DistGen - Market analysis for miniGRID (Controller for managing diverse local energy supplies and consumer demand)

由于各种环境、社会和经济原因，人们越来越意识到可再生能源生产的重要性，因为来自化石燃料的电力变得越来越昂贵和稀缺。由于沙特阿拉伯、利比亚、伊拉克和伊朗等主要生产国自身的社会经济环境不可预测，化石燃料的供应越来越不可预测。此外，来自国家电网的能源的成本和可靠性越来越受到质疑--它需要昂贵的升级，而且没有可持续的计划这样做。因此，许多当地社区开始使用各种能源生产。通常，来自国家电网的电力由当地可再生能源补充，太阳能电池板、风力涡轮机、地热和水电设施提供的能源。我们DistGen的想法是，这种多样化的本地能源生产设施需要由本地计算机控制的设备来管理，以便实时管理各种可用的本地能源，并满足当地消费者的需求。我们将这种设备称为半自主微型网格控制器或SMC。我们不相信这样的设备存在于这种规模，以满足当地社区的需求，但我们认为，这种规模最适合社区采取相关和适当的行动来解决这些关键问题。该项目显然是创新的，因为目前还没有这种规模的商业设备可用，显然，该项目在英国和国外都有直接的环境、社会和经济效益。我们的目标是使社区能够以综合的方式部署一系列当地能源生产，以便能够有效和高效地部署各种当地设施。如果没有像SMC这样的设备，每个当地社区将不得不解决当地需求和供应的整合。

There is an increasing awareness that renewable energy production is important, for a widerange of environmental, social and economic reasons, as electricity from fossil fuels gets evermore expensive and scarce. Since key producer countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq andIran have unpredictable socio-economic circumstances of their own, the supply of fossil fuelsis increasingly unpredictable. Furthermore, the cost and reliablity of energy from the nationalgrid is increasingly called into question - it needs expensive upgrading and there is nosustainable plan to do so.As a result, many local communities are beginning to use a variety of energy productionsources. Typically electricity from the national grid is being supplemented by local renewableenergy from solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal and hydro facilities. We at DistGen havean idea that this diverse range of local energy production facilities needs to be managed by alocal computer-controlled device, in order to manage in real-time the various local energysources that are available and to match local consumer demand.We call this device the Semi-autonomous miniGRID Controller or "SmC".We do not believe that such a device exists at this scale which addresses the needs of a localcommunity, and yet we believe that this is the scale that is best suited to communities takingrelevant and appropriate action to address these critical matters for themselves.This project is clearly innovative as there is no such device commercially available presentlyat this scale, and obviously the project has direct environmental, social and economic benefitsin the UK and abroad.Our objective is to enable communities to deploy a range of local energy production in anintegrated way, so that diverse local facilities can be deployed effectively and efficiently.Without a device such as the SmC each local community will have to solve this integration oflocal demand and supply for themselves.