By Bonnie Bucqueroux on December 31, 2013
Rep. Sam Singh of East Lansing represents the 69th District in the Michigan Legislature. The following are thoughts he posted on Facebook on Tuesday, Dec.31, about issues to explore concerning the power outages that resulted from the pre-Christmas ice storm.
Posted in News | Tagged board of water and light, bwl, East Lansing, Lansing, rep. sam singh |
Bonnie Bucqueroux teaches at Michigan State University's School of Journalism and experiments with citizen journalism, including co-publishing Lansing Online News with Bill Castanier. They also co-host a radio show Mondays at 7 p.m. on LCC Radio - WLNZ - 89.7.
Good ideas and concerns to put out, a reaction was also to consider that most homes are fine for basics with PV-battery power and with unusual weather more often as the planet warms, the physical wires present hazards over the coming decades and a large expense to maintain-repair them.
That points to helping homeowners with solar-power installations, grid-tied with independent operation when the grid is down so adequate battery-inverter power will be there, a lesson from grid-tied-dedicated metering after Sandy where people with panels couldn’t use the power.
This adds a lot of power during most days so reducing fuel-burning wattage needed and supplies most people with power in these more destructive weather conditions because they’ll probably happen again.
Best thoughts for the new year!
tom
Tom,can you tell us more about the issue with wires? Solar uses different wiring?
Yes, it’s another circuit Bonnie, along with the grid-tie that uses the wiring in the home you wire some of the house on DC-only and not on the inverter because those go out at times as well.
So, on this separate DC circuit are some LED’s for lighting in certain hallways & rooms, essential pumps, motors and usually a small RV style refrigerator that runs on propane but needs the power to work, this also has enough capacity to charge phones & laptops yet not putting a lot of panels on the roof or a huge battery array next to the house.
Having emergency heat is another issue, most heaters use too much power in blowers or heating elements to run from PV-battery so planning for one large room to keep warm is more practical, perhaps already with a fireplace to use if not a small wood or pellet stove can do wonders.
So, for most people this won’t be an off-grid home, yet has enough capacity grid-tied to reduce power bills so pays back the install typically in 3-years or less and if the grid or wires to the home go down is able to be liveable at this basic level, inconvenient but not blacked out as long as needed.
The move to off-grid takes a lot more investment so beyond what most people would consider without already knowing the benefits, a small package with this more subsistence level capacity is far more affordable so will scale as a basic upgrade to many thousands of homes.
A small pilot of a few homes for the economics of them can provide reliable metrics for planning and metering for the grid-tie and fail-over with utilities if they don’t already have this available. In the end it will kickstart a move to solar for residential needs that will provide people with a liveable home during outages and reduce grid demand a decent amount, keeping that cash in the local economy.
Hope the new year doesn’t have an ice storm like that one!
Tom, thanks for all of this. I had an assessment done on my home about solar, even as a supplement. Not enough sun. Not enough wind either. We are cloudy in mid-Michigan. Will the increasingly efficient solar panels change that?
A reaction, Seattle isn’t very sunny either and homes are going to PV grid-tied, wind storms take out power here. Most max panel coverage out to roof space to get income on a yearly basis, no heating-cooling bills after a payback [this isn’t really “green” but we have a lot of old hydro so OK], this can work even if a site is up against a hill and no winter sun, it pays all summer so most home sites can eliminate winter bills if you put up enough panels.
If the house is tight against a hill so nothing all winter still consider the idea and keep the batteries charged for storms from the grid, this doesn’t take much current and the panels pay back the system in summer, so, a good reason to install them is to reduce or eliminate electricity bills on a yearly basis for the home.
Part of the idea is that these minimal systems aren’t trying to run the house, you pick some vitals and power those with a sustainable amount of DC power (or worst case 3-days of battery for no winter sun). An example minimal system uses 3 -250watt panels into a 1kw inverter with a 3kw peak power rating and 1.2-kwh in battery capacity and works in most locations.
These retail as a turn-key install at about $6,000 complete to wire into any home, inverter, switches & breakers and all, then for emergencies power is from the battery circuit and not on the inverter (they can fail on their own), most people use DC motors-pumps-LEDs & all for the emergency circuit from RV stores as much cheaper than two inverters which are expensive, and, usually the inverter does work so can power some 120AC but you can’t plan on it.
It just seemed that the yearly balance-sheet wasn’t thoroughly planned for your site to me, latitude is similar, we’re becoming sunnier but from a news blurb from September … “Those new to the area this summer, with its seemingly endless sunshine, might be surprised that Seattle only averages 58 sunny days a year. That’s seventh-least in the U.S. of cities that report official climate data, and as you might expect, other Pacific Northwest cities dot the list.”