Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Off-Grid

As I mentioned briefly in my last post, I recently wrote a piece for KIUC's monthly magazine. While I was embarrassed that I forgot to shave (I didn't realize that my face would be on the cover) and that the only viewable books on the shelf in the background are the Twilight series, it didn't occur to me how offended people would be at what I had to say. There was a mini barrage of emails, texts, and even a blog post criticizing me of going "to the dark side."

The article, which you can read here, was an honest look into my experience going off-grid. If you've read my blog over the last few years, I've said it all before. We went off-grid because we were idealists looking for simple solutions. While we learned the true value of electricity, going off-grid exposed my own logical fallacies.

We can't solve climate change as individuals, we need our local utilities.
I originally hoped to be able to inspire others to go off-grid, because I thought that that would be the solution to climate change and environmental degradation.

But, I was very, very wrong.

There are a few issues with this.

1) For even a small system, you need to have $15,000 to pay for PV panels, an inverter, and a battery bank. Yes, it quickly pays itself off over time, but many people don't have the access to credit or upfront cash to make it feasible. So, some people are stuck with the utility. But, imagine that the 50% of people who can afford to go off-grid end up leaving the utility structure. KIUC is now left with the same overhead for half of the customers. If overhead accounts for about half of each customer's bill (the other half being the variable price of fuel) and half of the customers leave, then the average utility bill will have to go up by around 25%.

Further, as the pool of customers paying for grid-overhead shrinks, rates will continue to steeply rise-- which leads to ever increasing numbers of people defecting from the utility which leads to higher and higher rates. Until the only people left footing the extreme bill are those without the financial wherewithal to get off-grid. This is what is referred to as the utility death spiral. It would rapidly increase the level of inequality on Kaua'i and ensure that KIUC can't invest in utility scale renewable energy solutions.

Granted, there is a very similar issue for people who oversize their PV systems. Imagine if half of the island oversized their PV system so that they no longer pay anything to KIUC. The other half of the island (notably, the poorer half) are now stuck footing the bill for the overhead that everyone benefits from. As even those with massive PV arrays still rely on the grid at night or on cloudy days.

However, the difference between these two scenarios is that the second one (where people stay on grid) is solvable with market forces. Most equitable is time of use pricing. Which I've written about before and won't repeat.

But, what would happen if we could figure out the equitability part? Imagine that Mark Zuckerberg decides to give everyone on Kaua'i an off-grid set-up.

2) Because solar panels are entirely dependent on the sun, we will always need some type of baseline energy to make up the difference at night and on cloudy days. On Kaua'i, right now that's naptha, diesel, bio-mass, and hydro. As we head towards a future of 100% renewable energy, that will increasingly turn to bio-mass, hydro, pumped hydro, and battery storage. Other than batteries, those utility scale solutions are not possible at a household scale.

Either we would each need massive battery banks and oversized systems to get us by, or we would all be running our generator on cloudy evenings. Both options are environmental villains.

The fundamental problem with being off-grid. 
The bigger a system gets, the more energy it is wasting in the middle of a sunny day. If I size my PV array so that I have 100% of my power needs on a rainy winter day, then I will have upwards of 300% of my power needs on a sunny summer day. If I were on grid, that power would be fed back into the grid. Being off-grid means that I'm simply shunting that power. Those electrons are being lost, while fossil fuels are being burned at Port Allen to make up the difference.

In a scenario where the entire island consists of isolated off-grid households or communities, then we would need vastly more solar panels to make it work than we do if we are all interconnected.

The other option is to undersize the system. So that I'm wasting less energy on a sunny day but have to run the generator on rainy days. Imagine if everyone on the island were running their household generators every cloudy evening... That results in an incredibly inefficient use of resources and we'd still be burning excess energy on sunny days.

But wait, how am I wasting energy if I'm off-grid and self sufficient? As long as the world isn't running 100% off of renewable energy, than every available solar panel should be contributing electrons at its full potential. Imagine an island where everyone is starving to death because there's not enough food. I own a farm with unusually fertile soil, and am able to provide more than enough food for myself and my family, but I throw the rest away. People are starving all around me while I just throw my excess harvest to the birds. Sure, I'm self sufficient, but that would be morally reprehensible.

With the threat of climate change from carbon emissions, we can't afford to waste any energy produced by the finite amount of solar panels on planet Earth.

Truly going off-grid is impossible.

I went off-grid because I liked the idea of self sufficiency. Yet, my hypocrisy is thrown in my face everyday. As I discussed in the article, I use propane sourced from hydraulic fracking, I consume organic coffee from foreign dictatorships, and most of my furniture and electronics were produced in China. We are part of a global community, and the solutions to climate change and environmental degradation are just as global. I can't just cut my cord to the water department and the electric utility and self righteously claim to be doing my part. If we keep looking for simple solutions, then we'll never find the answers.

Going off-grid taught us the value of electricity, and it's a lesson that I will value for the rest of my life. I will never again do laundry at night, leave a fan on on a cloudy day, or leave the lights on in an unattended room.

But, as long as I'm wasting electrons on sunny days and burning fossil fuels on cloudy evenings, then I am part of the problem. And, I'd prefer to be part of the solution.

So, as soon as I can-- I'm getting back on the grid.




10 comments:

  1. I'm glad Juan linked to your other posts, as I'd missed them. It's good to see you writing on demand and sharing your doses of reality with a wider audience. I like your thoughtful, slightly self-deprecating style.

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    1. Thank you Joan. I really appreciate that.

      After staring down the blank page and producing a few pieces (starting with the KIUC one), I thought I was on a roll. But, every evening for two weeks I've opened up a new Word document, looked at it for fifteen minutes, then closed it. Without having ever typed a single letter. Ugh.

      I read your blog in admiration every morning wondering "how can she possibly produce so much content."

      Thanks again,

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  2. Sure, we live in a global community under pressure by global warming, so yes, we have to think globally, and ethically and equitably, about electric power. But the progress we make has to start somewhere, doesn't it? The truth is that it starts in small communities, in cities and states, and on people's rooftops. And then, ideally, the best solution spreads globally, village by village, nation by nation. If we delay progress until the perfect solution can be found for everybody in the world at the same time, we'll never get there.

    I don't know much about KIUC yet, but I do remember KEC and the horrible mistake they made to build that Kapaia plant to run on oil when a host of viable, cleaner and ultimately cheaper alternatives were presented. And I do remember, in the wake of `Iniki, KEC's refusal - with government's acquiescence - to put power lines underground. So as global warming brings more powerful hurricanes to the Islands, power will again go down for however long at great cost to everyone. People are going solar not just for environmental reasons but for practical ones too. You with your off-grid solar system might be the only one in your neighborhood who can provide some help to those without power after a hurricane - and a neighborhood with several or even half the homes with self-contained systems will fare much better. I hope to build our home off-the-grid, and my vision is not just for my own convenience but for the vital assistance of those around me - whether it's freezer space or hot showers or a washing machine, I'd want to be able to do what I can.

    And then there's the issue of remaining on the grid with your solar system. HECO of course is fighting the wave of solar in the state (as much for financial reasons as capability reasons, I think), and from what I understand, it's not a given that KIUC can buy your excess power now, what with so many people going solar. I'm trying to understand your logic here, but my comprehension fails me (not for the first time...). I can't see real harm in going off the grid and storing excess energy in batteries, for example. The more people buy the panels and batteries, the cheaper and better they become - as with anything else in human endeavor and invention. Panels are improving in their ability to make power even on cloudy days, batteries are improving in storage capacity even as they shrink in size, internal combustion generator engines burn less fuel to produce more power than ever before - and certainly a lot less during the relatively few times a year they're needed than the power company burns to produce electricity 24/7/365.

    The reality is that government and business cannot be relied upon to face facts. They have to be led, and in all things political and environmental, they are led by people.

    I fully appreciate your ethical questioning - I feel the same. But I don't claim to fully understand your reasoning. There is very likely something fundamental I'm missing, and I'm writing this only after a quick read and immediate reaction. But the thing is - people, individual people, always - ALWAYS - lead the way. Business and government follow. Same as it's ever been. If we're waiting for institutions to get their act together when it comes to alternative energy being put into use, then we'll be waiting a long time - too long. Because when it comes to global warming, objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

    William LeGro - near-future Kapahi resident

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    1. Thank you William for the in-depth response. And I respect, and have had the same thought, about your desire to help your neighbors if there is a hurricane.

      A couple of things to say.

      KIUC is very different from Kaua'i Electric. Eight-ish years ago (give or take) at the urging of some ambitious board members they made an unprecedented step towards renewable energy. We're now running at close to 100% of our day time needs and, I believe, have a higher percentage of PV on the grid than any other utility in the country. We're also the first to have battery storage that comes in cheaper than the variable cost of fuel. So, they deserve credit for getting us half way to 100% renewable energy (the second half is arguably much more difficult).

      Regarding the moral issue of shunting electrons when my batteries are full (nearly every day), to frame it another way:

      1) We currently have a finite amount of PV panels on the planet. We are producing more and more, yet they take lots of fossil fuels and rare metals.

      2) The more PV panels that come online, the bigger dent we can put in our fossil fuel consumption.

      3) However, each PV panel should be contributing at its full potential. If you are shunting electrons because your battery is full, then you are wasting electrons when we are in desperate need of them. Similar to my food analogy above.

      To put it a different way-- I often hear people say that the solution to California's water crisis is simply desalinization plants run off of solar panels. If we are using solar to produce water, that means that we are NOT using that same solar to produce energy. So, for example, imagine that California adds 1000 megawatts of PV for desalinization. That's 1000 megawatts that is not producing electricity for the grid, and 1,000 megawatts of fossil fuels that have to be used instead. Which make water and oil sort of a zero sum game...

      So, until we reach 100% renewable energy, every solar panel produced needs to be used at its full potential. Which means not shunting electricity at noon.

      Thanks again for commenting.

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    2. I just happened to stumble upon these words of John Locke tonight, and I think that it could apply for electrons as well:

      "Now of those good things which nature hath provided in common, every one had a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use, and property in all that he could effect with his labour; all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in, was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples, had thereby a property in them, they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look, that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part to any body else, so that it perished not uselesly in his possession, these he also made use of. And if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselesly in his hands."

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    3. By getting back on the grid, do you mean you'd abandon your PV system entirely? Or just hook it up to KIUC's system? Truthfully, I've never been certain about going completely off the grid. My ideal system - which may have exactly zero to do with reality - would be total self-sufficiency with batteries for nighttime and longer periods of poor PV generation, feed the excess power into KIUC's grid, and whenever my own system can't provide the power needed I would draw off the grid.

      But this would depend on KIUC's ability to take my unneeded power, and I don't know what that ability is right now or what they plan for it to be. But if KIUC will soon be able to generate all the daytime power it needs, then it wouldn't need my power at all, right?

      We've gotten to this unintended-consequences situation where it's as if the power utility is in competition with what amounts to individual utilities established by owners wanting to do what it seemed the utility was unwilling to do for too long. With KIUC generating so much solar power it doesn't need and can't handle the power generated by private PV systems, what do the 10% of homes with PV systems do with those systems?

      I'm really impressed with KIUC's work towards clean energy - the SolarCity power/battery facility, the idea of the pumped hydro storage system. But as you noted, the manufacture of PV panels and batteries is pretty dirty in itself. I don't see wind or wave power being seriously considered on Kaua`i, so it seems that we're going to contaminate the environment in some way no matter what we do.

      And then there's hurricanes. No matter how clean KIUC's power is, it's still transmitted by power lines exposed to the power of hurricanes. Again: `Iniki. Global warming. No power for 1-3 months. If everybody's solar panels are firmly attached to hurricane-resistant roofs or the ground, they could be the only thing that keeps the island going.

      But if KIUC's clean power is damaged in a storm, and we're on the grid...then what? I feel like I'm going around in circles here and not thinking this out clearly (and it's hard to write it all out and make sense). But it seems like private PV and battery systems are still better than nothing. Or we can hope the island isn't blasted by another `Iniki (or worse - or three `Inikis in a row, like the 3 hurricanes alive near Hawai`i at the same time last year).

      Do you think I'm putting too much emphasis on hurricanes and pragmatism and not enough on ethics? There must be a way that ethics and pragmatism can coincide. Meanwhile, my head's spinning.

      Maluhia a me aloha.

      William LeGro

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  3. Keep writing. Put on your thick skin and don't worry about the flack. We were very inspired by your K.I.U.C. article and loved the stories re the back-up generator and the rush to do laundry stories etc. cuz we're new to photo voltaic (w/o the backup) It changes your life/work habits. when you Luke follow the truth - well, some folks are gonna be mad. Too bad. The truth is better! Honest, Open Transparent! (H.O.T.!)
    Me ke aloha, Auntie Mary.

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    1. Honest, Open, Transparent-- nice, i like that.

      Goodluck on your new journey with PV. Thank you auntie Mary!

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  4. Aloha Luke,

    Thanks for commenting on the article I posted on IslandBreath.org regarding your post here. If you wish to see my response to yours it's there.

    In a nutshell it advises living on the real solar energy reaching your home and ditch the gas generator and KIUC.

    My wife, Linda, and I continue to attempt shedding the baggage of "modern America" and its non-negotiable position on lifestyle and (therefore) its claim on the planet's resources.

    I see KIUC as merely palliative care for its customers. It's time to get off the sedatives and painkillers and start on a course of the real medicine... self sufficiency.

    Best wishes - Juan Wilson

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    1. Aloha Juan,
      Thanks for taking the time to respond on your blog. I responded more in depth on your blog. I think you have some interesting points and I have a lot of admiration and respect for your commitment to living off-grid without a generator. While I agree with some of what you have to say, I want to re-iterate that I think that you are incorrect in your basic premise.

      If KIUC fails, we all fail. Advocating for the downfall of our utility co-op is not a productive solution to our energy crisis. The only way for us to get to 100% renewable energy is with utility scale solutions. And the more that people, like me and you, defect from the utility, the harder KIUC's job becomes. They can only invest in renewable energy at the rate that they can afford to convert.

      For a more in depth response, check out my comment on your blog. Thanks Juan for the dialogue,



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