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Related: About this forumBlackout parties: how solar and storage made W. Australia farmers the most popular in town
Blackout parties: how solar and storage made WA farmers the most popular in town
Once considered an eco-warriors pipe dream, renewable energy is rapidly gaining ground in the traditional mining state of Western Australia
Max Opray 14 May 2017
Along the remote southern coastline of Western Australia, the locals have cottoned on to a new, surefire way to keep their beer cold.
The energy grid around Esperance and Ravensthorpe is unreliable at the best of times, but after a bushfire took out the poles and wires around these far-flung outback towns last year, the power company asked residents if they might be interested in trying out a more economically and environmentally sustainable way to keep the lights on and the bar fridge humming.
Rather than fully rebuild the sprawling infrastructure required to reconnect all residents to the grid, network operator Horizon Power turned to WA renewables pioneer Carnegie Clean Energy to help roll out stand-alone solar and storage systems.
The Carnegie managing director, Michael Ottaviano, said the scheme had led to a new phenomenon in the towns. People assume the grid is something reliable and permanent, but in reality it is a centralised system with very long lines out to remote communities it is in fact highly susceptible to failure, he says.
And when it does now were hearing our customers are having blackout parties. You take Raventhorpe for instance...
Once considered an eco-warriors pipe dream, renewable energy is rapidly gaining ground in the traditional mining state of Western Australia
Max Opray 14 May 2017
Along the remote southern coastline of Western Australia, the locals have cottoned on to a new, surefire way to keep their beer cold.
The energy grid around Esperance and Ravensthorpe is unreliable at the best of times, but after a bushfire took out the poles and wires around these far-flung outback towns last year, the power company asked residents if they might be interested in trying out a more economically and environmentally sustainable way to keep the lights on and the bar fridge humming.
Rather than fully rebuild the sprawling infrastructure required to reconnect all residents to the grid, network operator Horizon Power turned to WA renewables pioneer Carnegie Clean Energy to help roll out stand-alone solar and storage systems.
The Carnegie managing director, Michael Ottaviano, said the scheme had led to a new phenomenon in the towns. People assume the grid is something reliable and permanent, but in reality it is a centralised system with very long lines out to remote communities it is in fact highly susceptible to failure, he says.
And when it does now were hearing our customers are having blackout parties. You take Raventhorpe for instance...
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/may/15/blackout-parties-how-solar-and-storage-made-wa-farmers-the-most-popular-in-town
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Blackout parties: how solar and storage made W. Australia farmers the most popular in town (Original Post)
kristopher
May 2017
OP
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)1. Solar! Yay!
Warpy
(111,259 posts)2. Leapfrogging
It's rather like going to cell phones in the bush rather than taking the step of having wired infrastructure first. Or skipping cable and going directly to satellite. It really doesn't make much sense to maintain the physical grid to far flung customers. Going right to renewables and renting the systems would make a lot more sense for the company and the customer.
I expect this model to start to appear in the US as the electrical grid continues to deteriorate, especially in flyover country where distances are great.