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Renewable energy sources in New Zealand
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New Zealand mainly uses renewable energy sources and most of the New Zealand’s Electricity is generated from the hydro-electric stations and the rest of it is generated from both geothermal, wind power and thermal. Electricity demand has grown by an average of 2.1 per cent per year since 1974 and 0.6 per cent from 2005 to 2011. New Zealand has been called as one of the least energy efficient countries in comparison to the economic output against electricity consumption, despite being slightly above global average in the list of countries by energy intensity. The National Grid which is owned and operated by Trans power New Zealand is the high voltage transmission network of lines and substations connecting areas of generation with cities and towns across the whole nation.
Assets of the existing Trans power includes more than 11,000 route kilometers of transmission lines and these are about 25,000 towers and 16,000 poles, 174 substations together with about 2300 circuit breakers and 1000 power transformers. The majority of New Zealand’s electricity is generated from hydro-electric if from the stations established on the rivers and the lakes of the lower half of the South Island, and in reality most of the electricity demand is in the North Island and in particularly, the Auckland regions. There has always been a debate on whether or not the transmission lines are the best way to carry on in providing the power with this increasing demand. As the owner and operator of the National Grid, Tran’s power is planning up to $1.5 billion of new investment, and before this could be approved, it needs to assure that the Electricity Commission has no better way of doing the job.
The main purpose of the North Auckland and Northland (NAaN) Grid u...
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...es the combination of both but in consideration with the cost, efficiency and the location.
In New Zealand, technology is limited so other methods of generating power without the use of transmission lines are limited as well. Trans power New Zealand could further invest in implementing new ideas to provide a solution to the alternatives and may be they could come up with some new ways of generating and distributing the electricity but my idea is not limited as well, because the suggestions have confirmed the sustainability of configuration of the existing grid, even though the capacity needs to be increased over time as the grid flows should continue to be dominated by the large amounts of loads in the north island regions particularly the upper side and thus electricity will be continuously to flow predominantly from the renewable generation in the south regions.
Its most known process of generating electricity would be movement of air through wind turbines. Wind power has two parts, mechanical and electrical systems. Mechanical systems are low speed and are used for mechanical tasks such as pumping water or grinding grain. Electrical systems are high speed and are used to generate electricity to power homes or schools. Many people feel that wind farms full of turbines, are aesthetically unpleasing, but wind power is a clean energy source and does not generate greenhouse gas emissions. It is a very abundant resource throughout the United States. Wind power is simple, relatively cheap, and low maintenance (Sambu). Wind power is again, free and very abundant so no matter how much we use now, we will still obtain enough in the
Our country is currently suffering energy-wise, we have been powering with inefficient sources for years now and the harm that it is doing to the country has started to become apparent. Renewable energy is the only way to stop, or at the very least set back the inevitable downfall of our ecosystem. I think that the next big breakthrough for renewable energy is implementing off-grid communities that use renewable sources as their main sources of power, so that we can potentially escape the energy rut that we got ourselves stuck in.
Option 2 has long term sustainability. It involves a one term expense, and provides revenues for the foreseeable future.
President Obama stated in his 2011 State of the Union address that he envision in 2035, 80% of the nation’s energy will be met by clean energy sources. Without increased transmission capacity his vision will not be achieved. The function of the transmission line is to get the electricity produced from any source to the grid. Transmission construction is expensive. Prairie Wind Transmission has been approved to build 110 miles of transmission lines in Kansas at an estimated project cost of $2 mi...
Their key concerns would be low costs, space utilisations, operational costs in the long run (especially of owners as well), time for installation etc.
Electricity is one of the biggest outputs of geothermal energy. It was first recorded to produce electricity in 1904 in Italy. There are now geothermal power plants in operation in New Zealand, Japan, Iceland, the US and elsewhere.
The cheapest way to generate electricity, today, is hydropower. The reason for that is, once a dam has been constructed and equipment installed, the source of the energy is free. It is a fuel source that is renewable because of things like snow and rainfall. Engineers may control the water flow on demand.
Winds are caused by the irregular heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the variations of the earth's surface, and rotation of the earth. This wind flow, or kinetic energy, when "harvested" by modern wind turbines, can be used to generate electricity. There is an abundance of wind to meet our needs, “the potential of [the total] wind power [in the world] is. 20 times more than what the entire human population needs” (Maehlum). Currently, wind power is one of the lowest-priced renewable energy technologies available, costing between four and six cents per kilowatt-hour, depending upon the wind resource.
However, with a scarcity of coal, more power would be generated from other sources like nuclear, solar and hydro. However, producing electricity from these sources for huge supply would be difficult.
Hydropower, the use of water to power machinery or produce electricity, provides the most renewable energy in the United States, and uses alternating current in most modern plants ("Hydropower…”). Hydropower relies on the water cycle and is a clean fuel source; it doesn’t pollute the environment like plants that burn fossil fuels. It is by far the most efficient way to generate electricity, being half the cost of using nuclear power, two-fifths the cost of using fossil fuels, and a quarter the cost of using natural gas ("Wind and Water…”). Also, hydropower is not subject to market fluctuations of embargos, and the average lifespan of a facility is 100 years. Hydropower also has many non-energy benefits such as water supply, flood control, navigation, irrigation, and recreation. However, it does face many environmental challenges such as impacts to aquatic habitats, aesthetic alterations of landscapes, changes to water quality, and interruptions of marine life ("Hydropower…”).
Many countries see renewable energy as the future and have made plans to foster its use. It is estimated that wind will provide 5 to 10% of the United States power needs by the year 2020, and the Euro...
Create a cleaver power grid that will help in transferring energy to households across the country
Furthermore per-unit cost of natural resources based good potentially will increase due to the increase in supply. For example Tasmania implemented an electricity generator program due to its shortage of electricity which uses wind turbines. The generated electricity then travels kilometers in cables costing hundreds of million dollars. However several years ago these actions were not necessary as cheap power could be obtained through hydro-electric schemes. Although today all rivers have been dammed resulting in other forms of power with higher costs to meet the growing population
-Location, Allocation, Distribution & Transportation: where is the best location for operation, how big should the facilities be?
Electricity when viewed from an economic perspective is probably the most important man-made commodity of human race. Ever since its invention and commercial use in 18th century to this day, its contribution to progress, growth, innovation and development to mankind has been unequivocal. Electricity markets over the decades have always been regional, oligopolistic and vertically integrated. However, in the last few decades, power markets world-wide are being transformed from highly regulated Government controlled power markets into deregulated and competitive power markets. The traditional vertically integrated electric utility structures of yester-years have been replaced by a deregulated and competitive market scheme in many countries worldwide (Li et al., 2007; Weron, 2006, Girish et al., 2014).