At present, almost all our electricity comes from big power stations that feed into the national grid. The electricity is then distributed downwards through a system of descending voltages.
It is all top-down. And it is basically the same system that was set up in the 1940s and 1950s.
But we are now entering a new age in which this top-down system is going to be transformed into something much more like an electricity internet. With “smart meters” in very house, a “smart grid” and plug-in hybrid electric cars with on board “smart technology”, we are going to have a much more interactive and responsive modern network.
Instead of just sending electricity down from on high to meet customer demand, the machinery in our homes and our cars will be programmed so that we can enable it to take electricity from the system at times of the day when electricity is plentiful and cheap – whether to recharge a car or keep the freezer frozen – but to switch off (or even in the case of cars, to deliver electricity into the system) when there is a sudden shortage and prices go high.
One component of this new electricity internet will be a huge increase in the number of households that make some of their own electricity – diminishing the need for big power stations and completing the picture of an interactive system that is no longer just pumping electricity down the wire to the home.
The advantages, if we can get all of this up and running during the next decade, are huge. As well as saving energy on a large scale and saving carbon emissions too, we can provide more energy security through a system that is more resilient and less exposed to global variations in the supply and price of oil and gas.
But – as Scandinavian countries and Germany have shown – to get over the hump and make this new electricity internet a reality, we need a clear system of “feed-in tariffs”, so that people who instal low carbon micro-generation (whether solar or ground source heat pumps or micro-combined heat and power or small wind turbine) can receive a pre-determined payment for each kilo watt hour of electricity they generate. Those of us who began agitating for a system like this some years ago are now delighted to see that this is a matter of political consensus – and, while there are lots of arguments raging about the details of the “feed-in tariffs” now being introduced, the big thing at this stage is to move forward, and get the new arrangements in place. We can then all see how effective they are in bringing forward micro-generation – and make adjustments as necessary over coming years.