Columbia and Alberta are members of WECC and are interlinked with western states, most prominently California.  (2) Manitoba interconnects with the American grid through Minnesota, and (3) Ontario and Quebec are strongly tied into the eastern United States. 

7.      Although each of these interlinks presently operates more or less independently, the issues facing each region are sufficiently similar that a Pan-Canadian approach is appropriate.

Specific Issues:

It is clear that this is a highly complex topic consisting of very many specific issues.  The list below identifies but a few of the specific issues that lead us to conclude that this forum is timely.  Clearly, if we are to make any substantive progress in addressing the larger concern of modernizing the electricity system, one of the critical tasks of an initial dialogue will be to focus the conversation on a small number of specific issues.

1. Impacts of the newly created Electricity Reliability Organization (ERO), formerly NERC, based in Washington DC Integration of large-scale intermittent renewables (wind, tidal,..) Integration of distributed generation Opportunities and challenges of power flow measurement for intelligent control Transmission congestion and solutions in the context of NIMBY. What is future potential of hydro electric power generation? How can nuclear power be integrated into the mind-set of society?
2. What are the prospects for near-zero emission fossil fuel plants?

3. Success and failure of market restructuring and/or demand-side management.

4. Impact and synergy of the electrification of transportation (e.g. plug-in hybrids)

5. Design of cities and their impact on future electricity demand

6. Electricity storage: the neglected element in the electricity value chain

7. Where will the human capital come from?  Educating and training the next generation before the current work force retires.

8. Where will the capital resources come from? (Big miss-match in typical utility capitalization and scale on necessary investment)

Assumptions Driving the Forum:

EFN intends to launch a forum event focused on the grid and the issues we pose here sometime early in 2008.

1.The electricity grid infrastructure’s role in our modern society is poorly understood and under valued by most citizens and their decision makers. However, this same infrastructure helps to deliver health care (energizes hospitals) but it requires intrusive infrastructure and emits greenhouse gases—all current political issues.Assume we are starting at a very low level of appreciation by stakeholders and decision makers.

2.Electricity flows north and south in North America (like soft wood lumber); not east-west, like the Trans Canada Highway. Most citizens don’t think about this.Assume the Forum to be from a Canadian perspective of a North American issue; hence we need to connect with our US colleagues.

3.The electricity delivery system is a huge, complex system with many unrecognized interactions and connections.(E.g. each jurisdiction in North America that has sought to deregulate their electricity system has discovered unanticipated consequences because they didn’t fully understand the system.)The effort to modernize the electricity delivery system will require the participation of a broad range of stake-holders from across the entire economic, social, political and geographic spectrum.

4.A forum of concerned knowledgeable people that is prepared to seek opportunities for action, not just talk, can actually make a difference in moving this agenda forward.

7.  IESVic can co-host the Grid 21 Forum with Energy Futures Network and provide the coordination locally (provided sufficient $$ resources)

 Expected Outcomes of the Forum: 

(1)  The establishment of a collaborative initiative to identify and make substantive progress on modernization of the western Canadian electricity system. 

(2) Initiation of dialogue involving stakeholders in central and eastern Canada to enable this Canadian based conversation to become truly national.

(3) Alignment around taking action on a small set of key priority issues with individuals committed to provide leadership to move them ahead

Next Steps and Critical Question:

The next steps in this preliminary dialogue are as follows:

1. Respond to the feedback questions using the attached Feedback Form. Send your responses to srmoran@aol.com

2. Include with your feedback the names and contact information for other people that you think would be interested in the proposed dialogue. (Please feel free to share this document your colleagues yourself.)  The design of this conversation is to begin an inquiry with you and a small number of other people that we consider likely to be interested or intrigued with this challenge. We ask you indicate to us others of your colleagues that you think would also have an interest in participating in the dialogue. Assuming that through the feedback to this initial inquiry we find that there is interest in pursuing a dialogue on the topic of renewal of the electricity system, we will launch a broader dialogue with the entire community, likely in the fall.