Last summer a lot of problemsoccurred in Western centralisedpower infrastructures. European

power stations suffered from coolingwater shortages, Nordic hydro plantssuffered from water shortages, whileNorth East America, Italy, Switzerland,London and Sweden suffered frommajor blackouts.All this brought about a public debate on the future energypolicy to protect the current level ofpower supply. Almost every Europeanparliament raised questions about thesecurity of supply and its relationshipwith the liberalisation process. The menace of California-like blackoutscaused many parties involved in thisdebate to return to measures that havebeen successful over the past decades:adding capacity to large-scale powerproduction and transport networks. EUtransport and energy commissionerLoyola de Palacio communicated threelegislative proposals that also involvemeasures favouring large-scale powerproduction. A directive on electricitysupply and infrastructure, a decision on trans-European energy networks(TENs) and a regulation on access to gas transmission networks.

Past and present In the past electricity was supplied bysmall networks with relatively small pro-duction facilities. After the Second WorldWar all these little networks in Americaand Europe evolved, to big (national) net-works, interconnected to even larger sys-tems. The main driving forces for thisdevelopment were the economies ofscale, reducing the high costs of powerplants, and improving the reliability whiledecreasing the need for spinning reservecapacity. Electricity turned into a com-modity, available and affordable foreverybody. Meanwhile the environmentwas better served with higher efficiencyand expensive cleaning technologies. Butalong the way these centralised systemshave proved to be vulnerable. The biggerthe power stations, the greater the threatof a chain reaction as one station fails.Relatively much back-up capacity andheavy transmission lines are needed. Butin a liberalised environment, market play-ers are not very eager to make largeinvestments in power stations and trans-mission lines just for the sake of securityof supply. They even might be better offwith tighter production; surplus capacitydoesn't pay.

The proposed solutions, such as thecreation of a separate market for surpluscapacity, are focusing on the symptomsof the problems. The heart of the matteris that the power market has becomeover-centralised. The conditions in theelectricity market are still too much infavour of centralised supply. Politiciansfall back to technology and policies thatproved to be appropriate in the past.Large multinational utility companiessupport and feed these ideas because ofold reflexes and their high interests intheir large-scale assets. But by interfer-ing in the liberalisation process and byadding preconditions for large-scaletechnologies, the market will lose theadvantages of innovation and flexibilitythat a competitive market can bringabout.

Nowadays electricity is cheap and avail-able for everybody, and reliability andsustainability are new key-drivers for elec-tricity supply. Small-scale technologies arewell equipped to provide these assets.Decentralised energy systems can copewith the increasing electricity demandand they are less vulnerable to largechain reactions when power plants ortransport lines fail. A decentralised ener-gy supply is also better equipped to pro-vide opportunities for renewable energy,which in the end will make Europe lessdependent on fossil fuels. Innovationsand the increasing economy-of-scale (byproduction of large numbers) mean thatsmall scale production becomes competi-tive with large scale systems.Decentralised units also bring the energycloser to the end-consumer. Literally, localunits bring the energy to the end-con-sumer with less transport losses. In ametaphorical way, energy production inthe neighbourhood is expected to causemore awareness at the end-consumer forenergy savings. And here a lot is yet tobe gained.

Moreover, control of decentralisedunits is no longer a problem because ofthe availability of communication, powermanagement and data processing tech-nologies. All this advocates for smallernetworks and power production units -that still will be interconnected.Investments will be considerably lowerand at the same time the reliability ofthe supply will increase. Decentralisedsupply perfectly fits in the aspirations of

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Securityof supplyEnergy security solutions hinder development of sustainable infrastructuresRolf de Vos (editor of Greenprices) and John Baken (man-ager of Ecofys) argue that the European focus on large-scale production and infrastructures to solve problems withthe security of power supply is counterproductive. Insteadof taking the opportunity to go forward and prepareEurope for a future sustainable and reliable power supplyby means of decentralised power production units, it willthrow us back years. Politicians should look forward andchange the conditions in the liberalised market more infavour of decentralisation.

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sustainability; to minimise waste dispos-al, emissions of greenhouse gasses andother harmful emissions. Withoutexcluding fossil fuels and nuclear power,technologies like wind energy, solarpower, bio-energy and other renewablesources will become more and moreimportant. These energy sources willprovide clean energy carriers like elec-tricity and hydrogen, which will be usedby the consumers for their need of light,heat, power and transportation.

DecentralisationRenewable sources ask for a decen-tralised infrastructure. This also holds forthe most energy efficient (and environ-mental friendly) power production fromfossil fuels, the combined production ofheat and power (CHP). CHP technologymakes it possible to deal with local andinstantaneous demand for heating orcooling and perhaps in the near future incombination with the storage of energyin hydrogen. Connection of decen-tralised CHP and sustainable units stillhappens only within the margins of thelarge-scale network. For example windturbines were until recently seen as a

burden for the grid, because of their dis-continuous production. However,because of improved weather predictionsand power management systems, off-shore wind now could be seen as baseload power supply.

At present, consumers who cannotafford power blackouts are buyingstand-by power units on gas or gasoline.Thus the symptoms are treated with avery unsustainable solution. It is there-fore time to discuss the fundamentals ofour power network. Now that the mar-ket itself is reducing the redundant andexpensive over-capacity, the market issearching for a new balance of capacityto fulfil the (peak) demand in a reliable,economically viable and environmentallyfriendly way. Leaving the way of largeutilities with high interests in centralisedproduction and old reflexes gives moreroom to new technologies and innova-tive market players. In order to stimulatethis, politicians should look forward andchange the conditions in the liberalisedmarket more in favour of decentralisa-tion and support investments that pavethe way to a decentralised sustainableenergy supply.

Switching supplyA switch to decentralised supply, if ithappens at all, will take some years.Looking at the current innovations andefforts from some industries (e.g. massproduction of fuel cells is likely to start in2005/2006) a picture evolves of thou-sands of grid-connected small productionunits. This world-wide-energy-web couldconsist of thousands of units feedingelectricity into light, interconnected gridsand provide for the local need for heat.Such a network provides good opportu-nities for wind turbines, solar power, bio-energy, fuel cells, greenhouses andoffices as small power stations, mini andmicro combined heat & power units. Andwhy not use the fuel cells of cars andbuses as power units when parked andconnected to the grid?

This is not a view of the small-is-beau-tiful era of the seventies. It is a view ofan energy supply that has a more prom-ising future than the current large scale,centralised and vulnerable electricitysupply.

Contact: Rolf de Vos, editorGreenPrices.com e-mail: R.deVos@ecofys.nl