The History of Electricity starts in the era of renaissance with great scientific minds trying to understand the mysteries behind lightning, static-electricity and magnetism. This started with Benjamin Franklin and continued for almost a century until Edison and finally culminating with the research done by Otto Hahn and Einstein. By this time the economics of patenting scientific research and monetization of inventions was giving good returns to inventors such as Edison and Westinghouse. The business generated out of existing inventions led to complacency and lack of funding for further research. Had the curiosity to discover further not been killed we would be living in a completely different world may be receiving electricity without the need of transmission poles or wires. In fact Tesla had demonstrated wireless illumination of incandescent lamp in 1894 using wireless energy transfer.
The next hundred years belonged to corporations - the likes of GE founded by Edison and Ford Motor Co. founded by Henry Ford. The scientific research now was driven more to grow respective businesses than to nurture scientific curiosity. The cobwebs of modern economy never allowed the Newtons and Edisons in today's world to discover or invent things that could change the face of the world by 180 degrees.
Minus the Hype and Hoopla embedded in the Smart Grid package, there is some real stuff which could bring immense value to all stake holders in this business including rate payers (customers).
Information-Technology (IT) would be the key enabler providing the backbone for bringing together all the elements of a real Smart Grid such as micro-grids (built on Small Town Nukes, Photo-voltaic, etc.) and Home Area Networks (HANs)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment