Blackouts like the one in the northeastern United States in August 2003 can incapacitate whole cities and endanger people's lives. A team of researchers and students at UW-Madison invented a device that may become a solution for these kinds of emergencies.
Many buildings, including hospitals and factories, usually have backup generators that maintain critical functions during outages. These generators are usually diesel, which produce high pollution outputs and take about 10 to 15 minutes to start up, according to Robert Lasseter, UW-Madison professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Lasseter and a team of researchers have been developing technology that would not only create a more reliable and more efficient source of power for buildings like these, but also have both the versatility and easy use to possibly be available for markets like small businesses, hotels and apartment buildings.
\I call it plug-and-play,"" said Lasseter. ""I can put [generators] where I want to in the electrical system of the building and they will do the right thing. It's like a plug-and-play computer.""
The ""plug-and-play"" system allows smaller generators to be connected to a microgrid within the building. This microgrid would run continuously and be connected to the large network, like the one that went down in August.
In the event of a blackout, in hours or even a few minutes, the microgrid would be able to ""island"" itself, or disconnect from the main system and function alone, keeping power running to critical machines.
Lasseter said a great advantage to this system is its potential for low pollution output.
The generators used in the microgrid could include micro-turbines, natural-gas-fueled generators the size of a refrigerator. Running these generators, Lasseter said, would produce less emissions than traditional gas or coal-driven power sources.
""We have the lowest carbon [emissions] we can get, we have much lower nitrogen coming out and the sulfur oxide, acid rain, is low when you're using natural gas,"" Lasseter said.
Another advantage, he said, is the improved efficiency of the system. Generators could be placed near machines that could use the generator's waste heat for other functions.
""If we have a need for hot water, we could just put that generator where the need is, and the waste gas can heat up the water,"" Lasseter said. ""You've now pushed the efficiency up from 30 percent to 90 percent.""
But having all of these advantages does not mean the system can be put into a hospital or factory tomorrow. It still has to be tested in a real-world environment, a project that will be done in cooperation with the California Department of Energy. A working microgrid will be built in a test environment to simulate its use in a small factory.
""As we saw last August, the reliability of our power supply is catching up with us,"" said Christopher DeMarco, chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering. ""As a university we've tapped a significant energy development in an era when other universities have backed off. Bob Lasseter's research is a part of that.\
