Community-scale Energy

Most people say small scale energy project are a good idea-  inherently better than large inflexible centralized corporately owned projects, allowing for local ownership and control. However, there can be economies of scale. Some renewable energy projects are best technically and economically at larger scale- wind turbines for example, due to the basic physics of wind energy capture and conversion.  Certainly since the power available is proportional to the square of the bade size and the cube of the wind speed, a large diameter 1MW wind turbine on a good elevated site with good wind speeds will produce far more electricity than 1000 small diameter 1kW domestic-scale micro turbines in low wind speed urban environments. Moreover, in a multi-MW wind farm with a lot of MW units, the cost of linking them to the grid and maintaining them can be shared. Similarly, for wave and tidal projects, their location is geographically defined and they will more efficient at multi-MW scale.

Some individual domestic scale energy technology can be efficient, PV solar for example, with power delivered direct from the user’s roof, but even in that case there are economies in bulk buying, installation and operational scale. Despite the need for grid links, it is cheaper and easier to buy and install a lot of units together at the same time in a large solar farm. Or possibly as part of a major roof-top deployment programme in a collective housing project.

So, although there may be exceptions, it is usually best to go for larger scale. But how large? 

Community scale projects may be a sensible compromise between scale and efficiency- small enough to be locally owned and controlled, but large enough to be efficient.  Local ownership of wind farms has proved to be a good way forward in many countries, not least in avoiding opposition to projects imposed by remote corporate owners. That is how wind took off so dramatically in Denmark, with most of the projects being locally owned. Energy co-ops are now spreading across Germany, with about 40% of German renewable energy capacity being locally owned- although some of that is domestic PV, owned by individuals.

While there is clearly a strong environmental sentiment at work, the main driver for this expansion has been economics and the availability of attractive rates from Feed-In Tariffs.

Policy changes can slow progress, although the momentum and new market that has been created means that unit costs are falling and new cheaper technology is emerging, making subsidies less vital. So it’s a success story, both in terms of capacity and the expansion of local control, to the extent that conventional energy suppliers have now lost control of much of the market. There are however some issues. The spread of distributed self-generation makes it harder to manage the overall energy system, balancing supply and demand.

Most renewables are variable, and most individual PV self-generators still top up from the grid to meet their needs when there are lulls in local solar availability and at night. So they still need grid links, which also allow them to export any excesses, and offset the costs of their system.  Some may now be installing battery storage, as an alternative, and some may even try to go off grid, but then they loose the export earnings and it maybe be hard to meet all their energy needs in this way. Arguably it makes more sense to retain grid links and import power when needed, especially since, as noted above, it can be generated by larger more efficient projects elsewhere. Grid links make it possible to use power generated at the best sites, and if suitably extended, help balance and smooth out local variations in supply across wide areas. On that basis, sticking just to autarchic local generation maybe suboptimal, whether by individuals or communities. It may require much more local capacity than otherwise needed and also more local storage, with in many case small storage systems being less efficient than large ones.  Set against that is the possibility than local grid linked storage could be seen as a form of distributed storage, taking power from the grid when available, and, along with local generation, reducing the need for large grid power exchanges at peak demand times. The need for more grids to handle variable renewables and their local impacts, is certainly an issue in some countries. That’s one reason why Greenpeace has suggested that the ratio between small/local and large/remote generation should be 70:30. That’s optimistic, depending on the location. Given the high energy use and their spatial constraints, few cities  could meet 70% of their energy needs from renewable energy generated within their boundaries: they would have to import power from rural and offshore areas. The best achieved so far, in a survey of 13 leading EU city initiatives, has been around a 7% contribution from ‘internal’ urban renewables sources: http://www.energy-cities.eu/Energy-Cities-Members-delivering

None of this means that local generation projects are a bad idea. They can play a significant role, especially at the community/municipal scale. But aiming for high levels of local self sufficiency may not be sensible or needed. Instead we need to consider the system as a whole, while opting for local generation wherever possible, so as to gain the local social benefits.  A strict interpretation of ‘local generation’ would imply near total self-sufficiency e.g. for villages and town, but in a more realistic version they could import power from projects nearby e.g. local wind farms. However, as argued above, even that seems unnecessarily restrictive- what is wrong with trading local excesses to where there is a need and at other times importing power from locations where it is best generated? 

That implies that there will still be some large scale possibly corporate led projects, run to top the system up, although in principle some of these could be municipally owned and controlled. So could the local energy distribution system, including heat supply via biomass fired CHP/ district heating networks and large heat stores, topped up with solar heat. That would still leave conventional companies supplying the energy hardware, unless new co-operative/locally owned manufacturing enterprises emerge. Or even nationalised companies, taking over the whole thing, including transmission. How far we might or should go in this ‘socialised energy economy’ direction obviously depends on your political views! But in the end it all comes down to money and power. Community groups have little of either at present, local councils not much more. So there is a way to go. However, we have seen the growth of grass roots power and local projects in Germany, and that has changed the situation. Similar initiatives may emerge in the UK: the GIFT campaign looks exciting, with, potentially, municipal involvement: www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/GIFTS_initiative.pdf

Bottom-up grass roots initiatives may look weak when faced with corporate power, but with conventional politics all but frozen in many countries, they offer one of the few signs of life. See this excellent review: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115013477

There is much to do at national level and policy changes are needed, but grass roots activism may help to open up new possibilities. For helpful updates on local green energy projects around the UK see: http://www.microgenscotland.org.uk

Radical Technology Revisited

In the early 1970s there appeared a magazine called Undercurrents: The journal of radical science and people’s technology. It challenged the directions and uses of technology in modern societies, suggesting alternative, more humane pathways. In 1976 it spun off a book, Radical Technology, describing radical approaches to shelter, energy, food, materials, communications, autonomy and other perspectives. It inspired many people and many of the ideas have entered the mainstream. Energy was a key issue, with wind mills, biogas and solar power much to the fore, but it was clearly not the only one.

Forty years on, are any of those ideas still relevant today? The Radical Technology 2.0 conference in Bristol, September 2nd-4^th, will revisit Radical Technology, asking where it was right, where wrong, and what can be learned from its successes and failures. It looks like being an interesting event, ranging widely as might be expected and opening up many issues.

The1976 Radical Technology argued for radical decentralisation, small and simple local technologies, dispersed populations and cooperative communities. But are these decentral approaches still appropriate? Many of the original authors and practitioners of radical technology appear to have moved to embrace the need for some engagement with large-scale, sophisticated technologies. However, is ‘technology’ still a useful focus? Or should the focus now be on political change and social technologies? Why is innovation predominantly used to expand consumption, rather than to solve urgent problems? Was trying to ‘keep it simple’ a lost cause? Can ‘alternatives’ only survive in ghettoes and protected niches? Can we go ‘Back’? Or are technological ‘progress’ and economic growth the only options?

That’s certainly the high tech, high growth eco-moderniser’s view, contrasting strongly with  the ‘deep green’ stable-state decentralists view, with both usually saying the other view won’t deliver. Though not many of the former are likely to be at the event! Most people may well want something in the middle, although the issue then is will that be radical enough to deal with the various eco and energy crises, with the nuclear issue being a likely stumbling block.... For detail of the RT 2.0 event: www.radicaltechnology.org

‘Radical Alternatives’ were not just a fringe environmental concern or the preserve of communes and local co-ops. There was also the Lucas Aerospace workers Alternative Plan, with its 40^th anniversary gathering coming up in Birmingham in November. That gathering, organized by the Breaking the Frame New Luddite group, aims to link the experience of radical trade union groups then, trying to redirect the technology focus of their companies to create sustainable, socially useful work, with similar current campaigns: http://lucasplan.org.uk 

That follows on from the recent launch at the TUC of a new edition of Mike Cooley’s influential 1970’s book, ‘Architect or Bee? The Human Price of Technology’. Cooley was leading member of the Lucas workers campaign. Frances O’Grady, the current TUC General Secretary, in her new introduction to the book, asks ‘How do we maximise the upsides and minimise the downsides of technological change? How do we make sure rapid scientific advances empower rather than enslave working people? And how do we mould this progress towards socially useful purposes such as the fight against climate change, or public services tailored towards the needs of disadvantaged groups? Ultimately, how do we win the political and industrial battle for control?’ 

http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/acatalog/Trade_Union_Classics.html#a872

The world has of course moved on since the 1970s, with many of the technology ideas that emerged then now commonplace, but as that quote suggests, the issue are still the same. So looking back at these early initiatives may still be valuable. The mood then was very hopeful, with old structures breaking up and new ideas spreading. But it’s not that different now: progressive movements are still enthusiastic about the possibilities of change and the changes that have occurred since the 1970s, for example in the energy area, would  have amazed the activists then. Wind and solar power were just dreams, now both are major energy suppliers globally. The political battles however are much the same. And now the word ‘radical’ has new less appealing associations, implying the imposition of narrow fundamentalist views.  But, in all areas, there are non-dogmatic challenges to the status quo and, as ever, resistance to that.

The challenge is thus both technological and political. As Lund emphasized in his book Renewable Energy Systems (Elsevier 2104), what is needed is not is just a technological change, it also involves a social choice process, without which the technical side will flounder or be side tracked. He looks at how to enhance ‘choice awareness’, moving beyond the paralyzing status quo view that ‘there are no choices’– or only one choice. He notes that ‘existing organizations will often seek to create the perception that the radical change in technologies is not an option and that society has no choice but to implement a solution involving the technologies that will save and constitute existing positions’.  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629614000838     

Even if we limit ourselves to just energy issues, as Miller et al put it, ‘the key choices involved in energy transitions are not so much between different fuels but between different forms of social, economic, and political arrangements built in combination with new energy technologies’: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/csac20/22/2#.VSp3DIX1uv8 

Of course, energy is only one issue, linked to many larger ones, such as economic growth and social equity. And as deep greens often say, technology is not the key thing: we need social and political change first. Although others say it has to be a coevolution process: technical change can help social change and vice versa.  Then again, some say that technology can potentially be liberatory, undermining capitalism: http://isa-global-dialogue.net/the-end-of-the-world-the-end-of-capitalism-and-the-start-of-a-new-radical-sociology/

All of which, still begs the question of who make the changes? Unless that is you think the process will be automatic, as technology evolves.  Plenty to debate at the 40^th anniversaries!

*The newsletter I edit, Renew, is also approaching its fortieth anniversary- although there’s still some way to go. It started life as as the Newsletter of the NATTA network, which was set up in 1976. But the first issue didn’t emerge until 1979. Though it has come out bimonthly in various formats ever since: https://renewnatta.wordpress.com

Renewables- the problems of success

Brexit may be dominating our thoughts at present- a self inflicted disaster, likely to lead to a slow down in renewable development, amongst many other things. See this helpful if grim analysis: https://energyfutureslab.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/is-brexit-really-brexit-at-all-and-what-will-it-mean-for-us

Brexit could mean the UK falls even further behind the rest of the EU, abandoning even its low 15% by 2020 renewable energy target. On that basis they may be glad to see us go! But rather than dwelling on that, in this post I’m going to look at what’s happening elsewhere in the EU and globally.  It’s a story of success- although that also bring problems.

Sweden is in the lead in the EU, now meeting over 50% of its energy needs from renewables. Several other EU countries are over or nearing 30%, some, like Austria, helped by their large hydro capacities. But many others, with less hydro, are also doing well, especially in terms of electricity supply. Over 32% of Germany’s electricity is now generated from renewable energy sources. http://energytransition.de/2016/01/germany-is-20-years-away-from-100-percent-renewable-power-not/  Denmark is even further ahead -wind energy alone now supplies 43% of its annual electricity.

However, there can be problems with success.  At times there’s too much renewable energy. So, like Germany, Denmark has been looking to Power to Gas conversion/storage options to capture the value of this surplus. In one variant, excess wind-derived electricity is used to electrolyse water to make hydrogen gas, which is then reacted with carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from the air, power plant exhausts or from industry to make methane, which can be used as fuel for power plants, heating or vehicles: http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/surplus-wind-stored-as-gas-nid3196.html

A larger, longer term, problem is that the more renewable energy there is in the market, and the lower its price, the lower is its market value- it sees off expensive fossil fuel, cuts overall prices, but also thus cuts its potential income. See this slightly garbled analysis:  http://energyandcarbon.com/the-declining-value-of-wind-and-solar-to-the-german-power-system

Basically, it’s all about a race to the bottom in marginal costing. Good for consumers (retail prices should fall), good for the planet (emissions will fall), but not good for companies trying to make a living out of energy supply (their profit margins fall). The trouble then is that this may mean the growth of renewables might slow, as profit-seeking investment capital dries up. It’s a standard problem of success- once you reach the top (dominating the market) there is nowhere to go but down, especially since, within the sustainable future credo, the aim is to limit growth once needs have been met.

There is a way to go before this issue gets serious. Renewables are still not dominant, only supplying around 23% of global electricity, and there is plenty of room for them to continue booming around the world, not least since, in many poor countries, even basic energy needs have not been met. There is also plenty of money to be made. Global investment rose 4% last year, to $329bn. And most studies see it accelerating into the future. High renewables scenarios from academics and NGOs are now very familiar: e.g. www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2015/Energy-Revolution-2015-Full.pdf  and www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/can-the-world-convert-to-total-renewable-energy-by-2050/article27989205/

However, the big energy companies are also coming out with what a few years back would have seemed like heresies. A recent R&D Paper from EDF looks at a future dominated by renewables, which supply 60% of the EU’s electricity by 2030, with nuclear only playing a moderate role (90GW total). www.energypost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/EDF-study-for-download-on-EP.pdf

That would lead to major changes. EDF calculates that wind and solar would displace 160GW of baseload capacity, but would require 60GW of fossil backup, so the net reduction is only 100GW. Even so that would mean a huge swing away from fossil fuel. Coal capacity is reduced by 170GW from 250GW to 80GW. However, gas is less impacted. Combined cycle gas plants (CCGT) is increased by 15GW from 70GW to 85GW. Fast start up open cycle (OCGT) plants, used for grid balancing/peak load matching, is increased by 65GW from 35GW to 100GW.  

Of course that doesn't have to be done using fossil fuel: as I have described in my new IoP e-book ‘Balancing Green Power’, there are other options for balancing, including the Power to Gas approach mentioned above, with stored surpluses being available for storage to met shortfalls, and some of this also being shifted via inter-connectors.  That, along with smart grid demand-response, is what most of the academic and NGO scenarios suggests, and most also avoid reliance on nuclear, since (amongst many other things) it is inflexible and makes balancing harder.  Many of them look to 100% renewables by 2050, a view also shared by some trade groups. For example, the World Wind Energy Association says near 100% renewable energy grids will be established by 2050. Stefan Gsänger, WWEA Secretary General, said ‘there are no basic technical barriers for wind power to contribute a large portion of the future global energy supply. 40 % wind power in 2050 is a realistic scenario, and the remaining 60 % will be covered from other renewable technologies so that the world can reach a 100 % renewable power supply (at) latest by the middle of this century.’

That may sound optimistic, and certainly there will be many obstacles and problems to face, but even the relatively conservative International Energy Agency sees renewables roaring ahead. By 2040, it says renewable power generation will reach 50% in the EU and around 30% in China and Japan, and over 25% in the US and India. www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2015/151110_WEO2015_presentation.pdf

The IEA still sees fossil fuels as playing a major role, along, to a lesser degree, with nuclear. Hopefully that may not be the case. Certainly the pace of change in the last few years has been remarkable, with coal being challenged and nuclear flat-lining at around 11%.  Governments may still at times drag their feet and try to prevent change (as in the UK- still backing nuclear), but, as the costs of renewables continue to fall and the direct and indirect costs of using fossil fuels grow, along with the risks and costs of nuclear, the change process seems unstoppable: http://about.bnef.com/press-releases/wind-solar-boost-cost-competitiveness-versus-fossil-fuels/  

Can it be accelerated?  IRENA is trying to speed things up via its ‘Age of Renewables’ programme, hoping to double renewables globally by 2030, while halving energy use: www.irena.org/menu/index.aspx?mnu=Subcat&PriMenuID=36&CatID=141&SubcatID=642   That’s for energy not just electricity and is in line with the goals of the UNs Sustainable Energy for All programme. But even that is not really maximal: with costs falling, more could be done, as the NGO scenarios outline, aiming for 80-90% renewable energy contributions in many countries by 2050. Then we may hit some of the problems of success! Though, post Brexit, it remains to be seen if the UK will be in the running..

*My new book ‘Balancing Green Power: how to deal with variable energy’, is available from Institute of Physics Publications. http://iopscience.iop.org/book/978-0-7503-1230-1