Green Power
Many people find my views on the environment confusing. If someone was to say to me that “human beings are having a disastrous impact on their environment, and that if we don’t start living sustainably we will eventually damage our environment so much that it will harm the future usefulness of our environment”, I would agree with them.
What confuses people is that whilst I strongly agree that humans harm our environment and that this is hugely detrimental, I am a global warming sceptic. I don’t believe the current warming trend is the result of burning fossil fuels. I don’t believe the burning of fossil fuels has led to an increase of extreme weather events. I don’t believe global sea levels will rise to catastrophic levels.
I’m sceptical about global warming for the simple reason that activists posing as scientists have been bleating on about this impending climate catastrophe for twenty-five to thirty years. In this time many climate models have been built in an effort to predict future climatic conditions.
The warming predicted by those models simply has not occurred. The sea increase predicted by those models has not occurred. If fossil fuels impact climate, the evidence suggests that it is by much less than has been theorised by climate activists. I’ll adjust my stance should the evidence change.
I am however a firm believer in living sustainably. I think that really is the key. Regardless of whether the burning of fossil fuels leads to global warming simply mining them causes significant damage to our environment. This coupled with the fact that fossil fuels will eventually run out provides compelling motivation for humanity to develop a sustainable means of generating power.
Generating sustainable power though is easier said than done. Solar power seems to be the front runner for managing this at present. I am fortunate to be living in Australia, a country with abundant and consistent sunshine.
In order to live more sustainably our family decided to invest in a larger solar panel array for our roof supported by onsite battery storage. We’ve had the system for well over a year now and we’re very happy with the outcome.
Whilst we still use some power from the grid our usage has significantly diminished. So much so that in many billing periods we actually sent more power back to the grid than we used. The longer we have had the system, the less power we have used and the more power we are sending back.
This is because the system we have purchased gives us the ability to monitor our power consumption. We can see exactly when we are using power from the grid and how much we are using. Because of this our behaviour has changed.
It’s a wonderful feeling when you can walk into your garage, see a little green light flowing a certain way, and know that you’re not paying someone else for the power that your using. It’s a feeling that’s quite addictive.
Disappointingly, even when we sent more power to the grid than we used, we still received a bill at the end of such billing periods. This is because the amount we are charged for the use of power exceeds the amount our power company rebates to us for the excess power we provide.
When you consider that our independent generation of power is approaching our overall requirements it becomes obvious that the business model of power companies is under threat. It remains to be seen just what business model will replace the power companies existing one.
I suspect societies will still need a network which allows people to draw excess power when required and distribute their excess power to other users. There are I believe some examples where smaller regional communities in Australia have gone ‘off-grid’ entirely but even these communities still require their own private infrastructure to store and distribute power (1), (2).
There’s also some talk of a trial taking place in part of Mooroolbark in Melbourne. Some homes will be invited to join an islanded network which is independent of the larger power grid whilst still being supported by it (3).
Whilst this is all very exciting existing systems are not without their problems. Our system is not perfect. The batteries themselves will need to increase in both size and efficiency, at present they can’t quite hold enough power to allow the use of power hungry systems such as reverse cycle climate control.
Furthermore, they are also unable to actually transfer enough power fast enough to operate reverse cycle climate control. As soon as we hit the air-conditioning or the heating we tap the grid. Developing an inverter powerful enough to regulate energy needs whilst remaining safe and efficient is the prime challenge it seems.
Lastly the weather itself is always a risk. Battery storage would need to be large enough to provide power for prolonged periods of poor weather if it is to be a viable long term option. Still, with the efficiency of solar cells improving quite quickly I expect the challenge that unpredictable weather provides to solar generation will continue to diminish over time.
To design and build our system we used a Perth company called Renewable Energy International (4). John and his team came out to our home to design and plan the system. They provided us with a range of options.
After it was installed we had a few small issues which were dealt with promptly. Whilst there is significant capital expense involved the cost was actually much less than you might think. In our experience, based on our power consumption, we will achieve a return on investment in around seven years.
Perhaps the more important thing we’ve gained after installing the system is the change in our mindset about the way we use power. By becoming more responsible for generating our own power we are much more responsible about when and how we use it.