Kotzebue Clean Energy Coalition Newsletter

The latest from just above the Arctic Circle.

Here is your weekly shot of energy, a list of what I’m exploring.

Islanded: Microgrids in Remote Alaska Villages

The push to create more microgrids in the U.S. usually involves being able to disconnect an industrial area, a town, or a region from the grid. If there is a lack of energy on the microgrid they simply reconnect to the grid. In Kotzebue and in small villages throughout rural Alaska it is different: we are always islanded. There is no grid to connect to, we are on our own.

If there is a problem at the power plant everybody knows. The lights go out. Outages in the summer are an inconvenience, outages in the winter are more serious. Toyostoves are great but they require electricity, so do most furnaces, a homeowner may have fuel, but no way to burn it to heat their home. A frozen home leads to frozen pipes and real problems. It has always surprised me how few people have backup sources of heat, like a wood stove or even a backup generator.

The energy transition offers an opportunity to rethink these systems.

The biggest problem with centralized systems, like large diesel generators, is that they create a single point of failure. Distributed energy, a decentralized system, could solve this problem. A decentralized system, like the internet, has no single point of failure. So far in Alaska most of the renewable energy deployment has followed the more centralized model, projects done by a utility or an Independent Power Producer. There are reasons for this caused by funding sources, economies of scale and the fact that this is the system that we are used to.

What would a decentralized system look like? Solar on every roof, privately owned wind turbines all tied together supporting each other, storing and trading energy back and forth, and importantly more resilient. Unfortunately, the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, but people always want reliable power. Decentralized systems need storage.

Luckily people much smarter than me have been working on this for a long time. Here are some interesting technologies that could help lead to that reliable micro-grid of the future:

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a report in 2021, The Storage Futures Study that analyzed the role of energy storage in maintaining a resilient, flexible, and low carbon U.S. power grid through the year 2050. For a quick primer watch this video. What To Know About Energy Storage on the Future Grid.

A Tesla Powerwall in every house would be cool but what if you just used your car instead. Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology is exciting. Using mobile batteries (EV's) to help the grid, awesome. It’s even better when you consider an F-150 Lightning battery is 7 times larger than a Powerwall. Most people are going to buy a vehicle anyway. There are hurdles like technology and regulation to overcome but V2G is coming. https://www.cleanenergyreviews.info/blog/v2g-explained-vehicle-to-grid-benefits​

If an electric pickup can now power your home for three days I wonder what an electric snowmobile can do?

​https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/07/ev-battery-power-your-home/​

There are technological hurdles but our national labs are working on solutions.

​National Lab's Mobile Microgrid Adds Grid Smarts by Coupling with Hydro, Nuclear and DERs​

​https://ww​w.microgridknowledge.com/remote-and-island-microgrids/article/33008855/labs-microgrid-in-a-box-to-add-grid-smarts-by-coupling-with-hydro-nuclear-and-ders​

Hydrogen can help too. The [H2] Innovation Experience is North America's first-ever clean hydrogen powered microgrid and home. Named a World-Changing Idea by Fast Company and awarded the U.S. Green Building Council of L.A.’s Sustainable Innovation Award, the [H2]IE features clean hydrogen production and storage along with a nearly 2,000 square-foot home that can draw power from solar panels and convert excess renewable energy into clean hydrogen. https://www.socalgas.com/sustainability/h2home​

The bottom line is that the way that we get our energy, store our energy and even consume energy are going to change over coming years. I don't know which technologies are going to win out, but I feel confident that things are going to change for the better, fewer carbon emission, less money sent out of poor communities to line the pockets of oil executives, more energy and a cleaner planet.

July 4th may have been the hottest day in 125,000 years but we are making progress on the energy transition. Eventually there will be less carbon being emitted. The transition has begun but it has a long way to go.

Quote

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
​― Winston Churchhill​
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email: chad.nordlum@qira.org
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Have a wonderful weekend.
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Take care,
​
Chad

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