Friendly Energy Sources: Micro power, standards and innovation

2002-10-14

Environmentalists have dreamed of it for decades—producing electricity on a small scale using the sun, wind, hydrogen and other environmentally friendly energy sources.

Now, innovative "micro" power technologies are a reality as can be seen in products such as solar-powered highway emergency phones, refrigerator-size generators and buses that operate on hydrogen fuel cells.

And standards are helping to ensure that Canadians can plug in to this promise of clean, abundant energy.

Close to home

"Micro power" refers to the generation of small amounts of electricity from renewable sources close to where it's used. That eliminates the need for both traditional generating stations powered by coal, oil, hydro or nuclear power, and transmission grids to deliver that power.

Generating electricity this way can have the following advantages:

• providing reliable service in remote communities;
• producing clean, renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
• meeting unique needs related to the Canadian climate, as in the case of wind turbines that can withstand extreme cold; and
• creating jobs through the development of global markets for these technologies.

Micro power advocates don't plan to replace the traditional electrical grid, however. In fact, the grid is part of one of micro power's greatest advantages: the ability to feed unused electricity from micro generators back into the main grid, supplementing the supply of energy from traditional sources. As we'll see, this "interconnection" represents micro power's greatest promise and some of its biggest hurdles.

Around the world

The worldwide demand for energy is expected to grow by 50 per cent over the next 20 years. A lot of this increased demand will come from developing countries where two billion people do not have access to electricity.

Micro power can help meet this demand. Potential markets include parts of Africa and other remote areas, where distance, climate or economics make it difficult to install or use transmission lines or traditional generating systems.

Micro power is already thriving in Europe, partly because petroleum-based fuel costs there are three to four times more than in Canada and the U.S. Here and in other parts of the world where fossil fuels are relatively abundant and inexpensive, however, micro power technologies have been adopted more slowly.

Nearly two thirds of the world's electricity is still being generated from fossil fuels, with renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro power accounting for about half the remainder. That picture could change, however, as declining resources make fossil fuels more expensive to obtain and environmental commitments such as the Kyoto Accord come to discourage their use.

At home

In Canada, there is a large potential market for micro power, especially in the residential and small commercial sectors. The use of alternative sources of electrical energy already has deep roots in this country. Wind power, for example, was harnessed in windmills on farms located beyond the reach of electrical distribution systems for many years before rural electrification in the 1950s and 1960s. In the solar power industry, one of the earliest applications, dating back to the 1960s, was Canadian satellites.

Shaping the future

Standards are essential to the future of micro power for all stakeholders-utilities, independent power producers, users and equipment manufacturers. By helping to meet needs for safety, quality power, lower costs, uniform regulations and education, standards will ultimately encourage use of these technologies.

"In Canada, we need a common guideline to facilitate the installation of small, privately-owned power suppliers on the main electrical grid so that they can use power from the grid when they need it and sell power back to the grid when they have a surplus," says Tony Flood, Chair of the MicroPower Connect (MPC) technical committee that is developing a Canadian interconnection guideline.

MPC is a collaborative effort of Electro-Federation Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Industry Canada to support the alternative energy industry. MPC technical committee members represent all sectors of the industry including power suppliers, equipment manufacturers, regulators and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). Its guideline, Canadian Guideline for Interconnection of Residential and Small Commercial Power Sources, is expected to be published in the first quarter of 2003. It's designed to facilitate development of a national interconnection standard by CSA.

Consistency, safety and quality

The MPC guideline addresses the need for consistent manufacturing and installation requirements across the country. As Vice-President of Engineering with ARISE Technologies Corporation—a Kitchener, Ontario company that makes, distributes and installs solar-powered technologies—Pat Cusack is familiar with these issues. "Standards assure both the public and regulatory bodies that products meet recognized safety requirements and will perform as specified. They also provide consistency across Canada so that individual utilities do not have to develop their own standards. This is extremely important to ensure that the same product has broad acceptance, and can therefore be of good quality and a low cost. Imagine the cost of supplying a different product specifically engineered for each utility."

Among the other issues to be covered in the guideline are:

• the need for a stable distribution system, despite the fact that power is entering and leaving the grid at numerous points;
• maintenance and repair protocols that take into account the fact that, unlike the traditional system, there's no single point where power to the entire system can be cut off; and
• production of consistently high-quality AC current from all suppliers.

In the long-term, a consistent interconnected system will help make micro power industries more viable so they can sell more power and attract investment. To maximize the benefits for Canada, it's important that the MPC guideline and corresponding CSA standard are harmonized to the maximize extent possible with similar international and North American documents.

Internationally, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is in the early stages of dealing with interconnection. A recommendation will soon be made to expand an existing IEC technical committee's scope so it can become the system approach committee for the operation of transnational electrical supply systems, with interconnection guidelines for distributed energy being part of the expanded scope. This recommendation by the IEC Standardization Management Board (SMB) Working Group on Services is to be discussed at the SMB meeting in Beijing in late October.

Innovation

Staying fresh and ahead of the competition is very much linked to standards development activities for ARISE. ARISE participates on the IEC technical committee on photovoltaics (IEC TC 82), the International Energy Agency (IEA)—Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (SHC) Task 28 on Sustainable Solar Housing, as well as CSA committees. "Efforts to ensure that Canadian standards are reciprocal with U.S. and international standards mean we can export our products, while importing products from other countries which are safe to use in Canada," says Mr. Cusack. "This reduces costs while allowing us to search out the best products in the world for our customers, products which could not be developed solely for the Canadian market. Our participation in international standards efforts allows us to see what is best and worst from around the world and develop better, safer products as a result."

Standards also need to reflect the technological state of the art and the unique needs of smaller power systems. Requirements for large industrial units may be unreasonably strict when applied to micro power equipment. Outdated rules may be over-rated and therefore more costly.

Mr. Cusack says, for example, that requirements for micro generation equipment, including static inverters to convert DC power from suppliers to AC power, should not be based on large generators. These generators tend to be water wheel turbines or steam, gas turbo- or diesel electric generators. "These systems have large mechanical inertia and lots of inductance. Many issues that result from the equipment simply do not apply to modern static inverter systems. In some cases, for example in the Canadian Electrical Code section 84, rule 26, disconnection means requirements are specified. This makes sense for high voltage systems which don't have certified product available because they are over 750 volts. On small systems which interconnect at 120 or 240 volts, the same requirements are not applicable in many people's opinion."

The latest edition of CSA C22.2 No. 107.1-01, General Use Power Supplies, published in September 2001, helps to meet the special needs of micro power systems, through requirements for:

• utility-interconnected static inverters with a rated output not exceeding 600 volts to connect small and medium power suppliers to a utility or the grid; and
• equipment to convert light to DC power in photovoltaic (solar) systems, including rooftop designs.

This sort of innovation doesn't mix with the prescriptive nature of some standards, which specify how equipment is to be designed and constructed. Fortunately, such standards are in the minority these days. "Standards that are performance-based, which includes most Canadian and IEC standards," says Mr. Cusack, "allow for a great deal of innovation to come up with new solutions to meet the performance requirements."

Acceptance

In addition to helping to make existing technologies part of the electricity supply, standards are helping to promote the growth and acceptance of new ones. One promising new area is hydrogen fuel cells. Fuel cells produce electricity silently and without combustion. Hydrogen fuel, produced from water electrolysis or obtained from natural gas or methanol, is combined with oxygen from the air in the fuel cell to produce electricity and heat, with water vapour as the only by-product.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has established a technical committee on hydrogen technologies (ISO TC 197) to develop standards to control how hydrogen is used and stored. Canada plays a leading role in this effort, holding both the chair of the committee and the secretariats of the committee and several of its working groups. The standards developed by the committee are expected to reassure the public and contribute to acceptance of this technology.

A technical committee on fuel cell technologies (IEC TC 105) has been established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to prepare international standards for all fuel cell applications. Canada also holds the chair of this committee and actively participates on the IEC committee and related working groups. Standards developed under IEC TC 105 are intended to prevent conflicting national requirements and cover the needs of all parties involved.

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This article first appeared in Volume 29 of CONSENSUS Magazine, 2002. The information it contains was accurate at the time of publication but has not been updated or revised since, and may not reflect the latest updates on the topic. If you have specific questions or concerns about the content, please contact the Standards Council of Canada.

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