Introduction
The environmental crisis is intensifying. To mitigate its impacts, some exciting technological innovations that use different features of environmentally friendly electric generators are being worked on in research-and-development labs that study industrial processes. Using fossil fuel—mostly coal—to produce electricity has been the industry’s go-to for many, many years, and for the most part, it still is. What needs to change? Eco-electric generators are already in play, and right now, their use is mostly experimental.
The Industrial Shift Towards Sustainability
The industrial sector is largely responsible for both the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climatic change and the environmental pollution that threatens our health. It has relied heavily on the common power pathway of using fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat. Today, when we look to the future of power, we see something different. We see industries becoming much more sustainable. We see them adopting clean power solutions—like new kinds of electric generators—that get their energy from renewable resources, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, and from “regenerative” fuels like biomass. And we see the industrial sector making this power transition for a couple of very good reasons.
Types of Industrial Eco-Friendly Electric Generators
- Large-scale solar power plants are massive installations that produce electricity. Each plant may use thousands of mirrors that can follow the sun in real-time and get located during construction so that the designers can understand the amount of light that comes to any region. The gigawatt-scale plants might be focusing solar light with concentrated solar power.
- Wind Energy on an Industrial Scale: A wind farm is an area that has not just one, but often many wind turbines, working together to produce electricity. In this way, a wind turbine is a bit like a big fan. Except that it doesn’t blow anything (like a fan does) when it runs. In fact, the principle behind a wind turbine is the same as that behind a fan, except that it is trying to do the opposite of what a fan does. It is trying to convert the energy that comes from the wind into an increased amount of electricity. The more the turbines run and the more energetically they run, the more electricity they send out over the wires.
- Hydroelectric power plants convert the energy of flowing water into electricity. They come in many sizes and forms, from small plants that use a little stream to make a few kilowatts for someone’s private use, to huge installations like the Hoover Dam. But going with the flow isn’t an option if the water isn’t coming from a great height, because a 1919 law states that the head of the water, or the height from which it falls, can’t be less than 50 feet. If it’s a small plant, that’s still enough to produce power—at least in theory.
- Power plants using industrial biomass take advantage of the sheer amount and variety of organic material they have at their disposal, using everything from wood chips to peanut hulls to fuel their fires. These plants are sometimes grouped with other renewable plants that use the power of the sun to turn their turbines. This is probably a mistake when it comes to lay economic analysis. To some extent, they are much more like coal plants than solar farces when it comes to the laws of physics. And, to a similar extent, they are much more like “coal plus” when it comes to economic and environmental outcomes.
Benefits of Eco-Friendly Electric Generators for Industries
- Lower Carbon Emissions: The most important benefit of using environmentally friendly generators is that they emit less carbon. In a power system dominated by diesel, natural gas, and coal, emissions reductions opportunities are huge. Industrial power consumers in remote or off-grid locations that shift toward renewable power solutions or simply choose high-efficiency, low-emission power solutions—like the new line of gas engine-driven Cat generator sets—are vital parts of the emissions reduction puzzle. What’s more, they’re good for your bottom line, offering reduced total cost of ownership.
- Of course, the power solutions detailed above don’t run on wishes and air. They require fuel of one sort or another and the elimination of all carbon-based fuels from power systems is a long way off.
- By the way, in today’s world, where sustainability is also about the security of power and the cost of power, the kind of low-emission, high-efficiency power solution realized by the new Cat generator sets is a clear winner.
Challenges and Future Outlook
Industrial facilities everywhere increasingly are using environmentally friendly electric generators, but problems persist. They really are very much what one would call “renewable.” They are replenished by flows of energy in our environment, which aren’t themselves going to be used up. But in going from where we are now to a next phase—the seemingly “electric” phase of the non-thermal industrial energy system—of the Energy Transition, there is something of a hitch, and the “Nature Energy” article by Wei, et al., delves into what that hitch entails.
Conclusion
Electricity generated by renewable sources is becoming the norm, powering factories around the world—that’s a different kind of world than the one we grew up in. The coal-fired power plants of my youth (and I’m not that old: I was born in 1985) are being replaced by wind turbines and solar panels, or in some cases, by natural gas-fired power plants, which emit far less carbon than the ones they’re replacing.
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