The pressure on utilities to derive a greater percentage of their power from renewable sources is increasing globally, with dozens of countries having rolled out targets that encourage various clean-energy initiatives. The European Union’s “20/20/20” plan, for example, calls for a 20-percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, 20-percent reliance on renewable sources for energy consumption and a 20-percent increase in energy efficiency—all by the year 2020.

 

In the United States, it’s the states that regulate electricity at the retail and distribution levels, and most have no such mandates. President Obama’s January “State of the Union” speech, however, challenged the United States by 2035 to generate 80 percent of its electricity from clean sources.

 

“The centerpiece of the Administration’s strategy for creating clean energy markets is the Clean Energy Standard to meet the goal laid out by President Obama in his January 2011 State of the Union Address,” reads the White House's “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future,” released in March. Such a standard would “provide the signal investors need to move billions of dollars of capital off of the sidelines and into the clean energy economy, creating jobs across the country and reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.”

 

The activities in the United States, European Union and other markets around the globe illustrate how politics and economics form key contemporary frontiers of decision-making with regard to renewables and their expanded role in the burgeoning Smart Grid. In fact, the technicalities of bringing renewable sources onto the grid have been debated and defined over decades.

 

In the United States, 1978’s Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) is regarded as the history-making, stake-in-the-ground legislation with regard to establishing how utilities and independent power generators would interact with one another. Other key milestones included IEEE 929, a recommended practice released in 1988 for the grid interconnection of portable photovoltaic systems, and IEEE 1547 “Standard for Distributed Resources Interconnected with Electric Power Systems, released in 2003. Adopted by 80 percent of U.S. state public utility commissions and named in the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, IEEE 1547 addresses maintenance, performance, operation, safety and testing parameters associated with linking any distributed-generation technology to the grid. The standard was reaffirmed by IEEE for five more years in 2010.

 

Standards work continues around renewables interconnection. IEEE P2030 “Draft Guide for Smart Grid Interoperability of Energy Technology and Information Technology Operation With the Electric Power System (EPS), and End-Use Applications and Loads” identifies the standard interfaces on which the Smart Grid can depend for interconnection, including those to large- and small-scale renewables and distributed-generation sources. IEEE P2030 is in IEEE sponsor balloting and on track for finalization this year. And energy storage, hybrid generation-storage systems, intermittent renewables, inverters and plug-in electric vehicles are among the innovations addressed in IEEE P1547.8, which is targeted for ratification in 2012.

 

Ongoing development in interconnection standards—in tandem with political and economic drivers—are carving a greater and greater role for renewables as the Smart Grid rolls out worldwide.

 

Photo by sloopjohnb.