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16 MICROPOWER: THE NEXT ELECTRICAL ERA HOT LITTLE NUMBERS 17 TABLE 1 Typical Power Plant Scales, United States, 1980–2000 Type Average scale Nuclear plant, 1980 Coal plant, 1985 Gas turbine, combined-cycle plant, 1990–2000 Single-cycle gas turbine, 2000 Industrial cogeneration plant, 2000 Wind turbine, 2000 Microturbine, 2000 Residential fuel cell, 2000 Household solar panel, 2000 (kilowatts) 1,100,000 600,000 250,000 150,000 50,000 1,000 50 7 3 Source: See endnote 30. point of use. Writes Hirsh, “In this so-called distributed utility network—somewhat of a throwback to the days of industrial self-generation in the 1900s—consumers reduced their dependence on regulated utilities and derived valuable benefits.”31 While electric power systems did not evolve uniformly in modern industrial economies, the pattern of events in the United States, and in other nations discussed here, generally held true elsewhere. Over the course of the twentieth centu- ry, large-scale electric power systems quickly gained, and then just as quickly lost, momentum as they exploited their economies of scale and subsequently reached limits to them. The bigger-is-better ideology that had become widely accept- ed within the industry and reached its apex in the 1970s would become so discredited by the end of the 1990s that even utility spokespersons acknowledged that “the era of big is certainly over.” Indeed, a new electrical era had begun, one that was in many respects bringing Edison’s original vision back into focus—and acquiring a momentum of its own.32 Hot Little Numbers Electricity’s downsizing is just getting under way. Advances in metallurgy, synthetic materials, electronics, and other scientific fields are contributing to the rapid devel- opment of ever-smaller power technologies. They span a wide array of innovations, ranging from improved internal combustion engines to generators that rely on electrochem- ical, photoelectric, hydrological, biological, and geological processes.33 Micropower technologies remain expensive when com- pared directly with conventional systems on the narrow basis of installation costs; some can cost up to five times as much to install. As they enter expanding market niches, however, they are expected to move steadily down the “learning” or “experience” curve along which increases in mass production lower technologies’ unit costs, making fur- ther production expansion economically feasible. Mass pro- duction of single-cycle gas turbines, for example, drove down the technology’s cost per kilowatt from $1,200 in the mid-1950s to less than $400 by 1981. (See Figure 1.) Today, single-cycle and combined-cycle gas turbines dominate glob- al power markets, with more than 64 gigawatts of engine capacity ordered between mid-1998 and mid-1999—twice the previous 12-month total. Similar curves, well demon- strated with microwave ovens and toasters, can also be expected from the micropower systems, which are suited to mass production.34 The definition of micropower technologies applies here to systems of less than 10 megawatts, or 10,000 kilowatts, in size. At this scale, the unit need not be connected directly to high-voltage transmission systems, but can instead bePDF Image | Micropower: The Next Electrical Era
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