Big 'n' small: can micro-grid based renewables guarantee sustainable energy supply?
An Australian experience.
-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 When Ergon Energy began a Solar Cities program on Magnetic Island to try to make the isolated community as efficient and self sustaining as possible – and avoid an expensive new cable to the mainland grid – one of the first things it did was to remove all the old bar fridges. It filled up more than a shipping container and took them off the island. Bar fridges, explains Ergon Energy CEO Ian McLeod, are usually old, and terribly inefficient. Roofs on the island were also painted white to dissipate the effects of the sun’s heat on household interiors. Solar was installed and the new cable deferred for nearly a decade. Now, with storage about to be installed on Magnetic Island, the new cable will probably never be needed. This is now becoming the model for regional and isolated communities around Australia . Inefficient appliances like old bar fridges are being replaced, local gene...