ENERGY POLITICS
ENERGY IS INFRASTRUCTURE
In most nations the national grid is state owned and operated and has the obligation to connect each power generation plant to the national grid. In Holland this leads to a situation that power companies build huge coal fired plants far away from the cities and demands that the huge capacity transport lines to the cities will be build by the government. This is once again an example of the wrong 'privatizing profits, socializing costs' development of wrong corporatism. And even more strange: these coal focused power companies doesn't understand that coal will become the most expensive power fuel: Coal exploration gets more expensive each year. China is taking online each 14 days a new mega coal fired power plant. The coal market situation will be changed by the cost of exploration, transport and cleaning and the market mechanism of supply/demand severely. Energy infrastructure is a crucial facet in energy supply. First: Local grid operators should be independent and dedicated to two way power traffic. The right to deliver power to the grid should be guaranteed by legislation. No local grid operator should have the right to refuse return delivery. The local grid is a (semi) governmental task (as it is a monopoly and should be non discriminatory). The more actual decentral concept of / vision for / design of the grid. as replacement of the old mainly central generated distribution concept of / vision for / design of the grid. Second: The price of the connection to the local grid should not be socialized (as this will deliver parasitism by design). Third: The price power and the price of transport should be variable, determined by the market and available in XML data. This will give power a live price, which will be the basic concept behind intelligent power use/generation model for households and industries. Households their computers will start dish washers, boilers and washing machines based on this data. Industries will go to energy price based operation schedules for energy intensive processes (the aluminium industry already does this: operating at night on cheap power). Fuel based power generation will only be active when the prices are high (as they have the fuel cost too). Forth: The infrastructural connections between remote power generating locations and local/regional/national grids should be commercial. This takes out the political facet of it, making it a politic independent business model. Power lines and politics is asking for trouble, power lines and business is asking for steady operation regardless possible politic turbulences. The market are better than governments in demand recognizing and actual demand fulfilment by supply realization. Grids interconnecting power lines will operated commercial by an auction based model. Local, regional, national and continental governments could stimulate the realization of these grids connecting powerlines by the finance supporting tools as described in the Energy Finance paper of Planck Foundation. By this the can hedge themselves (their own operations) also against sharp rising energy prices. Local grids will be separate identities and will produce digital analytic data for the grid users. Regional grids will be separate identities and will produce digital analytic data for the connected local grids. Power will become more and more a local focused phenomenon. Power will be on the agenda of each city counsel. Power line redundancy in the year reports of each municipal. Energy is Infrastructure is a very valid statement.
Author: Gijs Graafland
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