lefthandmonki
Jan Wildeboer 😷
Energy companies really hate small renewables. They love nuclear and fossil fuels. Why? Renewables can be deployed in decentralised ways. That hurts their bottom line as they get reduced to taking care of distribution through their grids. But they want to control the input, not the distribution. They have focused on centralising electricity generation. That way they can simply make more money. That's why they oppose or actively try to fight microgrid solutions. Decentralisation is bad for them.
And that's why I really hope for a movement of connected microgrids. Of local energy cooperatives. Communities that understand that with local cooperation and, most importantly, full ownership of the local grid combined with solar, wind and local storage capacities, they can get the local cost for electricity down to levels that seem impossibly low, in some cases, with good design, even to zero. But only if this approach is based on Open Standards, Open Hardware. No vendor lock-in.
Everyone who has tried something in that field knows that it is riddled with expensive certifications and demands that are hard to meet for small series production runs. This is by design. The energy companies want to be in control of the full value chain. In most European countries energy generation and distribution is an oligopoly. It's a system that has been developed over many decennia. Breaking into that market is hard, and I mean really hard work that needs cooperation on many levels.
Solarpunk Davy@jwildeboer in the Netherlands there are quite a lot of successful energy co-ops? But I think that's primarily on the produce side? And your point is more about also the infrastructure and supply side?
@SolarDavy Yes. The Netherlands also suffers from a grid that supposedly is incapable to deal with all these decentralised electricity producers. So they are begging for more public money and ways to shut down solar plants and wind farms whenever they claim to see that the grid is under pressure. The grid they own and control. So the better solution for these coops is to focus on local storage and usage of excess electricity generated and ultimately decouple from the grid as much as possible.
Darnell Clayton 
@jwildeboer It is the same in America 🇺🇸 too. Unless you have a lot of funds & a lobbyist army, it is hard to setup local power plants due to local & state politics.
The Penguin of Evil@jwildeboer we have some here but mostly demonstrator sites run by electricity companies - but not the grid side people.
Captcha@jwildeboer I'm really interested in how decentralized electricity would work in practice? I've realized for a while that electricity is really a monopoly with one utility being the only operator in an area. The incentives are really broken with no market competition. However someone has to pay for the power lines between houses, so what's the solution? State owned grid with a buyer and seller market of electricity?
A_MinionI'm in Alaska, many of the villages have begun building their own solar/wind/water systems simply because the cost of fossil fuels is so high. We also have many who live off the grid, Even this far north it is feasible to use renewable energy. We fortunately don't have all the regulations of the civilized world 8*). The big corps own the world, can control most any part as the providers of energy, very expensive energy.
Juffo-WupIn Germany, electricity supplier and grid provider are separate companies.
Anyway, in my opinion, infrastructure should always be state owned...
bovaz@jwildeboer When I started understanding some engineering, I thought: "all devices should have some power storage and generation capabilities: that would make energy grids ridiculously resilient". Then I started understanding some economy: that's when I got angry.
Michel PatriceThe revolution will not be centralized.
From LowTech Magazine an interesting paper about DC vs AC and local decentralized production of electricity : https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/04/slow-electricity-the-return-of-dc-power/
swggrkllr3rd
There are plenty of creative ways to reduce fossil fuel consomption.
Earth's heat to produce electricity. Earth's heat used directly has heat.
Producing electricity differently and producing less electricity.
Artstories@jwildeboer This is my hope: that, despite those corporations and gouvernments people will find renewable solutions. Sadly, our gouvernment is controlled by fossil powers.
But there is hope: In my town there are ideas to construct a water powered heating system for the whole town (sounds wild, right?!). There are plans for a wind park, and maybe there will be solar cooperations.
Until then it is up to the individual, so we decided to put solar on our roof and installing a heating pump.
Petr Skála
Brad Macpherson@jwildeboer Especially when you have a sane situation where the grid operator is publicly-owned, as all utilities should be.
Jeff Pummill@jwildeboer And this gets to the core of the central issue…the bottom line is never beneficial to the masses or the evolution of society as a whole! It specifically benefits a select few as everything erodes elsewhere! 😒😔
disorderlyf@jwildeboer More importantly, the fuel for solar and wind is free. You only pay to get the panels or turbines themselves and have them installed.
@disorderlyf Yes, building, maintaining, servicing, repairing big, centralised power plants is very big business.
Wouter 🇳🇱🇧🇷🇧🇪@jwildeboer However, distribution via their own network is not feasible in the Netherlands, at least, because distribution and delivery are separate processes.
MidgePhoto@jwildeboer
The UK national Grid company is distinct from the energy suppliers.
Now, they clearly know them and talk to them, as they must.
The UK national Grid company is distinct from the energy suppliers.
Now, they clearly know them and talk to them, as they must.
@Photo55 There are differences per country, which is why I lumped them all together as "energy companies". The main point is that grids were designed with an architecture that relied on limited inputs and delivery to many endpoints. Upgrading that to a more flexible grid that can accept and balance many inputs and outputs is something that was perfectly predictable but most grid companies have stalled and delayed and the big producers are not unhappy about that ;)
@jwildeboer agree on the design.
We had an enormous NIMBY fuss about building the Grid about when I was born, and extensions nowadays repeat it.
But progress is being made.
Adding big batteries each side of pinch points should help as well. Naturally we have NIMBYs and very distant activists opposing those. But they are ticking upwards.
We had an enormous NIMBY fuss about building the Grid about when I was born, and extensions nowadays repeat it.
But progress is being made.
Adding big batteries each side of pinch points should help as well. Naturally we have NIMBYs and very distant activists opposing those. But they are ticking upwards.
Pete Keen@jwildeboer to be the tiniest bit fair to them (which is probably more than they deserve) large solar and wind installations enjoy vastly large economies of scale compared to distributed generation. They buy panels, inverters, racking, labor all at significantly higher quantities and therefore larger discounts than smaller installs.
High voltage distribution on the existing grid is also very efficient.
In a world without regulatory capture centralized would be better. Alas.
Neil@jwildeboer It's much harder to conduct rent-seeking on decentralized resources
Jeff COut here in the states, we have a bit of an organization attempting to boost community microgrids...
Epistatacadam@jwildeboer I don't know what the logic was elsewhere, but in the UK, the distributed system of generation with grid support to neighbours was replaced by large coal fired power stations as big furnaces were more efficient and more reliable (as they rarely worked at full load.) But now when coal has disappeared from power generation the logic of large power stations has disappeared, I think Drax is the last solid fuel powe plant left. 1/2
@jwildeboer Drax now burns wood chips imported from elsewhere I believe. So is called biomass and called renewable.
Logically the advantages of dispersed local generation should now prevail as you said, a fact semi acknowledged by the UK Gov flirting with modular nuclear power stations. Domestic generation & storage is now reality for well insulated homes. Community generators could provide any extra via wind & micro hydro!
Logically the advantages of dispersed local generation should now prevail as you said, a fact semi acknowledged by the UK Gov flirting with modular nuclear power stations. Domestic generation & storage is now reality for well insulated homes. Community generators could provide any extra via wind & micro hydro!
Correct ✅
@jwildeboer
@jwildeboer
Flipper 🐬🏳️🌈@jwildeboer Another factor is that, if you don't control the source, you can't control the scarcity. Artificial scarcity allows for increased profits.
Richard RatheAnd our (US) electrical grid was designed to support small energy producers. The vision back in the 1930s-40s was mostly small hydro (at least in the Midwest). In Iowa, Wisconsin, & Minnesota there are still dams on smaller rivers with generators. Most are no longer in operation. No problem because now we have solar and wind! 🙂
tschew@jwildeboer decentralized small projects are also incredibly bad for grifters. Much easier to skim something off the top when hundreds of millions are in the game 'cause who's gonna check all that, eh?
@tschew Yes. Centralisation drives down the cost of abuse, decentralisation drives up the cost of abuse. That's a general rule, not limited to electricity grids :)