Watts Happening?

by Don Pettit for Peace Energy Cooperative www.peaceenergy.ca ph 250-782-3882

GRID DOWN!
insecurity? As climate change brings in more storms, more frequently and with greater severity, are grid failures just going to become a way of life? Not necessarily. Lots can be done by both governments and individuals. Around the world, things are changing fast. DISTRIBUTED GENERATION After hurricane Sandy, New York State is injecting $1 billion into its existing NY-SUN initiative to accelerate the deployment of solar photovoltaics across the state. Why? To address one of the main problems with electrical grids today: they are too centralized. Individual huge generating stations provide millions with power, but centralized generation makes the system vulnerable to disruption.

heres nothing like a windstorm to remind us of how fragile our electrical grid really is, and the remarkable power of nature. Last week one night of extreme wind (140 km. per hour plus) knocked out power to about 25 percent of the regional population of northeast BC, some for several days. Many lost freezers and refrigerators of food, businesses were closed for days, and thousands of homes were kept livable thanks only to portable generators. No fault to BC Hydro. Repairs were completed quickly and efficiently, considering the extensive damage and the many far-flung rural customers. If it had been our usual January 20 below zero, however, things would have much worse. So, even as we become more dependent on electricity, are we stuck with permanent electrical

One of the big problems with most existing electrical grids is that their energy generation is far too centralized, making them vulnerable to large-scale failure. Renewable energy, like that generated by these solar panels, is naturally

de-centralized or distributed across the landscape. To make their grids more reliable, countries, states and cities around the world are moving to renewables.

Fossil-fueled plants usually need to be large and centralized to make any economic sense because of the immense quantity of fuel that has to be transported there and burned. Renewables like wind and solar suffer from no such limitation they are distributed around the countryside naturally. By going renewable, energy is distributed across many geographic locations and climactic zones, making it much more robust than centralized generation. COMMUNITY GRIDS New York is also moving to community grids that will combine decentralized, local, clean power sources (mostly solar and wind) with micro grids standalone energy systems that can operate as energy islands in the event of a blackout. An interconnected network of small grids is much more robust that one huge one. New York is far from alone. Many European countries, lead by Germany, are moving quickly to micro grids. Individual towns and cities can own wind turbines and solar arrays, and sell power to their residents. (This is not legal in British Columbia. All power must be sold to BC Hydro, who then resells it to consumers. Cities cannot legally generate their own power and sell it directly to residents. At least, not yet . . .) SMART GRIDS Smart grids go hand in hand with distributed power and micro grids. Most existing grids, like BCs,

were designed and built with 1960s technology. Think back to 1960 no computers! At least not as we think of them today. Our grids today are largely mechanical. Add computers and advanced electronic controls, and you get a grid that knows whats going on in every micro grid, can balance the variability of renewable output, can respond quickly to problems and greatly increase overall grid efficiency and solidity. The grid becomes smart. In the U.S. the unlikely state of Texas is leading in smart-grid technology. Already ahead of all other states in wind power installed, redneck Texas is racing to lead in solar as well, while investing billions in a statewide smart grid. Texas once led the U.S. into the fossil era. Today it is leading the U.S. into the renewable era. MAKE YOUR OWN Another good way to enjoy grid security is to make your own electricity. With the cost of home-scale solar and wind becoming genuinely affordable, owning your own energy supply becomes a realistic option. With that, you can kiss the grid goodbye or at least be secure in the knowledge that if it goes down, youre good for, at the least, a few days or a few weeks. Thats perhaps the best form of grid security, because you can do it yourself and you can do it now! Personally I have two solar micro grids: one at home with a battery back up, and a simple grid tie system at work. More on these and how to build your very own in the next Watts Happening.

Watts Happening? Quick Fact:

AUSTRALIAS ROOF TOP REVOLUTION: less than one year ago, Australia hit the one million mark for small-scale solar installations. This year it hit two million! Thats enough to power Perth, Hobart, Darwin and Canberra. In this sun-soaked region, theres no end in sight for Australias rapid solar revolution.