Traditional power grids rely on large, centralized power plants that generate electricity and send it out over long distances to consumers. This system can be inefficient, with energy lost during transmission. Distributed power generation (DG) flips this concept on its head. 

US National Security

After watching a documentary about the war in Ukraine, it was obvious that we have to rethink our power generation and distribution. The world is more insecure than it was a few years ago and centralized power generation systems tend to concentrate risk in a few key areas, while distributed systems aim to spread it out. In this article, we will focus on the differences and why we should take a bit of time and build the South Carolinian power generation, transmission, and distribution in a future-proof way and not just rush forward. 

Thinking about Energy Bill 5118, regardless of the feedstock being Sun, Wind, Solar, Gas, or Biomass, the bill stands for a centralized old view and, not the decentralized generation philosophy.

Centralized Systems:

Single Point of Failure: A major power plant or transmission line failure can cause widespread blackouts, impacting a large number of people.

Security Vulnerabilities:  Centralized systems are attractive targets for cyberattacks or physical attacks. If successful, such attacks can disrupt power delivery to a large region.

Cascading Failures:  A problem in one part of a centralized system can overload or damage other parts, leading to cascading failures that take much longer to recover from.

Distributed Systems:

More Resilient:  With distributed generation,  a failure at one location has a lesser impact because other DG units can pick up the slack. This redundancy makes the system more resilient to outages.

Safer from Widespread Attacks:  Since there’s no single point of attack, a cyber or physical attack on a distributed system would have a more localized impact.

Limited Cascading Failures:  The smaller scale of DG units makes it less likely that a problem in one will cascade and bring down the entire system.

However, distributed systems also have some risk considerations:

Complexity of Management:  Coordinating and managing a large number of dispersed generators can be more complex than a centralized system.

Variable Sources:  Renewable DG sources like solar and wind are dependent on weather conditions, which can introduce some variability in power generation.

Integration Challenges:  Integrating a high amount of variable renewable DG sources into the grid can require additional infrastructure and control systems to maintain stability.

Overall, distributed power generation offers a more risk-resilient approach compared to centralized systems. However, managing the complexity and variability of these systems is an ongoing challenge.

What is the situation in South Carolina?
We seem to have increased our capacity by 9 GW, if we build this in a Giga plant we should expect to lose app 4-500 MW in transmission and distribution. If we distributed the generation locally, we could potentially save our need for generation by a couple of hundred megawatts. 

More importantly, the local footprint of a power plant would be lower since the plants would be smaller, they would generate jobs all over our state and the transportation could be reduced since we wouldn’t have to transport materials to one central point. We would also have a more secure system that could withstand weather and attacks of all kinds in a better way than a central system would.

Wo what’s the negative consequence? 

We would have to mass produce the power plants, which is not done today. Is this possible, absolutely, the equipment already exists and in parts of the world, this is already happening but, not in the US. It is time for South Carolina to lead the US development and show the rest of America how this will improve the US National Security. If we use The Oaktree’s technology, we will also improve the CO2 emissions, and increase and improve our food production as well as forestry.