So, Puerto Rico, hurricanes, energy, etc. Perhaps some change is needed in the electricity system:
None has been allocated to distributed rooftop solar – a decentralised energy alternative which grassroot activists and environmental experts argue would be cheaper, cleaner and more resilient.
Something I don’t know. Is rooftop solar actually more resilient in hurricanes?
If the hurricane missed it, yes. The key point is that microgrids make strategic and economic sense in this scenario. You don’t lose your whole country’s power because you lose one or two assets.
Interestingly, big companies in the UK are installing private microgrids to enable them to decouple large sites from the National Grid and consume 100pc of their own generation. There are no subsidies so it must make economic sense in some situations.
The US military are also doing a lot of research into microgrids for resilience. What works for near battlefields would also be useful in disaster hit areas.
During Storm Arwen about 10 fences and 5 trees came down in my village, but no rooftop solar panels. The roof ones are well attached by the erectors in the UK.
Further down the A19 at Wolviston a solar farm was lifted off the ground and twisted as it landed back down.
Rooftop solar in hot countries with rubbish infrastructure sounds like a no brainer.
Rooftop solar in hot countries with rubbish infrastructure sounds like a no brainer.
Here they have Net Metering where your rooftop solar (theoretically) supplies to the grid and you get a credit for each KWh you produce…
Those units are then credited against your electricity bill.
The only problem is that when the grid goes down for any reason your system shuts down and you lose power with everybody else no matter how many panels you have…
Clearly it is not sustainable in its current (boom-tish) form and as far as I can see is a green box ticking exercise…
As long as the generated electricity is distributed overhead by wires on wooden poles?
yeah…. good luck with that…
Attaching a set of spoilers on a roof of dubious structural integrity will probably prove to be a bit of a problem as well in hurricane winds…
“Grassroots activists” shouty shouty people, you mean..,
There’s an energy source which they can strap to their rooftops themselves and live independent of their third-world government; yet they’re clamouring for that same government to do it for them. What a strange people.
Not only is it less, not more resilient, how are you going to power an apartment block off the solar panels on the roof?
“Arthur the cat
September 20, 2022 at 7:45 am
The US military are also doing a lot of research into microgrids for resilience. What works for near battlefields would also be useful in disaster hit areas.”
That’s not for resilience, it’s for cost.
FOBs, ect are already their own microgrid – it’s just that fuel ends up costing north of 50 bucks a gallon by the time it gets to them.
Puerto Rico is so corrupt the officials will be stealing the panels off rooftops before they can be wired into the hovels. It is, like most tropical islands, unproductive, ungovernable and utterly corrupt.