The changing world of today leads us to prioritize and place very high value on sustainable and efficient energy resources. On that front, electric generators are very much a critical part of the long-established power-generation process. However, we know from experience that when talk turns to power generation, the kind of large-scale boost our society needs can’t come just from throwing another electric generator at the problem. So it’s a good thing that the world right now is seeing (and we’re undertaking) a true renaissance in what electric generators can be and what they can do in the Power Electronics + Electric Machines Laboratory here at The Ohio State University.
When we consider future power generation, we must certainly examine the extraordinary advances being made in electric generators. These generators, which are unlike anything that has come before, have the potential to transform the act of capturing energy and putting it to use. These are not the electric generators you saw in your grandfather’s day. For one thing, we can forget the huge turbines of yesteryear, because electric generators are now being developed at metabolic scales.
An electric generator is a bit of throwback technology. There’s nothing about textbook electrical engineering that you don’t probably already know if you’re a generator enthusiast. And anyone who’s been around a generator long enough has probably figured out most of what makes them work and, more importantly, not work so well. So it’s fascinating to me that a company piloting program that they claim is an industry first will go back to the basics and redefine the way a garden-variety generator is engineered to work, using AI and IoT.
Furthermore, the development of electric generators has soared in tandem with the rise of renewable energy sources. These generators are now designed to work in sync with solar panels, wind turbines, and a variety of other clean energy technologies. As a result, we are currently swimming in a “gushed-up” reality of power plant technologies that are not only efficient, reliable, and environmentally benign but are also appearing more and more likely to be the money makers of the near future, as the battle for global energy market shares intensifies.
Critical industrial applications are getting a real boost from electric generators. These portable powerhouses are proving their worth in the most vital sectors of the national infrastructure. When one thinks of an electric generator, the image of a clunky old piece of equipment tucked into a corner of a building comes to mind. But today’s generators come in all sizes, from the nation’s electric power grid to a portable three-wheeled unit in a can that is pushed over the side of a C-130 to serve military or other uses in remote, off-grid locations.
When we ponder the grand future of power and the fundamental part electric generators play, we perceive absolutely that these instruments will remain important fixtures of both energy generation and our energy consumption patterns. Indeed, the opposite could not be true—can one imagine a future without electric generators?—for these devices are going to, and damn well should, be the significant instruments (if not the most significant) we rely on in the electric generation half of the energy-decision equation. Moreover, they’re going to do it in this way that, when all else is accounting for, makes us applaud for the aforementioned basic reasons: electric generators are sustainable, efficient, and innovative.
To sum up, if we think of the future of the power game, it is tied very tightly to the emerging world of electric power. To be sure all our other technical systems may still use switches and gears, but many energy economists maintain that no matter how far our technologies or systems evolve, most of the base load power we rely on will have to be ultimately found in emerging, far cleaner, and far more efficient electric power plants. And those base load power plants, in the main, operate with electric generators.
No doubt, the electric generator will remain closely tied to the transformation of the electric power sector. This sector is right for fruitful change that will benefit society. Electric generators will serve as the linchpin of an electricity sector that must undergo significant changes if we are to achieve a power system that delivers safe, sustainable, and affordable electricity to all societies.
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