April 26, 2002—FMLink was a co-sponsor of The 6th Annual Distributed Generation and On-Site Power Conference, recently held in Atlanta, GA. The conference served as a means for many FMs to stay on top of the evolving distributed generation (DG) issues that may directly affect electricity costs and reliability opportunities in the near future. The conference leader was Ken Dee of Global Energy Solutions.
Across the US, electric restructuring rules are being debated and instituted by the Federal and State legislatures, and public utility commissions. Widespread outages in the critical pockets of the grid, as well as concerns of security and the ability to protect the grid and power plants have added to the debate of distributed generation versus traditional generation resources.
The conference focused on the following key issues:
- TECHNOLOGICAL
Most of the presenters on the individual technologies stated improved efficiencies, reduced emissions while decreasing capital and operating costs over time. Specifically, advancement of technologies in photovoltaics; micro-turbines; fuel cells; flywheels, ultra-capacitors and windmills were noted. Some of the ongoing technical issues included grid connection; dispatchability; systems protection; load interactions and control tools. - LEGISLATION & REGULATION
Speakers discussed Federal and state incentive programs and tax initiatives as well as the EPAct, FERCs order 888/889. Clean Air Act Amendments, reliability standards and interconnectivity standards were also on the agenda. - ECONOMICS & COMPETITIVE MARKETS
Will McNamara of SCIENTECH stated that the Department of Energy (DOE) projects DG will account for 10 to 20 percent of new generating capacity in by 2010. Over time, costs will be driven down across all types of Distributed Resources, but its “locational value” will continue to be the main economic factor.Some of the main concerns were the higher initial cost of some technologies and how to determine localized costs, localized benefits, and value of service. Convergence of electric industry restructuring and natural gas industry restructuring were also discussed.
- RELIABILITY & QUALITY According to some of the speakers at the conference, virtually 100 percent reliability can be realized with DG applications. Art Mannion of Sure Power Corporation stated that FMs can reduce probability of power failure to over “six 9s” with DG. Defining the real costs of down time was also discussed.
