Considering All the Benefits of Residential Renewable Energy is Critical

Ask most people about the benefits of residential renewable energy--geothermal, rooftop solar photovoltaic and solar thermal, and backyard wind turbines, primarily--and the response is usually the same: they are good for the environment, raise property value and lower or eliminate utility bills. While undoubtedly true, these responses present an incomplete picture of the benefits of distributed renewable energy. In certain instances, such as last week when a single ice storm left over 1 million homes and businesses in New England without power, a residential energy system can mean the difference between seeking shelter and being able to shelter others. Other times, particularly during peak demand, renewables stabilize the grid and lower costs for all utility customers.

The Grid Can Fail, and It's Expensive When It Does
America's electricity grid is an engineering marvel, but it is also old, outdated, overstrained and susceptible to failure from storms, terrorism, accidents and high energy demand. And when the grid fails, not only is the loss of power inconvenient, it is also dangerous and costly. For example, the 2003 blackout that stretched from Canada to New York was estimated to have an economic cost of "between $7 and $10 billion. . .due to food spoilage, lost production and overtime wages" as well as the cost of repairing and upgrading the affected parts of the grid. While the 2003 grid failure was one of the most extraordinary outages to hit the United States, smaller scale blackouts, particularly from storms and natural disasters, are rather common.

Advantages of Distributed Energy
Distributed energy has the distinct advantage of functioning regardless of the state of the electrical grid as a whole. What's more, small, residential energy systems actually make the grid more stable by reducing peak demand--the times during which power lines strain to carry enough power to enough homes. Even better, reducing peak demand goes a long way towards reducing electricity prices. In fact, according to the Department of Energy "a 1% reduction in load during high peak periods can reduce wholesale electricity prices by 10%, and a 5% reduction in load can reduce peak prices by as much as 19%." In other words, distributed wind, solar and geothermal can reduce the high demand for energy that often leads to outages and mitigate the impacts of blackouts when they do occur in a way that large scale renewable energy cannot. That is, even massive wind farms in the Midwest and solar concentrating plants in the Southwest are reliant on an energy grid to bring the power from where it is produced to where it is consumed. So while these large scale operations are necessary if we are to tackle rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that the true advantages of residential scale, distributed energy be taken into full consideration as well.

Dreaming of Solar Rooftops
The day after last week's ice storm in New England the sky was crisp and clear, and puddles of sunshine flooded rooftops across Providence, Rhode Island. Even though the blackout didn't affect my hometown, I couldn't help but think about the potential for millions of homes and businesses to be soaking up the sun to produce electricity and hot water (that can be used for showering as well as heating a home through radiant floor heating). The reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants are well documented, as well as the potential cost savings to the owner of a renewable energy system. However, the cost savings to society--in terms of jobs created from installation and manufacturing, stability provided to the grid, and avoided health care costs due to reduced pollution, to name a few--are not. In order to establish proper incentives for these systems, their internalized value must be estimated and built into subsidies.

Financing is Essential
Finally, as I argued last week, new and innovative mechanisms for financing the up-front cost of renewable energy and energy efficiency need to become policy priorities. After all, no matter how much time advocates spend touting the benefits of wind, solar, geothermal, and efficiency, if people can't afford them, the benefits will never fully be realized. Fortunately, companies like Solar City, Sun Run, and Sun Edison, and cities such as Berkeley, San Francisco and Milwaukee, are blazing a path towards making renewables affordable and accessible to all.

Sources:
Department of Energy
Economic Impact of '03 Blackout (PDF)

Comments

[sunlizard]

Another disadvantage of large, industrial alternative energy farms is that they have a big negative ecological footprint. The amount of solar facilities proposed for the southwestern US will leave little public land for access, grossly disturb wildlife habitat, and these plants require too much water to operate. Up to 6 acre feet per megawatt. Plus, many private properties will be in the way of powerlines that will have to be constructed. Seizure of the land through eminent domain will be unavoidable for those who will not sell. There is more on this web site here: http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/SolarDesert.html

Wind Energy will need to be supplimented with conventional energy. More coal and possibly nuclear willneed to be burned in order to make up for the wind free days.

[Overtone]

The grid can benefit by the development of Ultraconductors in the form of cable, a project that is now beginning. Ultraconductors are the functional equivalent of ambient temperature superconductors. They can replace high voltage towers (vulnerable to ice storms) with buried cable at much lower voltage, carrying the same power at very high current.

Cars will be able to provide electricity to the grid when parked. Revolutionary replacements for batteries will generate electricity that can wirelessly be transmitted to the grid. Up to 150 kW appears practical and may allow cars, trucks and buses to pay for themselves. These convert never before commercialized energy sources; the Zero Point Field and/or ambient heat. See the website: magneticpowerinc.com and the updated article: How the Auto Industry can Kick-Start Economic Recovery at:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/partner/story?id=54277&cid=7763

[StuartH]

I hope the Obama administration is aware of municipal efforts over the past decades to move towards energy conservation or alternative fuels through rebate systems or changing zoning.

National policy should be made following the research into practical methods already done in those places where there are years of financial data to review. In Austin, Tx, for example, a coalition of progressive voters put a city council in place beginning in the early '80s that was motivated to push for alternatives to massive indebtedness to build a power plant based in the all-electric model that created incentives for greater consumption. People got free home energy audits, some subsidized rebates for installing more efficient systems, and the zoning codes were adjusted to promote green building.

It took a few years to prove the case to the more conservative voters who were concerned about taxes and utility rates. However, a lasting majority in support of conservation economics came of the effort. Also, green building became a national buzzword as a result of the pioneering by Roger Duncan and others. Anyone interested in how policy can really be effective ought to check it out.

[Thermodynamics]

Protect the Line Crews

The downside is that we need to get the electrical code and regulatory issues settled very well. Probably we should test this in a few small towns.

When line crews come around to fix wires after a storm we do not want them to be electrocuted. If someone's home power system is still pumping juice into the grid the line crews could be hurt.
This issue is only about half resolved right now. Rules exist but they are not a sure thing after a storm.

After we handle the code issues distributed power will be great for a long list of reasons. You've got the power where you need it.

[reside architecture inc]

andy, well written article. i think most would agree that it just makes sense to utilize renewable energy for our homes. you rightly pointed out, what really needs to be addressed, is how to make it affordable for the masses and, ultimately for everyone.
i think the powers that be should focus less attention on the benefits, and figure out how the average joe/jane can affford the expense associated with being able to utilize renewable energy in their own home.

[Kiba]

Absolutely spot on. The costs of subsidizing a massive green energy makeover will be returned several fold in very short order. Now is the time.

[innoventor]

Another home run article Andy! Love the way you think and put things! An addendum to your thoughts: when I read about the ice storm on the BBC they mentioned that at least one of the deaths attributable to this ice storm/power outage was due to an attempt by a victim of the outage to provide his own "distributed generation" using fossil fuel technology -- apparently he had decided to prepare for disasters like this by purchasing a diesel generator as his backup. Sadly he was asphyxiated in his cold garage running the generator without adequate ventilation (who would keep the windows open in an ice storm?) and died from acute carbon monoxide poisoning. We've all heard of people committing intentional suicide by turning on the car in their garage with all the doors and windows closed, but we rarely think of how deadly a backup generator powered by carbon fuels is. Yet this is the preferred "distributed generation" option of most Americans. I hope you and others can call attention to the threat of these gensets and that we can learn from this tragedy. Those of us who do have our own solar heating and solar electricity, as you point out in your article, are relatively immune from grid interruptions and don't have much to fear from bad winter storms -- we feel quite cosy in the cold German winter without worrying about blackouts or Russia cutting the gas supply.