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National power grid could cut costs and carbon: Study

Doing things like selling electricity from a solar farm in Texas to a household in in a state farther north would be cost-effective — while cutting carbon emissions — if the United States were unified on a single power grid, according to a new study.

A team of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado, Boulder, developed a computer model that designed the most cost-effective systems for delivering electricity across the United States, based on weather, land use and electricity consumption data. They found that an area as large as the United States would be best powered mostly by renewable energy sources linked to a single national electrical grid system. 

Currently, power in the United States flows over a cluster of separate electrical grids that are maintained by many local or regional utilities. Replacing that arrangement with a single grid would allow thecontiguous 48 states to depend more heavily on solar and wind energy and dramatically reduce carbon emissions, while keeping costs low and meeting projected demand increases.

"If you have this large area to trade electricity — because the wind is always blowing somewhere or the sun is shining — you basically get access to areas where wind and solar are cheap, in a national market," said Alexander MacDonald, co-lead author and recently retired director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder.

MacDonald said the study could act as a tool for policymakers, and he likens the idea of a national power grid to the national highway system that was begun during the Eisenhower administration.

"If we set up a national interstate for electrons, we would basically see a transformation to low-carbon energy without an increase in cost. That is what our study shows," MacDonald said.

The group published its findings in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.

Source: Moneycontrol