An invitation to hackers, programmers, artists, energy geeks, and cultural creatives ...

Forgive my long missive, but I'd like to share a vision of a the electric "grid of the future". Perhaps some hackers and artists would be interested in building it. To utility engineers, the greatest constraint to significant deployment of renewable energy is that these sources are, by and large, intermittent. Some people see this as a fatal flaw with renewables. I don't. The problem, I believe, is that in the past 100 years consumers have become very disconnected from where electricity actually comes from and the relative abundance of electricity in real time. Utilities have been able to oblige because storable, dispatchable fossil fuel powered electricity has been relatively cheap. But we could have a very different system in which nudges to consumers modulate demand in response to supply.

Folks living on 'home power' off-grid type systems in which their homes are powered by sun or windpower are used to the idea that sometimes there is an abundance of electricity, and other times it is in short supply. When power is abundant, you do things like your laundry, or fire up the electric oven for cooking. In times of scarcity, you're careful to turn out the lights. Sometimes you need to go turn on the diesel generator (noisy, smelly, expensive to operate).

Similarly, farmers harvest when the sun is shining. When it's rainy, they do other things.

Utilities, increasingly, face the same reality of temporal changes in electricity abundance. Sometimes electricity is abundant. It was particularly so in spring of 2011 in BPA territory when winds in the Columbia Gorge were gusting and the snowmelt was significant. The price power power in Spring 2011 at the transmission level actually dipped below zero at times. But as a retail customer using this electricity, I had no clue of the abundance at the time. My light switches were mute.

Other times electricity is scarce -- think a cold, still night in the Pacific Northwest when many folks' electric heaters are turned on, or a hot, breezeless day in California when air conditioners are cranking.

What if, in every home that volunteered to do so, a high-tech electricity display device communicated, in an artistic and playful way, what the state of abundance/scarcity was in the grid? I'm imagining a web-connected display kind of like an iPad with pictures or videos that have high artistic content. The whole package could be set up so that many people could contribute artistic imagery along a theme. One inspiration is the Johnny Cash Project <http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/> where tens of thousands of ordinary people have created thousands of versions of a moving music video.

This effort could be coupled with existing demand response programs that, for example, turn off people's water heaters in response to utility signals at times of peak load. And coupled with tariffs that encourage conservation in times of scarcity.


Users that were interested could, with a few taps, find out detailed real-time graphs of energy production and demand data, like this one maintained by BPA <http://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspx>.

This technology, in the homes and businesses of the willing, is the keystone, I think, towards a move towards a power system that provides for our needs (in times of scarcity) and our wants (in times of abundance) and facilitates high penetrations of renewable energy with no need to invent utility-scale storage.

Anybody up for the challenge? I'll bet our local utility, OPALCO, might be interested in a discussion about a beta roll-out...

Energy efficient rice cooking... the answer might surprise you!

Our son Ty did an experiment for his school science fair on energy efficiency of different techniques for cooking brown rice. I had no idea how inefficient rice cookers were!! Our rice cooker ran at a constant maximum wattage until rice was done (no simmering on lower heat!). This used just under 300 watt-hours to cook 350 mL of rice. He compared it to cooking as per directions (bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer). This used only 170 watt-hours. And then the same thing, but turning off the heat after boiling and wrapping the pot in an old wool sweater (down to 100 watt-hours). Finally, there's 'zero electricity' option of a solar oven...

See the graph below for results.

Coal? No thanks. Islanders turn out by hundreds to coal terminal scoping meeting

On Saturday November 3, over 430 residents of San Juan County packed the gymnasium at Friday Harbor High school during a three hour meeting to provide scoping comments to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed coal terminal at Cherry Point in Bellingham.  The comments were overwhelmingly against the project.  Of 85 speakers, only three were pro-terminal. Most of attendees wore red to show solidarity, and the audience raised their hands and signs in respectful, silent support of each other's comments for three hours straight.

The purpose of the scoping meeting was to elicit comments from the public which will be used to determine what factors to analyze and what extent they are considered in the environmental impact statement (EIS). Under the State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA), EIS is required because there is likely to have a significant environmental impact on the quality of the human environment. The EIS is being conducted by consulting firm CH2M HILL for three co-lead agencies: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Whatcom County and Washington Department of Ecology. Representatives of the three agencies were present at the meeting, and listened to comments in the public forum.

The scoping period is an extremely important part of the EIS process because it is in scoping, and only in scoping, that the extent and scope of the EIS are determined. It is a time for citizens to ask that the EIS cover all impacts that are important to us. Once the scoping period is over on January 21, this window of opportunity is closed.

Memorable public comments at the meeting included:

• ·         Marine biologists and other scientists discussed how Orcas and other species are already on in dire straits, and even without an accident the impact of additional noise, pollution, and loss of food supply will kill them off.
• ·         Local business owners discussed the devastating impact a vessel breach and oil or coal spill might have on the local economy, which is based largely on tourism and real estate.
• ·         Retired ferry captain Kenny Burtness who has navigating our waters over 10,000 times in his career commented on his professional experience how treacherous our narrow channels can be – in stark contrast to descriptions of our waters as deep and easy to navigate by a pro-terminal commenter.
• ·         Izzy Pikting Cheung, a young Chinese exchange student studying at Spring Street School shared a heart-wrenching story of her friend in a coal-polluted province who has not seen a bird or a tree with leaves since she was a child because of poisoned air, water and soil.
• ·         A Lopezian seal (Andre Entermann) showed up to express concerns about impacts of an oil spill from the hundreds of thousands of gallons of bunker oil carried on these vessels; and Lopezians Irene Skyriver, Kyra Dyer, and Callie North sang at the podium song of connection with nature.
• ·         Three Council members commented on the environmental and economic impacts on the San Juan Islands.
• ·         Our local National Park Service director highlighted federal mandates to protect our lands and waters.

      Written comments carry equal weight in the scoping process, and can be submitted until the end of the scoping period directly at the EIS website at: http://www.eisgatewaypacificwa.gov/. There is no limit on the number of comments per person. Please see www.lopeznocoalition.org for information and guides to scoping comment writing, and submit your comment(s) on risks and impacts from coal pit to power plant that you feel should be included in the EIS.

Common Ground featured at UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) symposium

 

Chris Greacen showed these slides as part of a panel called "Energy Efficiency for the 99%".  The slides cover the basic features of the Common Ground project, including energy efficiency measures, construction techniques, the community construction (featuring interns and homeowners). It invites viewers to consider that "energy efficiency for the 99%" is an opportunity to rethink the American Dream.  It takes inspired leadership and some hard work, but building affordable, superefficient housing can be a nucleation point for fun, active, deeply meaningful community building.

 

The Common Ground "net zero energy" community land trust project

More PowerPoint presentations from Chris Greacen

OPALCO Energy Efficiency Task Force, Tribes and Opower

Last week a group of OPALCO board members and local citizens concerned about energy met on Orcas to brainstorm steps OPALCO can take to help move action on energy efficiency to the next level. Yay! Kudos to OPALCO -- especially board members John Bogert, Winnie Adams, Bob Myher, and OPALCO energy services director Anne Bertino for moving forward on this very important issue.

Broadly -- OPALCO has been doing a good job implementing energy efficiency measures through its Energy Services office staffed by Anne Bertino and Elisa Scott-Howard. The Energy Services office (terrible name) gives out over $200,000 a year in rebates from everything from windows to refrigerators to heat pumps. But it is increasingly clear that our resources as an island community, and as a planet, are limited. OPALCO's load needs to stop growing, because any growth in electricity consumption is going to be at high "tier 2" rates from BPA.

One of the conversations that emerged from that meeting was about messaging. How can we inspire folks to pay a bit more attention to electricity consumption? Turn down the heat when/where it's not necessary. Dry clothes on clotheslines instead of in a clothes dryer. And a thousand other little steps that, together, can add up to huge savings? (User behavior, we've found at Common Ground, is huge. Identical houses. But a factor of nearly three in electricity consumption across households of identical sizes).

I think Seth Godin's lecture on Tribes has some relevance here... 


Instead of regular advertising (dumbed-down idea + lots of adds), can we harness "tribes" of affinity?

One idea I'm intrigued by is direct comparison with neighbors and friends. One outfit that's doing interesting work on these lines is Opower, in collaboration with Facebook. If OPALCO signs up, data can be uploaded from OPOWER automatically. But you can also manually put it in. Below is a graphic from Opower comparing our home with other similar homes in the region. I put in the data manually...



And it can go up on Facebook, where you can find how you compare among friends & neighbors.

Useful? Well, only among those in Opalco territory who -- at this point -- care about energy efficiency and also "do" Facebook. But who knows, maybe this tribe has surprising ways of growing.