OPINION: Community Power Generation

By Jenny McDonald

I'm concerned about the Blueskin Energy Project proposal.

A yellow flyer which arrived in my mailbox the other week did little to allay my fears, however it
did prompt me to look at the website, do some thinking, discuss with friends and fiddle around with
some back-of-an-envelope calculations. I'm no expert in these matters, just an enthusiastic amateur
who lives as sustainably as I can and off the grid. Here are three reasons why I worry about the
wind farm proposal:

1. In the event of an extended power cut or disruption to the grid, the fact that we have
community-owned turbines doesn't help. If the Waitati substation goes out, as individuals,
we will be the proud owners of a power-generation facility that we cannot access. Precisely
the same position as grid-connected folk are in now.

2. The proposed wind site and other sites tested seem to be on the margin for a viable wind
farm. The figures given by Blueskin Power project an annual output of 1300MWh/annum
from each 500kw turbine. This means a projected capacity factor from the turbines of 29%.
Other similar scale wind farms around NZ seem to be around 38- 45% (e.g. Mt Stuart and
Horseshoe Bend). I'm keen to understand why the projected capacity factor for the Porteous
Hill wind farm seems low by comparison. I imagine it is because of the wind speeds but
would like to fully understand why it is only 29% (or have my calculations corrected!). I
would also like to better understand how much of a risk this presents for the project as a
whole. Does it mean for example, that the power we would be producing is relatively more
expensive than say power from a farm with 38% capacity?

3. Control of the power supply and costs, no matter which business model is chosen, will still
largely rest with a small number of commercial and/or government funded organisations
with a vested interest in the generation and distribution of energy (e.g. Windflow Systems,
Powernet, the University). This interest may continue to be congruent with our vested
interest in a resilient Blueskin Bay community or it may not be ... very hard to say at this
point. I think of the milk price example. As a nation we can easily produce our own milk but
the price we end up paying for milk as individuals is now totally divorced from our control
as consumers. Small independent wind farms may quickly become dragged into complex
national pricing schemes and once again individuals and communities risk their resilience.

A wee while ago now at a public meeting, someone, I think it might have been Ian Buchan,
suggested that the community negotiate as a group with the power companies using our usage
patterns as a bargaining chip. This made good sense to me and has the benefit of being a low-risk,
low-cost initiative. I wonder what happened to that suggestion?

Thinking further along these lines, what I would love to see is every householder supported to be an
active stakeholder in the daily management of their power, with a real ability to influence the
behaviour of large organisations who we depend on for supply, and crucially with resilience in the
event of grid failure.

Perhaps my worries about the wind farm proposal are unfounded. I hope so and I hope if nothing
else my concerns will generate further discussion. But in case they are not completely off the wall,
here's a back-of-an-envelope alternative proposal for how we might achieve resilience for less risk
and with more tangible gains for the community.

Imagine all 939 households in the Blueskin area generated, on average, a small amount of power
and were set up to contribute this back to the grid. A conservative (and rough) estimate of the total
power generated per household from existing domestic technology, e.g. 1 or 2 solar panels might
average out at say 200 Wh/day/household. Per annum that would total 68MWh or around 5% of the
power output of just one of the proposed wind turbines (939 x 200 x 365 = 68547KWh). So far,
not sounding that attractive as an alternative proposition, right?

Now imagine that each domestic grid-connected set-up included a means of storing energy (say 200-
300Ah) and a smart controller that ensured your storage battery was always fully charged, that gave
you an 'at a glance' readout of your power consumption and worked out for you the best times to run
domestic appliances based on current charge level from your own power source and peak/off-peak
grid prices. In the event of a grid outage the device would automatically switch across to its internal
battery and a warning would sound if you attempted to run any device that would either overload
the system or rapidly drain the battery. Lights, radio, TV, computer, pellet burner, electric ignition
gas stoves, califonts etc could all keep working.

Such devices do already exist, typically as backup for grid-connected alternative energy systems.
Can we work with designers/suppliers to create or adapt a low-cost device to meet the needs of
grid-connected consumers who generate a small amount of alternative energy as backup in case of
grid-outage and to help them manage their power consumption?

As a community we would have around 68MWh of energy per annum that we could use as our own
private buffer and with which we could more easily make decisions about our peak and off-peak
usage. We could also use this flexibility as a collective bargaining chip with the electricity suppliers.
As consumers we'd get to be hands-on in terms of experiencing, learning about and managing in a
small way, alternative energy.

Significantly, each of us would have a degree of resilience if/when the grid fails. Some people may wish to, or be more easily able to, generate more power. This will not only
benefit them, but it will also benefit everyone by increasing the size of our power buffer and
bargaining power. Others, like me, might even consider connecting to the grid if they felt there was
a collective benefit to be derived from this.

What up-front investment would be required to get such an idea off the ground? I suspect
significantly less than the roughly $5000 per household (a total of $4.5 million) to establish a
wind farm (not counting ongoing maintenance costs, risks related to actual power output,
commercial agreements etc) and with no guarantee of resilience let alone return on investment.

Perhaps my suggestion will not withstand serious scrutiny. But personally I like the idea of building
resilience and community independence as a first priority. I prefer the idea of us as a community
calling the shots we can. And I believe in actively promoting a concept which empowers individuals
and small communities while minimising the risk and reducing reliance on boardroom deals.

* Scott Willis from the BRCT will respond in the August issue.