Grid development in the past vs. todayParameters had been entirely different. The grid was to connect to distant coal power plants or hydropower. Was local production an option? Really not! Let's look back one century, to the twenties of the 20th century. Independent from the political system, electrification was a high priority. Here in the West: “electricity to the last mountain farming village” and Lenin wrote, “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country”.Parameters had been entirely different. The grid was to connect to distant coal power plants or hydropower. Was local production an option? Really not! Diesel engines were at this time no option. Large coal power plants had 18 to 20% efficiency. In the 200 kW range, only 8 to 12%. This means not only nearly double the coal but also higher transportation costs. There is the big coal power plant with its own railroad and a freight train full of coal every few hours. The next point is labor cost. Manual coal/ash handling was dominant in small plants; central benefited from scale and emerging automation. Assuming a small consumer, industry, or settlement with 1 GWh/a electricity demand, the grid cost allowance had been 1 to 1.8 million € inflation-corrected. No question, grid expansion was a great idea. We just showed the range is 27 € to 151 € per kW photovoltaic. For the assumed 1 GWh/a consumer, this translates to a range of 27 to 534 thousand €. Denmark and Austria are “we already have a great grid” countries. Without these 2 countries in the examples, the range is only 27 to 56 thousand €. 
Different time, different places, completely different outcome. When one century and a location more close to the equator changes the high voltage grid from a “must-have” to an “unnecessary, too expensive”. |
