When folk think of power plants, they often imagine huge, thundering coal stations puffing smoke, or a nuclear one many fear. Nowadays of course, we view coal power stations with suspicious eyes too. How much longer will they threaten our children’s future with impunity, we wonder. However, there’s a new hope arising in the form of virtual power plants. That’s because they may be small, but they have a mighty big potential.
The Distributed Energy Resources We Call Virtual Power Plants
Massive generating engines feeding vast distribution grids, and servicing millions of homes has been the old normal far too long. This system can waste up to 10% of its energy in long distance load losses. Moreover, the long transmission lines are hugely expensive too.
Virtual power plants do away with these inefficiencies by generating the electricity on the site that uses it. This could be at an industrial property, or the people down the road in the neighborhood where we live. These devices use distributed solar arrays feeding smart storage batteries. The sunlight enters the system where it converts to energy the user experiences as electricity.
This Sounds So Real Why Do You Call It Virtual?
The word ‘virtual’ means almost or nearly but not completely as described. The distributed model is emerging around us; however we wouldn’t want the folk in conventional power generation to become confused.
This new approach is hugely important because it could generate more power than the owners of the virtual power plants consume. Therefore we might have to eventually start throttling back, once everybody was on board. Do virtual power plants sound like fantasy to you? We are more inclined to see them as a green energy solution.
These modern wonders could reduce the user’s energy costs to virtually zero after they break even, and produce an income too. Now that’s an opportunity that’s ‘virtually’ impossible to resist.
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