If modern civilization is built upon the technology we use, then the energy used to power that technology is its foundation. Everyone can recall the feeling of helplessness and dependency they had during their last power outage. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how these feelings can quickly transform into a long-term, dire crisis should the power for whatever reason not turn back on.
Centralized power distribution had been the most efficient way to provide energy to large populations for decades. Centralization, however, comes with not only the benefit of easily powering millions of homes, it has many drawbacks as well.
Should the government or company administering these centralized power grids be destabilized, or key points in a power grid’s infrastructure suffer failure by accident or by design, millions of homes go from being conveniently powered to being suddenly in the black. And because of the centralized nature of the power grid, turning the lights back on requires an equally centralized solution.
Today, as alternative energy begins to improve and costs begin to drop, decentralizing the power grid not only makes sense, it is being done everywhere and for a variety of practical and political reasons.
By decentralizing power grids, we can enjoy the best of both worlds; access to cheap electricity to power our homes or places of work, and a hedge against disruptions to centralized power grids. Most means of decentralizing power production still leave the option of connecting to and using centralized power grids. In some locations, national utility companies will even pay localized power producers for surplus energy they provide to the grid.
Decentralizing Power Production
A good example of how power decentralization is taking shape can be seen at Brooklyn Microgrid. Brooklyn Microgrid helps link multiple self-sufficient or semi-self-sufficient solar powered homes and businesses together using blockchain transactions to form a peer-to-peer (P2P) localized utility company. Homes and businesses producing a surplus can help supply nearby locations that are using more energy than they themselves are producing.
In addition to a distributed, localized power grid, Brooklyn Microgrid is doing something else for those who are a part of it; building community and direct participation in the process of power production. Those involved in the microgrid are not “consumers,” they are now also producers with an increasingly technical knowledge of the essential process of power production and distribution.
Alternative energy cooperatives can be found all over the world and in both increasing numbers and capabilities. In a mountain village in Thailand, community members have built a school and technical center to help train and support each other’s solar and biogas systems, since their remote location lacks a direct connection with national utility lines. Engineers, technicians, and the curious have come from around the country to replicate their model in other provinces.
Baywind Energy Co-operative in the United Kingdom, since 1996, has used wind turbines placed on farmland in northern England to provide enough electricity for over 1,000 homes. So successful has the original 5 wind turbines built by the co-operative at Harlock Hill been, that they plan on replacing them with turbines twice as powerful.
Getting Started on a Smaller Scale
For the average person, however, lacking a local cooperative to participate in, and perhaps the resources to become completely energy self-sufficient, there are ways of getting started and expanding energy self-sufficiency to cover at least the essentials during an emergency.
For the mountain village in Thailand, solar power is used for basics like water pumps for agricultural irrigation and home use, charging phone batteries, powering radios, and even fans. Biogas is used for daily cooking and could even be used in emergencies to power gasoline powered generators (for charging solar-powered batteries when there is no sun).
Such solutions are accessible to virtually anyone on any budget and give a good starting point for those seeking everything from local self-sufficiency to understanding the dynamics of local power production for potential business ideas like Brooklyn Microgrid.
Once one understands the basics of alternative energy, many systems can be expanded in a modular fashion.
Solar: For solar, one needs solar panels, batteries, a charge controller, and an inverter. The charge controller is necessary because the electricity from solar panels is not constant, nor is the use of batteries, meaning that to make the most of your batteries you need to control how they are charged each and every time. There are a variety of chargers available depending on exactly what sort of system you are setting up. Choosing one for yourself requires research. Purchasing a reliable kit ensures that you get a charger compatible for your purposes.
An inverter is necessary to transform the DC electricity produced by your solar system and batteries into AC electricity required by most household appliances.
Kits featuring compatible panels, charge controllers, and inverters are available in all different sizes and varieties, from portable solar generators to permanent installations. One of these is the Sol-Ark Solar Generator. A full walk-through can be seen in the video below. The system is set up to provide power off-the-grid but can also be set up to use grid power should one’s battery charge drop below a certain percentage.
Virtually all other small, home-based solar systems will feature similar components and work in virtually the same manner. The homes and businesses participating with Brooklyn Microgrid also feature the same components, merely scaled up or down depending on the number of panels and batteries they are using.
Many systems appropriate for starters may only scratch monthly electric bills, but the purpose of owning them is to both gain experience in using alternative energy, and have a solar-powered generator in the event of an emergency. Larger systems providing most or all of a home’s electrical needs may still be prohibitively expensive. Many companies in the US lease solar power systems to homeowners rather than selling them outright.
As prices continue to drop, modular DIY systems and larger commercial solutions will eventually meet in the middle.
Biogas: In many parts of the world, cooking gas is used for daily food preparation. Cooking gas usually comes from a centralized petroleum-based infrastructure that collects, processes, packages, and ships the gas to users around the world.
Biogas, on the other hand, is the production of clean-burning methane gas onsite. With the use of a single sealed vessel or heavy plastic bag, organic matter such as kitchen scraps or landscaping debris is fed in one way, gas siphoned off as anaerobic bacteria inside digest the material, and high-quality organic fertilizer drawn from the other side. The organic fertilizer is odorless and helps complement a virtually closed system where a garden can be maintained, producing more organic material to be later fed into the biogas system.
These can be found in small rural homes in China, India, and across Southeast Asia. They are also used on an industrial scale across Europe to process leftovers collected by sanitation companies to produce electricity for entire communities.
There are endless resources online on how to construct and use your own home biogas system. There are also kits that are available for purchase. These include HomeBiogas, whose website has a variety of resources explaining how the system works and what it consists of. With the right input, the system claims to be capable of producing upward to 3 hours of cooking gas.
Biogas systems depend on healthy bacteria thriving within, so the system must be “fed” regularly and the fertilizer collected and removed regularly as well.
In Thailand, such systems have provided reliable cooking gas daily for years at a time. Occasionally, the heavy plastic bag must be replaced, and gas lines cleared of water or other obstructions. There are many resources online regarding trouble shooting your biogas system, and if you opt for a kit, you will likely receive technical support as well.
What’s Next?
Gaining experience in alternative energy, especially as it becomes more prominent and entire businesses begin to be built around it could be a vector toward not only a certain degree of energy self-sufficiency, but also an opportunity to either join local cooperatives, local alternative energy companies, and local utility companies, or even create your own.
Companies like Tesla which are taking on both electric vehicles and solar power, are proving that an entire alternative infrastructure can be created to power civilization, beyond petrochemicals, coal, and nuclear power. The currency of energy production in the future will be local know-how, not utility bills.
With the advent of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and other increasingly accessible forms of information technology, there are opportunities to couple these with alternative energy production. So those lacking the technical knowledge to construct alternative energy systems themselves, may be able to apply other skillsets to enhancing their use locally, or P2P.
Blockchain transactions are already being used to manage localized use of solar energy in Brooklyn. Artificial intelligence is being applied to examining peak hours, spot trends, and how best to manage local grids, while mobile applications of all kinds are being used to control and monitor local smart grids in the same manner larger, centralized grids are currently run.
The opportunities are boundless, and as power production increasingly becomes decentralized, these opportunities will multiply for local entrepreneurs who have a background in alternative energy production and experience in producing energy for both themselves and other members in their community.