Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Mini power grids
The BBC has an interesting story on locally-owned community power (solar mostly) grids which apparently provide good quality power in parts of Nepal and India. The part that's missing in the story is the economics of local power generation. I would love to know if the sharing of the cost of production and distribution actually reduces unit cost to manageable levels or if there are subsidies involved.
The mini-grid consists of a basic power-generation unit that stands alone from a national grid, and is able to supply power to a small community, regulated by adding and removing electric loads to respond to changes in demand. In India, the scheme has been piloted in the Sundarbans islands, in the Ganges delta in the southern part of West Bengal.
The mini-grid concept really only comes into its own when you are so far away from the main generators that it's no longer cost-effective to run a set of wires to that particular set of customers," stated Professor Nick Jenkins, a chief researcher at the High Voltage Research Centre in Manchester. "It could work in isolated rural areas and the particular applications are clearly on islands." He added that they could also help with supplying the estimated two billion people around the world currently without power. "If you can get the technology right and the costs right, then autonomous power supplies - mini-grids for them - may be an appropriate way forward."
The mini-grid consists of a basic power-generation unit that stands alone from a national grid, and is able to supply power to a small community, regulated by adding and removing electric loads to respond to changes in demand. In India, the scheme has been piloted in the Sundarbans islands, in the Ganges delta in the southern part of West Bengal.
The mini-grid concept really only comes into its own when you are so far away from the main generators that it's no longer cost-effective to run a set of wires to that particular set of customers," stated Professor Nick Jenkins, a chief researcher at the High Voltage Research Centre in Manchester. "It could work in isolated rural areas and the particular applications are clearly on islands." He added that they could also help with supplying the estimated two billion people around the world currently without power. "If you can get the technology right and the costs right, then autonomous power supplies - mini-grids for them - may be an appropriate way forward."
