Reinventing grid infrastructure to serve DC electricity direct to DC appliances
Published: Mon 5 Jul 2021
By Allan Burns, Director, Telemental Ltd.
The mould was set in the late 19th century with AC distribution winning out over direct current (DC) for a variety of scientific, economic and political reasons. And so, we have carried on for 120 years!
However there have been at least two very significant technological inventions which beg a serious re-examination of the world’s electrical ecosystem:
- The invention of semiconductors.
- The rise of renewable DC generation and electrical energy storage.
Semiconductor technology has given us the ability to manage power in more sophisticated ways than could have been envisaged in the 1890s.
We can control and monitor energy distribution with incredible granularity and use machine learning to refine and balance systems spanning continents.
Renewables like photovoltaic (PV) and wind now typically offer the best return on investment to utilities when new generation assets are required.
Battery energy storage is increasingly adopted as a balancing and frequency-response measure.
Homes and businesses incorporating PV, battery-storage or electric vehicles are on the increase and are in fact micro-generators of DC.
Processors requiring DC now inhabit billions of household devices. So, we have two significant outcomes from the inventions listed above:
- Increased availability of DC electricity.
- Increased proliferation of appliances requiring DC not AC.
Which begs two questions:
- Why is our default to change the green DC we generate into AC?
- Why are appliances which can run on DC being designed to run on AC – with an extra transformer in the box?
The 48VDC Realisation Forum has been set up to bring together people and organisations who can examine these questions and tackle the issues which have so far stalled the solutions.
Our principal aims are to:
- Eliminate wasteful transformations between AC and DC.
- Promote adoption of DC distribution in buildings in the on-grid world.
- Help the off-grid world achieve ‘Affordable and Clean Energy’ for all to benefit from environmental and social benefits globally through the implementation of cleaner electricity and safer electrical infrastructure.
To achieve this, we are working with organisations in the on-grid and off-grid worlds. We are reaching out to operators and influencers globally, thought-leaders, standards-setters and producers across the supply chain including:
- Energy - generation and supply.
- Appliances - design and manufacture of all devices which can or do use DC.
- Construction - planning, building and standards.
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