Distributed Production

Why Distributed Production? What is Distributed Production?

Today, developed countries use fossil fuels for most of their energy needs; through large-scale and central energy generation facilities that benefit from the potential energy of water or benefit from nuclear energy. Although these facilities produce bright figures in terms of production efficiency; they often need long power transmission lines to transmit the generated energy to residential units and industrial facilities, which causes transmission losses.

In addition, in the selection of places where electrical power generation facilities will be established; many factors arising from economic, medical, geographical, political and security concerns are taken into account.

For example, if you want to create The structure of a hydroelectric power plant should be built on a stream with properties that can carry it, but the geological and ecological structure of the region and the effects on the lives of people living in the region should be taken into account on a social scale. These and similar situations remain a natural frontier in front of energy production.

Moreover, due to the increasing environmental sensitivity today; Carbon dioxide emissions and the effects of these plants on air pollution are also a question mark.

At this point, ideas for effective use of local energy sources, which have long been ignored due to their low production capacity, have been revived.

In the past, it was required to build solar fields or wind farms in large areas to take advantage of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, but these facilities should now be effectively integrated into the grid, even if they are installed in a lower capacity and dispersed way.

Thanks to its intelligent grid infrastructure and features such as two-way energy transfer, efficient and rapid error control, local energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) have avoided inerring.

In this way, it is widely called "distributed production", as can be understood from the properties of energy production through facilities that are established in a messy state and are densely diverse.

Why Distributed Production?

Since these fuels are closely related to traditional energy generation methods, the signs of depletion in fossil fuels lead to unexpected increases and fluctuations in energy prices. On the other hand, greenhouse gas emissions from the use of these fossil fuels are a serious environmental problem and are becoming more serious every day, while "global warming" threatens the future of our planet.

The accident at Japan's Fukushima facilities has once again emerged as an alternative solution to these problems, and how dangerous nuclear power was once upon a time with high hopes.

The central power plants in operation today are quite; it has advanced technology, but the reduced probability of failure and the height of production efficiency cannot hide the resulting energy bottleneck.

Previously established to minimize risk, this central system carries serious risks on its own today. As a matter of fact, most of the power outages today are caused by faults originating from transmission lines or substations. [8] In addition, energy losses on these lines reduce efficiency.

Distributed electricity generation provides some advantages that we can rank under the following headings that are looked at throughout the system;

Energy efficiency,

• Fuel diversity,
• Effective risk protection,
• Flexibility
• Continuity and security of supply,

• Regional development,
• That he doesn't need additional investment.

Liberalization of the Energy Market

The most important element in the concept of "liberal" market is to adapt to changing economic developments in the most flexible way. Distributed production technologies hold this advantage thanks to their relatively small size and short installation times. For this reason, in order to close the gap in the existing market, producers are concentrating on distributed production with increasing momentum and directing their interest in this area. This also means that a consumer can choose the most "suitable" energy source for him or her.

Due to current consumer habits relatively like wind and solar; While there is a social resistance to innovative energy sources, the increasing economic advantage of distributed production is causing this resistance to become increasingly weak, signaling that it will be largely eliminated in the near future.

Because distributed production offers a quick and flexible solution to urgent energy needs; it also has a natural filter, preventing potential price fluctuations that may occur in such peak moments.

Reliability and Power Quality

When it comes to reliability problems in electrical networks, sudden voltage drops often come to mind. These decreases sometimes cause long-term problems and may cause partial or general "crashes" in some instances. 

Levels of reliability in many developed European countries; it is quite high due to high engineering standards and consumers are not affected by these voltage drops and do not need to see it as a problem.

However, as changes in the structure of the energy market and increased "liberalisation" have shifted to a price-based approach by changing this approach that brings quality to the forefront, future standards may cause consumers to feel these problems more seriously.

[9] On the other hand, the importance of reliable and continuous energy for the industry is quite clear, in many areas from communication to the chemical industry, the material equivalent of damages that would otherwise occur can be quite high. To eliminate the reliability problems of companies in these industries that can be experienced in grid-derived energy; it is quite possible that they will go out of their way to establish their own high standards and to establish their own distributed production facilities and invest in this area.

In addition to the aforementioned high-grade voltage drop-offs, lower-impact voltage irregularities and deviations from the ideal wave form may occur due to network structure problems and on-off errors, and harmonics and phase imbalances may occur on the mains. This causes the current power quality to decrease.

Conflicting views on the effects of distributed production on power quality make their own arguments. On the one hand, where power transmission is difficult and the power needs are high; Additional facilities that can work in sync with the existing grid can provide a meet, while the two-way energy transmission inhering in distributed production can play a disruptive role in disrupting the grid balance.

John Tan TURAN