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Energy Terms | |
| Glossary of Energy Terms | |
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| There are 141 entries in the glossary. | ||
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| Term | Definition | |
| GIGAWATT-HOUR | (GWH) -- One million kilowatt-hours of electric power. California's electric utilities generated a total of about 270,000 gigawatt-hours in 1988. | |
| GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE | Gradual changing of global climates due to buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels has reached levels greater than what can be absorbed by green plants and the seas. | |
| GREENHOUSE EFFECT | The presence of trace atmospheric gases make the earth warmer than would direct sunlight alone. These gases (carbon dioxide [CO2], methane [CH4], nitrous oxide [N2O], tropospheric ozone [O3], and water vapor [H2O]) allow visible light and ultraviolet light (shortwave radiation) to pass through the atmosphere and heat the earth's surface. This heat is re-radiated from the earth in form of infrared energy (longwave radiation). The greenhouse gases absorb part of that energy before it escapes into space. This process of trapping the longwave radiation is known as the greenhouse effect. Scientists estimate that without the greenhouse effect, the earth's surface would be roughly 54 degrees Fahrenheit colder than it is today -- too cold to support life as we know it. See GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE. | |
| GREENHOUSE GAS | Greenhouse gases are components of the atmosphere that contribute to the Greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities. Naturally occurring greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Certain human activities add to the levels of most of these naturally occurring gases. | |
| HEAT TRANSFER | Flow of heat energy induced by a temperature difference. Heat flow through a building envelope typically flows from a heated, or hot area to a cooled, or cold area. | |
| HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM | (HEAP) - A centrally operated direct payment program that assists eligible households in offsetting the cost of heating and cooling their homes. Payments are generally made in the form of dual party warrants (checks) made payable to the applicant and their designated utility company. The program is administered by the California Department of Economic Opportunity using federal and state funds. The toll-free number for the HEAP Program is (800) 433-4327. | |
| HVAC | (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) - A system that provides heating, ventilation and/or cooling within or associated with a building. | |
| HYDROELECTRIC POWER | Electricity produced by falling water that turns a turbine generator. Also referred to as HYDRO. | |
| HYDROPOWER | Hydropower is the capture of the energy of moving water for some useful purpose. Prior to the widespread availability of commercial electric power, hydropower was used for irrigation, milling of grain, textile manufacture, and the operation of sawmills. | |
| HYDROTHERMAL SYSTEMS | Underground reservoirs that produce either dry steam or a mixture of steam and water. | |
| HYGAS | A process that uses water to help produce pipeline-quality gas from coal. | |
| Installed Capacity | The total manufacturer-rated capacities of equipment such as turbines, generators, condensers, transformers, and other system components. | |
| ISO | INDEPENDENT SYSTEM OPERATOR. A neutral operator responsible for maintaining instantaneous balance of the grid system. The ISO performs its function by controlling the dispatch of flexible plants to ensure that loads match resources available to the system. | |
| JOULE | A unit of work or energy equal to the amount of work done when the point of application of force of 1 newton is displaced 1 meter in the direction of the force. It takes 1,055 joules to equal a British thermal unit. It takes about 1 million joules to make a pot of coffee. | |
| KILOWATT | (kW) -- One thousand (1,000) watts. A unit of measure of the amount of electricity needed to operate given equipment. On a hot summer afternoon a typical home, with central air conditioning and other equipment in use, might have a demand of four kW each hour. | |
| KILOWATT-HOUR | (kWh) -- The most commonly-used unit of measure telling the amount of electricity consumed over time. It means one kilowatt of electricity supplied for one hour. In 1989, a typical California household consumes 534 kWh in an average month. | |
| LOW EMISSION VEHICLE | (LEV) - a vehicle certified by the California Air Resources Board to have emissions from zero to 50,000 miles no higher than 0.075 grams/mile (g/mi) of non-methane organic gases, 3.4 g/mi of carbon monoxide, and 0.2 g/mi of nitrogen oxides. Emissions from 50,000 to 100,000 miles may be slightly higher (See chart in Chapter 2.) LOW-SULFUR COAL - Coal having one percent or less of sulfur by weight. | |
| MEGAWATT | (MW) -- One thousand kilowatts (1,000 kW) or one million (1,000,000) watts. One megawatt is enough energy to power 1,000 average California homes. | |
| MEGAWATT HOUR | (MWh) -- One thousand kilowatt-hours, or an amount of electricity that would supply the monthly power needs of 1,000 typical homes in the Western U.S. (This is a rounding up to 8,760 kWh/year per home based on an average of 8,549 kWh used per household per year [U.S. DOE EIA, 1997 annual per capita electricity consumtpion figures]). | |
| METHANOL | (also known as Methyl Alcohol, Wood Alcohol, CH3OH) -- a liquid formed by catalytically combining carbon monoxide (CO) with hydrogen (H2) in a 1:2 ratio, under high temperature and pressure. Commercially it is typically made by steam reforming natural gas. Also formed in the destructive distillation of wood. | |
| National Renewable Energy Laboratory | The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located in Golden, Colorado, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy, is the United States's primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. Established in 1974, NREL began operating in 1977 as the Solar Energy Research Institute. It was designated a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in September 1991 and its name changed to NREL. NREL is the principal research laboratory for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy which provides the majority of its funding. Other funding comes from DOE's Office of Science and Office of Electricity Transmission and Distribution. One of the programs of the NREL is the Tribal Energy Program, the goal of which is to promote tribal energy self-sufficiency and foster employment and economic development on tribal lands through the development of renewable energy. The Program provides financial and technical assistance to tribes for feasibility studies and shares the cost of implementing sustainable renewable energy installations on tribal lands. | |
| Natural Gas | Underground deposits of gases consisting of 50 to 90 percent methane (CH4) and small amounts of heavier gaseous hydrocarbon compounds such as propane (C3H8) and butane (C4H10). | |
| Nuclear Energy | Nuclear energy originates from the splitting of uranium atoms in a process
called fission. At the power plant, the fission process is used to generate
heat for producing steam, which is used by a turbine to generate electricity.
Because nuclear power plants do not burn fuel, they do not emit air pollutant
emissions. All of the nuclear power plants in the United States collectively
produce about 2,000 metric tons per year of radioactive waste. Abandoned
uranium mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can continue
to pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure.
There are more than 60 nuclear power plants currently in operation in
the U.S., which accounts for approximately 20 percent of the country’s
electricity production. No nuclear power plants have been built since
1996, mostly due to economic factors and environmental concerns. | |
| OCEAN | The oceans have a tremendous amount of energy and are close to many if not most concentrated populations. Some believe that ocean power will provide a substantial amount of new renewable energy around the world. Difficulties arising from marine life attaching to energy systems in the seas require these to be easily cleanable. Renewable ocean energy The ocean presents a vast source of renewable energy in the form of winds, waves and tides. In addition, there is vast quantity of energy in the form of thermal difference which can be extracted. Several means of extracting energy from the ocean have been tried, some with limited success. 1. Wind power (offshore) 2. Wave power 3. Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) 4. Tidal power Non-renewable ocean energy Oil and gas beneath the ocean floor are increasingly important sources of energy. An ocean engineer is concerned with all phases of discovering, producing, and delivering offshore petroleum resources, a complex and demanding task. Also of central importance is the development of new methods to protect marine wildlife and coastal regions against the undesirable side effects of offshore oil production. | |
| Oil | Oil, a liquid fossil fuel, is formed from layers of buried plants and animals that have been subjected to geologic heat and pressure over a long period of time. The energy that the plants and animals originally obtained from the sun is stored in the oil in the form of carbon. In addition to carbon, oil contains elements such as nitrogen, sulfur, mercury, lead, and arsenic. Oil is a nonrenewable resource because it cannot be replenished on a human time frame. | |
| OZONE | A kind of oxygen that has three atoms per molecule instead of the usual two. Ozone is a poisonous gas, but the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere shields life on earth from deadly ultraviolet radiation from space. The molecule contains three oxygen atoms (O3). | |
| PEAK LOAD | The highest electrical demand within a particular period of time. Daily electric peaks on weekdays occur in late afternoon and early evening. Annual peaks occur on hot summer days. | |
| Peaking Capacity | The capacity of generating equipment intended for operation during the hours of highest daily, weekly or seasonal loads. | |
| PETROCHEMICALS | Chemicals made from oil. | |
| PHOTOVOLTAICS | Photovoltaics, or PV for short, is a solar power technology that uses solar cells or solar photovoltaic arrays to convert energy from the sun into electricity. Photovoltaics is also the field of study relating to this technology. Solar cells produce direct current electricity from the sun’s rays, which can be used to power equipment or to recharge a battery. Many pocket calculators incorporate a solar cell. | |
| PUHCA | The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. This act prohibits acquisition of any wholesale or retail electric business through a holding company unless that business forms part of an integrated public utility system when combined with the utility's other electric business. The legislation also restricts ownership of an electric business by non-utility corporations. | |
| Purchased Capacity | The amount of energy and capacity available for purchase from outside the system | |
| PURPA | The Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act of 1978. Among other things, this federal legislation requires utilities to buy electric power from private "qualifying facilities," at an avoided cost rate. This avoided cost rate is equivalent to what it would have otherwise cost the utility to generate or purchase that power themselves. Utilities must further provide customers who choose to self-generate a reasonably priced back-up supply of electricity. | |
| PX | The California Power Exchange Corporation, a state chartered, non-profit corporation charged with providing Day-Ahead and Hour-Ahead markets for energy and ancillary services, if it chooses to self-provide, in accordance with the PX tariff. The PX is a Scheduling Coordinator, and is independent of both the ISO and all other market participants. | |
| QUAD | One quadrillion (1015 or 1,000,000,000,000,000) British thermal units (Btus). An amount of energy equal to 170 million barrels of oil. Total U.S. consumption of all forms of energy is (in the 1990s) about 83 quads in an average year. | |
| QUALIFYING FACILITY | QFs are non-utility power producers that often generate electricity using renewable and alternative resources, such as hydro, wind, solar, geothermal or biomass (solid waste). QFs must meet certain operating, efficiency, and fuel-use standards set forth by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). If they meet these FERC standards, utilities must buy power from them. QFs usually have long-term contracts with utilities for the purchase of this power, which is among the utility's highest-priced resources. | |
| RAND Corporation | a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces. The organization has since expanded to working with other governments, private foundations, international organizations, and commercial organizations. It is known for rigorous, often-quantitative, and non-partisan analysis and policy recommendations. | |
| RECOVERED ENERGY | Reused heat or energy that otherwise would be lost. For example, a combined cycle power plant recaptures some of its own waste heat and reuses it to make extra electric power. | |
| RECOVERY EFFICIENCY | (Thermal efficiency) Ia water heater, a measure of the percentage of heat from the combustion of gas which is transferred to the water as measured under specified test conditions. California Code of Regulations, Section 2- 1602(e)(7). | |
| REFINERY | A facility that separates crude oil into varied oil products. The refinery uses progressive temperature changes to separate by vaporizing the chemical components of crude oil that have different boiling points. These are distilled into usable products such as gasoline, fuel oil, lubricants and kerosene. | |
| REGULATION | The service provided by generating units equipped and operating with automatic generation controls that enables the units to respond to the ISO's direct digital control signals to match real-time demand and resources, consistent with established operating criteria. | |
| RENEWABLE ENERGY | Resources that constantly renew themselves or that are regarded as practically inexhaustible. These include solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and wood. Although particular geothermal formations can be depleted, the natural heat in the earth is a virtually inexhaustible reserve of potential energy. Renewable resources also include some experimental or less-developed sources such as tidal power, sea currents and ocean thermal gradients. | |
| RENEWABLE RESOURCES | Renewable energy resources are naturally replenishable, but flow-limited. They are virtually inexhaustible in duration but limited in the amount of energy that is available per unit of time. Some (such as geothermal and biomass) may be stock-limited in that stocks are depleted by use, but on a time scale of decades, or perhaps centuries, they can probably be replenished. Renewable energy resources include: biomass, hydro, geothermal, solar and wind. In the future they could also include the use of ocean thermal, wave, and tidal action technologies. Utility renewable resource applications include bulk electricity generation, on-site electricity generation, distributed electricity generation, non-grid-connected generation, and demand-reduction (energy efficiency) technologies. | |
| Reserve Capacity | Extra generating capacity available to meeet peak or abnormally high demands for power and to generate power during scheduled or unscheduled outages. Units available for service, but not maintained at operating temperature, are termed "cold." those units ready and avaiable for service, though not in actual operation, are termed "hot." | |
| SMOG | Originally "smog" meant a mixture of smoke and fog. The definition has expanded to mean air that has restricted visibility due to pollution. Pollution formed in the presence of sunlight is called photochemical smog. According to the U.S. EPA, smog is "a mixture of pollutants, principally ground-level ozone, produced by chemical reactions in the air involving smog-forming chemicals. A major portion of smog-formers come from burning of petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline. Other smog-formers, volatile organic compounds, are found in products such as paints and solvents. Smog can harm health, damage the environment and cause poor visibility. Major smog occurrences are often linked to heavy motor vehicle traffic, sunshine, high temperatures and calm winds or temperature inversion (weather condition in which warm air is trapped close to the ground instead of rising). Smog is often worse away from the source of the smog-forming chemicals, since the chemical reactions that result in smog occur in the sky while the reacting chemicals are being blown away from their sources by winds." | |
| SOLAR | Solar power is the technology of obtaining usable energy from the light of the Sun. Solar energy has been used in many traditional technologies for centuries and has come into widespread use where other power supplies are absent, such as in remote locations and in space. | |
| SOLAR CELL | A photovoltaic cell that can convert light directly into electricity. A typical solar cell uses semiconductors made from silicon. | |
| SOLAR COLLECTOR | A component of an active or passive solar system that absorbs solar radiation to heat a transfer medium which, in turn, supplies heat energy to the space or water heating system. A surface or device that absorbs solar heat and transfers it to a fluid. The heated fluid then is used to move the heat energy to where it will be useful, such as in water or space heating equipment. | |
| SOLAR ENERGY | Heat and light radiated from the sun. | |
| SOLAR ENERGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE | (SERI) -- Established in 1974 and funded by the federal government, the institute's general purpose is to support U.S. Department of Energy's solar energy program and foster the widespread use of all aspects of solar technology, including photovoltaics, solar heating and cooling, solar thermal power generation, wind ocean thermal conversion and biomass conversion. | |
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