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Energy

Energy

Dale Vince enters politics

UK Energy boss Dale Vince’s appearance on Radio 4’sThe World This Weekend on Sunday, to announce his entry into politics, was a great piece of self-promotion ahead of the sale of Ecotricity – the green energy company he founded 25 years ago

What better excuse for a sale? And what better time than now to cash out, when interest in renewables is peaking? He could also bring a lot of funding into the Green Party ahead of the council elections in May.

Vince could now choose a Green peerage, and he deserves it – if only because his vegan football team, Forest Green of course, is currently top of the League Table

Vince started his business life battling for planning permission to erect a wind turbine in a field he lived in with the local milkman. Once he had built the turbine he figured he might as well apply for a bigger one, and parlayed his fortune from there. In 2020 the turnover of Ecotricity was £222m.

Critics question the way he picked a fight with the other leading green energy company in the UK – Good Energy. But he stayed in control of his company, whereas Julia Davenport exited Good Energy last year.  And he has remained true to his roots, calling out the big energy companies for their lack of green policies.

Vince might decide the Lords is a den of political cronyism  and opt to stand for election. Campaigning alongside Molly Scott Cato, he could probably secure her victory in his home town of Stroud. The current Green party candidate, Scott Cato came second in the December 2019 election with 32%, and the Labour winner on 44%.

Scott Cato is the Green party press officer.  She would not wish to stand aside, but clearly Vince is better at publicity than she is.  Not that he would settle for so lowly a role. As the party’s energy expert he would command widespread respect and attention.  And with him as  chief fund-raiser, the Green party election coffers would never be fuller.

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Energy

Micro-Nuclear or Mini-nuclear?

COP26 may have been a near-total failure, but I heard dozens of delegates congratulating each other on being present for what one called “the energy sales conference to end all sales conferences.” And its true that there were more representatives of the fossil fuel industry in Glasgow than any one country-delegation.

It would be ironic if the biggest achievement announced at Cop26 this week is not the international carbon-reduction route-map we were promised, but a groundbreaking business deal between the UK government and Rolls Royce for the supply of miniature nuclear reactors, each capable of powering up to a million households.

Ten years ago I was on the board of a micro-nuclear startup. The company lasted about two years until we were shut down by the American investors, who concluded we had come to market way too early to cash in – the story of my life.  At that point I was an energy novice. And I remained convinced that micro-nuclear was the answer to providing safe, reliable power at reasonable cost with very few waste disposal issues.
I kept studying the energy market, expecting micro-grids of all kinds to emerge, especially in developing countries. There has been a gentle rise in micro-energy technology but the thrust has always been big projects. Its time that changed.
Now Warren East of Rolls Royce says he will be able to bring in the first prototypes at a cost to the Exchequer of £35-50 per Megawatt hour – the industry standard unit of cost for energy of all kinds. And, he was quick to point out, this makes them competitive with wind and solar producers which, although they can produce electricity at a lower cost, have yet to solve the problem of how to store their energy for use at times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Battery technology is advancing rapidly and still has a long way to go.
Paul Dorfman of the Nuclear Consulting Group, an independent think tank, told Radio 4’s Today programme,on Tuesday (9 Nov) that the mini-reactors are actually not that small – about half the size of conventional reactors – and that the Rolls Royce plan to site them within the perimeter of existing nuclear sites does not protect them from the threat faced by the current generation of nuclear reactors – which must be near the sea to guarantee sufficient cooling, where they cannot be adequately protected from flooding.
Warren East had to balance the need to make the reactors as small as possible for safety reasons, against the desire of both UK plc and Rolls Royce to make the project as big as possible. Policymakers and multinationals are addicted to big projects.
World Bank boss David Malpas told an interviewer last week: “The world bank is an institution that does big projects. That means how do you decommission a coal-fired power …

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Energy

Off-Grid campaign for Renewable Micro-Grids

UK Parliamentary Petition

Decarbonise UK energy by funding locally-owned renewable micro-grids

About 75% of all global warming (ie carbon emissions) is caused by the production and consumption of energy. Please see our new video and sign our petition to persuade the government to act.

It will cost hundreds of billions to make electricity production in the UK carbon-neutral, but the current national grid is inefficient, with at least 8-10% of energy lost in distribution or transmission. And a further 30% wasted in the electricity production process.

The Government estimates it will cost a total of £500 billion over 20 years to decarbonise the grid, and it intends to spend most of that money through the energy companies which caused the problem in the first place. the UK should instead fund resident-owned renewable energy grids across the country. Power to the people.

More details

 

We are campaigning for 100,000 signatures for the parliamentary petition and then a government debate while Cop26 takes place.

Sign this petition

52 signatures

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10,000

At 10,000 signatures…

At 10,000 signatures, government will respond to this petition

At 100,000 signatures…

At 100,000 signatures, this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament

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Created by

Nick Rosen

Deadline

18 February 2022

All petitions run for 6 months

Official petition website: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/594570

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Energy

1.4 million Texas homes off-grid as power network buckles

More than half of energy-rich state’s total power generation capacity remains offline

The electric grid, which is designed to enable energy trading rather than protecting domestic consumers, has collapsed in Texas due to extreme winter weather.  The same thing could easily happen elsewhere in America.

Houston’s mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter: “The city does not control the Texas power grid. We do not oversee Ercot which manages and serves as the traffic cop for the electric grid. That is the governor and the State of Texas.”

Hundreds of thousands of lives have been disrupted as energy prices spiked 100 times due to surging demand for heating in the extreme conditions. Many are reduced to melting snow to provide drinking water.

For residents of the Lone Star State, the problem stems from both a record spike in demand in a place that rarely gets this cold, as well as an unexpected drop in the supply of energy from natural gas, coal, wind, nuclear, and solar sources iced up by sleet and wind. This is coupled with the arcane power management setup in Texas – similar to other States.

Amid a backlash from angry Texans, Republican governor Greg Abbott called on the state’s legislature to investigate and reform Ercot. “The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours,” Abbott said. While the Texas power grid has proven largely capable of handling demand peaks during the state’s sweltering summers, the electricity supply system has been crippled by some of the coldest weather the state has experienced in decades. Wholesale electricity prices have hovered around Ercot’s price cap of $9,000 a megawatt-hour for days because of the supply shortages, far above typical prices of about $25/MWh. That has the potential to put immense strain on energy suppliers forced to buy at the astronomical prices.

US natural gas prices surged as much as 10 per cent on Tuesday to about $3.15 a million British thermal units, its highest level since October. Prices at one Oklahoma pricing hub, where supplies were extremely tight, soared from about $3 an MBtu to almost $1,000 an MBtu. The freezing temperatures and sustained power outages have also disrupted the state’s oil industry, the largest in the country. Producers in Texas’s Permian oilfield, one of the world’s most prolific, face days of disruptions as pipelines and other equipment freeze up and icy road conditions delay repairs.

Though the number of customers in the dark had dropped by 25 percent in Texas on Tuesday, nearly 3.2 million customers remained without electricity early Tuesday evening, according to PowerOutage.us. That’s about 1 million customers fewer than at the peak of the blackouts, but still represents more than a quarter of the Lone Star State.

Meanwhile, about 11,000 customers were without power in Oklahoma, primarily around the Oklahoma City metro area, with 120,000 out

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Judges Gavel
Community

US Power Grid Closes in on Debtors

The Washington Post reports an unprecedented rise in arrears owed to Utility companies by America households struggling in the pandemic.  Those bills are about to fall due. And the Utilities are planning to collect.

There was a moratorium on Utility bills, but it has now been lifted in most states and now only DC and 14 States still protect consumers from Utility debt collection.

In the DC, area, Fairfax Water is “considering” shutting off service for nonpayment. There has been more than a sevenfold increase in unpaid bills since before the pandemic.

Nationally, As of Dec. 31, Americans owed their gas and electric utilities an estimated $32 billion, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents state directors of low-income energy aid programs. In the District of Columbia, NEADA estimates that almost 63,000 households owed about $50 million, while more than 400,000 in Maryland owed $251 million.

“We’ve never seen numbers like this before,” said Mark Wolfe, NEADA’s executive director. “The question is, how do we keep families connected to the grid and in their homes when they don’t have income coming in? . . . We’ve never had a situation where this many people haven’t paid a bill in more than nine months, and we still have a long time to go.”

Washington Gas plans to begin sending shutoff notices to unresponsive Maryland customers after March 31, which could lead to disconnections starting around Memorial Day, the utility said. About 80,000 accounts in the Washington region were more than three months past due as of Dec. 31 — a 30 percent increase from a year earlier.

A coalition of more than 600 racial justice, labor, environmental and religious groups have urged President Biden to declare a national ban on utility cutoffs. The administration recently extended a federal moratorium on evictions through March and proposed $25 billion in rental assistance and $5 billion for home energy and water costs as part of its $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package.

One economist estimated that residential electricity use spiked 10% on average between April and July 2020, leading to households spending nearly $6 billion on extra usage.

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Energy

Big tech needs to be on the grid – but we dont

The combined power usage of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple is more than 45 terawatt-hours a year, about as much as New Zealand, new research revealed today. That amount will grow, as the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning demands more computing power.

Meanwhile its increasingly possible for individuals to live entirely separated from the electricity grid.

Britain’s first houses with appliances powered entirely by hydrogen will open within two months as ministers step up their campaign to prove that the fuel will become a greener replacement for natural gas.

The two show homes set to open in April in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, will include boilers, hobs, cookers and fires that release no carbon emissions as part of the Government’s drive to phase out the use of fossil fuels.

The semi-detached properties – which are expected to look like normal houses from the outside – are not intended to become family homes, instead serving as a showcase for hydrogen technology.

The Government believes hydrogen could play a major role in achieving its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 while also helping create up to 100,000 jobs by that point – including 8,000 by 2030.

The project secured a £250,000 grant from the Government’s Hy4Heat innovation programme and is being run by gas distribution firms Northern Gas Networks and Cadent.

The companies have both also input £250,000 of funding each for the houses, which are planned to be open to members of the public who will be able to view appliances and see how they compare to existing ones.

Hy4Heat has said the development of ‘hydrogen-ready’ appliances could have a big effect on the cost and impact on the public of a potential conversion of the gas grid from 100 per cent methane to 100 per cent hydrogen. Alternatively, Hydrogen could be converted from a water supply in the home.

Northern Gas Networks chief executive Mark Horsley said: ‘We’re delighted to be working with BEIS and Cadent on this unique demonstration, which gives energy customers a first glimpse at hydrogen technology in the home.

‘Just like natural gas, hydrogen can heat homes in exactly the same way, meaning minimal change for customers in terms of how they use gas for heating or cooking.

‘The houses bring to life the potential of this green gas for keeping UK homes warm, while minimising impact on the environment.’

The Government said students from schools, colleges and universities will visit to learn about the technology, as well as careers in the green economy and in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects.

Cadent chief executive Steve Fraser added: ‘We are proud to be part of this important project where we will be able to show customers what their future gas appliances will look like.

‘A familiar sight to them, with one difference, they will be powered by hydrogen. These …

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Energy

Best portable power stations to buy in 2021

Whether you are living off-grid or just moving arond for business or leisure, keeping powered up is an important part of your preparations. Portable power stations are the smaller, lesser-known cousin of generators. These easily-packed gadgets can go with you on camping trips, to building sites — wherever you need electricity — to keep your phone, power tools and other electronics running.

We picked seven power stations to test for this list, ranging in price from $270 to $1,200. We focused exclusively on rechargeable battery-powered models, although gas models are available, too. While each power station does the same thing — provide power on the go in a compact design — each one has a different design and range of features.

Keep in mind that the prices  for each power station may change as retailers introduce sales and other updates.

Best overall

Jackery Explorer 1000

Click to view image.

The Jackery Explorer 1000 is by far the most well-rounded portable power station of the bunch. At 22 pounds, this powerful generator is fairly compact, especially compared with the 44-pound Ego Nexus model. Despite its smaller size, it manages to make space for three three-prong outlets, two USB-C ports, two standard USB-A ports and more.

Its display is easy to read, too, and it dominated the performance tests, exceeding its expected run time of 3 hours and 2 minutes (with three work lights connected to it) by an average of 8.5 minutes.

You can add on the 100W Solar panel for another $300

Fast facts

* Price (Amazon): $1,000

* Watt hours: 1,002

* Weight: 22 pounds

SEE AT AMAZON

Best midrange

Klein Tools KTB5

When you don’t need something quite as powerful as the Jackery Explorer 1000, the Klein Tools KTB5 is an excellent option. While it has roughly half the watt hours of the Jackery generator, it’s still a solid performer with a lot of power.

Complete with two three-prong outlets, two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, you can charge pretty much anything you’ll ever need with this midrange power station. Bonus: It did well in my performance tests, averaging just 2 minutes less than its expected 2-hour and 29-minute run time (with two lights connected to it).

Fast facts

* Price (Amazon): $500, currently on sale for $465

* Watt hours: 546

* Weight: 12 pounds

SEE AT AMAZON

Best budget

Rockpals 300W

The Rockpals 300W is our pick for affordable portable power station. Not only did it average 2.5 minutes over the expected 2-hour 33-minute run time (with one work light connected), it’s only 7.5 pounds and has a ton of options, ranging from one three-prong outlet to four USB-A ports and a handful of other features.

$270 isn’t exactly budget, but it’s the most affordable model tested — and its strong performance and solid lineup of features give it even more value.

Fast facts…

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TV News still showing active fire in Orange County
Energy

New California fires caused by electricity grid – SoCal confesses

Oct. 28—Thousands of Southern Californians were without electricity for a third  day Wednesday, as the region’s largest utility turned off power to areas where strong Santa Ana winds were causing high fire risk.

Power company Southern California Edison told state regulators that its equipment might have ignited one of a pair of fast-moving wildfires in Orange County, Calif., that have prompted evacuation orders for 80,000 people.

A few miles to the north, the Blue Ridge Fire also broke out Monday and has blackened more than 10,000 acres and led to evacuation orders for the city of Yorba Linda. Both conflagrations were driven by Santa Ana winds gusting up to 80 miles an hour. In all, more than 16,000 homes valued at $14.1 billion were at risk from the twin fires, according to estimates by Realtor.com.

Simultaneously About 355,000 power customers – covering an estimated 1 million people – were in the dark in the northern part of the state as officials issued warnings for what could be the strongest winds in California this year.

The fast-moving wildfire forced the evacuation of 70,000 people and seriously injured two firefighters in Southern California on Monday as powerful winds across the fire-fatigued state prompted power to be cut to prevent utility equipment from sparking new blazes.

The wind-driven fire spread to more than 16 square kilometers within a few hours of breaking out around dawn in Orange County, south of Los Angeles.

Strong gusts pushed flames in Silverado Canyon and near houses in Irvine, a city of about 280,000 residents 65 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles.

Two firefighters, aged 26 and 31, were severely burned as they battled the blaze from the ground, Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said.

Water-dropping helicopters were briefly grounded because the winds made it unsafe to fly.

Officials did not immediately know the cause of the fire, one of several that broke out across the region.

Tinder-dry weather

The electricity shutdowns marked the fifth time this year that Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, cut power to customers to reduce the risk of downed or fouled power lines or other equipment that could ignite fires amid tinder-dry weather conditions and powerful wind gusts.

The conditions could equal those during devastating fires in California’s wine region in 2017 and the Kincade Fire that devastated Sonoma County north of San Francisco last October, the National Weather Service said.

Fire officials said PG&E transmission lines sparked that fire, which destroyed hundreds of homes and caused nearly 100,000 people to flee for their lives.

Extreme fire danger moved into Southern California late on Sunday following cooler temperatures over the weekend. A area north of Los Angeles recorded a wind gust of 156 kilometers per hour.

“We have very strong winds and very low humidities, and that’s causing ideal conditions for a very strong Santa Ana event with …

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Tesla plans its first off-grid community

Tesla is planning  to take a 1,400-acre community in Mexico completely off-grid.

The first-of-its-kind energy solution at the Twin Dolphin community in Los Cabos, will see Tesla supply batteries and power management for a private residential community and club, Montage Los Cabos resort and residences, and Twin Dolphin Club.  A similar setup will be implemented next fall in Sonoma County, California.

The initiative at Twin Dolphin will leverage Tesla’s fully integrated solar panels and battery energy storage and software systems to provide reliable renewable energy for the entire community, which developer Ohana claims has received government approvals and is currently underway.

The Tesla project will generate over 20 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year. The project consists of a central ground-mount site spanning over 22 acres, located adjacent to Twin Dolphin’s already existing reverse osmosis and desalination plant that provides potable water to the community. Tesla Powerhub, a data platform to monitor energy use, is incorporated into the project to use real-time and historical data tracking to optimize its energy usage, improve performance, and help inform future decisions.

The new systems will provide all the energy for Twin Dolphin, and also generate clean back-up power for the wider community.  The  system will run completely off-grid if needed, in the event of power outages due to storms or natural disasters. The back-up power supply can also feed into the local power grid as the Baja region of Mexico, which has experienced energy shortages with increased development.

“We are excited to see our vision of being the first off-the-grid community in Cabo coming to life. We are grateful for the partnership and engagement of Tesla and their technologies, which have made this possible. Our larger vision is that other premier master plan community developers will follow our lead and implement similar projects so that collectively we can help preserve our environment,” says Chris Smith, CEO of Ohana Real Estate Investors.

This new solar initiative complements sustainability initiatives at Twin Dolphin, including the preservation of over 40,000 native plants during the development of the property maintained by its water plant, conserving energy through building design that maximizes natural cooling, utilizing locally sourced building materials, implementing tankless water heaters in all buildings and using LED lights throughout the property.

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Gas generators are a power option

Cummins gas generators were launched last year and already their installations power the equivalent of 52,000 homes.  The HSK78G offers reliable power off the grid. For a remote textile manufacturer in Pakistan, as well as a hauliers  and storage company based in the U.K., Cummins is providing robust  off-grid power, coupled with  electrical efficiency of up to 44.2%.

Peaking power and grid parallel applications

Suited to peaking power applications, gas generators can be used as back-up power systems, supporting the grid during times of high demand, as well as offsetting the fluctuations of renewable power sources such as wind and solar energy. Working with TMS Grid Ltd., an engineering and consultancy company based in the U.K., 10 HSK78G units will provide a total of 20MW of uninterruptible backup power. Alongside the product’s high efficiency, the generators’ Grid Code Compliance (GCC) certification enabled TMS Grid Ltd. to demonstrate compliance to the G99 U.K. requirements. Additionally, the HSK78G units meet the latest emissions limits set by the new medium combustion plant directive (MCPD) removing the need for exhaust aftertreatment systems, which in turn offers a lower total cost of ownership.

A further 11 units have recently been installed in a hybrid power station based in Western Australia, offering a total of 22MW installed capacity. With a mix of solar, wind and battery technology, the HSK78G generator models will be used to stabilise the power supply, providing fewer voltage and frequency disturbances and faster recovery times.

With increased demand for low-carbon power generation, organisations across all industries are seeking alternative sources of energy to reduce their carbon footprint whilst providing a reliable and robust performance. To meet this need, Cummins invested heavily in expanding its gas range, launching the HSK78G gas generator range in March 2019.

With a power density of up to 2MW, Cummins lean-burn gas generators are designed to provide reliable power for a diverse set of industries from mining and manufacturing, to shopping malls and hospitals. With fuel flexibility across the range, HSK78G generators use natural, low-cost, low-BTU, free fuel sources that would otherwise be considered waste products.

‘We’re seeing increased interest from a diverse range of industries, all of which are considering the switch to low-carbon alternatives for power generation. With market-leading thermal efficiency at 47.1% and 2110 kW of thermal output for heating, cooling and steam generation, the generator series provides significant environmental benefits. They can also run in parallel with combined heat and power (CHP) systems, which can convert 70-90% of the energy of the fuel that is burned into useful electricity or heat, further increasing sustainable credentials,’ said Ann-Kristin deVerdier, Cummins Energy Management Executive Director.

The HSK78G has been successfully installed across a wide range of applications, from horticultural, logistics and manufacturing operations, through to providing gas power for power stations and backup power to the National Grid.

‘We’ve worked hard to develop a solution …

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Energy

A solution to California’s disasters – Microgrids

After years of deteriorating power lines owned by PG&E, California’s biggest utility, plus months of windy wildfires, warming California is wondering how to keep the lights on. Small communities all over the state have been pioneering the answer for decades

Take back control – Build your own utility

The Blue Lake Rancheria tribe in Mad River, Northern California has built a microgrid on its 100-acre reservation, a stitching-together of technologies including wind turbines, solar panels, storage batteries and its own power lines that integrates with the outside utility network or can stand alone from it. It is a state-of-the-art system — and an indicator of what might be the future for every American.

In early October, Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to more than 2 million people across Northern California, including all those who live in rural Humboldt County, where redwood forests fringe the wild edge of the continent. The shut-off aimed to reduce the risk of wildfire, and as the region sat in darkness, the tribe’s multimillion-dollar investment in its power system glowed.

Responding to public needs, the tribe transformed a hotel conference room into a newsroom so the local paper could publish. The reservation’s gas station and mini mart were among the only ones open, drawing a nearly mile-long line of cars.

The Blue Lake Rancheria served more than 10,000 people during the day-long outage, by some estimates, roughly 8 percent of Humboldt’s population. And the tribe suddenly became a vital part of its emergency response.

“The irony was not lost on us,” said Jason Ramos, a member of the tribal council who ran emergency operations during the blackout. “When these power cuts started, we looked like geniuses for what we had done. But in truth, we didn’t really see them coming when we made our decision.”

California, a hive of rapid private-sector innovation, is adjusting slowly to the accelerating changes in its climate. The sharp transition between heavy rains and hot, windy weather has primed the landscape for wildfires, which have burned larger and deadlier in recent years than at any time in history.

After an autumn of power cuts and economic losses, the reliability of California’s electricity grid and of its three largest investor-owned utilities is among the most pressing public policy issues facing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). The state lags behind some on the East Coast, where Tropical Storm Irene swamped towns in 2011, causing blackouts and a rethinking of how to strengthen a vulnerable electrical grid.

The ideas under consideration here are complicated by the bankruptcy of PG&E, the state’s largest investor-owned utility. All would require a measure of public money — such as a state takeover of the grid or breaking up utilities into municipal agencies — and changes to a regulatory system yet to adapt to California’s new climate-driven threats.

“It’s like we have a high schooler stuck in the sixth …

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Energy

Battery storage will transform society

A remarkable series of predictions about the future of the grid is emerging from NREL – the National Renewable Energy Lab in the US. Because batteries can now store far more energy, renewable energy, and specifically solar power, is becoming a disruptive technology for the fossil-fuel industry.
In the past few years, this vision has grown from a theory on whiteboards to real-power experiments on lab hardware. It’s called “Autonomous Energy Grids” (AEG), an effort to ensure the grid of the future can manage a growing base of intelligent energy devices, variable renewable energy, and advanced controls. The AEG effort envisions a self-driving power system—a very “aware” network of technologies and distributed controls that work together to efficiently match bi-directional energy supply to energy demand. This is a hard pivot from today’s system, in which centralized control is used to manage one-way electricity flows to consumers along power lines that spoke out from central generators.

Outside of the labs, where real business serves ordinary people, the same trends are being seen. In Florida, it is hard for state and federal officials to ignore the coalesced voices of regional business, government, academic, nonprofit and neighborhood leaders. Rob Kornaherns, owner of Fort Lauderdale’s Advanced Roofing, the state’s largest solar contractor, called battery storage a “real game-changer.” By 2050, he sees everyone “off the grid around the world.”

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