Just how significant are transmission losses in the electricity grid? the solarblogger investigates.
Proponents of solar pv, small wind turbines and other domestic-scale renewable electricity technologies often state that one of the benefits of generating electricity on people's homes is that you avoid all the losses from moving electrical power from where its made to where its used. But just how much electricity is lost on it's way to your meter? Would we be better off having lots of small renewable energy systems at the point where electricity is used, or filling fields with solar panels and wind turbines and feeding into the grid instead?
The Department of Energy and Climate Change in the UK publish energy statistics each year, and a look at the Digest of Energy Statistics, Chapter 5 - Electricity gives values for the losses.
For 2011 transmission losses in the UK electricity system were 6.5 TWh and distribution losses were 20.7 TWh.
Totalling up all the electricity supplied to customers (and excluding own-use by the energy industry) in the year gives a figure of 320 TWh.
From these figures, the losses in getting the electricity from power station to electricity meter can be calculated as:
(6.5 + 20.7) / (320 + 6.5 + 20.7) = 7.8%
So around 8% of the electricity generated at UK power stations is lost in the grid.
Other countries
The World Bank publishes data on electricity distribution and transmission losses.
Electricity
Transmission and Distribution losses, selected countries
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Argentina
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14.8%
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Ireland
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7.5%
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Botswana
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79.3%
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Netherlands
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3.9%
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Canada
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7.9%
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Poland
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8.3%
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France
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6.1%
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Romania
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12.2%
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Germany
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4.2%
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Sweden
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7.3%
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Greece
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5.3%
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USA
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6.3%
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Italy
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7.1%
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OECD Average
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6.4%
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Source: World Bank, includes pilferage
A Strong Argument?
So what do you think? Is 6-8% of electricity lost in transmission a strong argument for microgeneration? Post a comment below.
