Learning complexity
I have a house in Ojai CA., about 60 miles north of Los Angeles. It is off-grid as the electric company wanted $100,000K to drop a line, though the powerline is a bit far from the house, so maybe that makes sense.
In any event, due to a lack of understanding, the tesla batteries ran out of power, they were drained during several days of rain because the main house breaker was not off. . . Interesting, but terribly inconvenient since now they need power to jump start them. Such travails. The generator onsite, is both not sufficiently powerful (only will generate up to 240 volts, and more is needed), but (I also had to get it a new battery since its existing one was worn out) its frequency output was also not stable enough. The batteries need a jump that mimics the grid. The giant, rented, generator arrived, and the electricians came to wire it into the Tesla control panel and ran it nearly 30 minutes to get the batteries to wake up. It had to be left on 24 hrs to get the batteries up to about 60%. Off grid requires knowledge and management. And Tesla batteries are not made for off-grid. Little did I know that the house breaker needed to be off so that the batteries would not drain. Though, it now makes sense.
Meanwhile, to be in the house during weather events lasting several days, a back up generator purchase is in the offing. This is what folks have said, but the first hand experience certainly validated that insight! This situation also showed that the current electric appliances – stove, fridge, washing machine etc. . . all assume high amounts of energy to be available, they are not designed to moderate electricity draw. Rather they assume grid connection and ample energy. This future is renewable, sure, but not parsimonious, rather, it is hugely energy intensive and will need grid power from far flung renewable generation. Energy gluttony will lead to a more vulnerable situation as the need to generate non-fossil energy increases for this all electric world.
There are batteries made for off-gird, but they are not common as most solar installers assume grid connection. At the same time, it would seem that to really move to off-grid living, DC power makes most sense. Direct current from the solar to the batteries to the home. Yet one would need DC appliances, and panels that do not have the small transformers that convert from the solar panels themselves, DC power to AC. DC is surely more efficient, but the path dependency today is AC. Not as friendly to off-grid systems. The DC appliances can be found, they take some hunting, they are used by folks who liver very remotely. But the panels. . . I don’t know if DC panels are still available in the US. For a true energy conversion, there needs to be a new generation of DC appliances.
Right now, the norm is for solar + batteries that are grid connected. Utilities are concerned about losing money with this combination as when the weather is good, people are using less energy, utilities are unhappy. There is, at a result, a great deal of contestation at the level of the California Energy Commission regarding rates, a big stand off between the solar advocates and the utilities. The reality in the state, however, is of increasing costs to the customer.
In the interim, I was back to my camping stove of many years and a gas bottle to cook and heat water for dishes. Fortunately the old solar with nickel metal hydride batteries was working in the upper shed, so the battery packs I had could be charged for lights, phone and computer, but lots of work arounds, for sure.
So, what is next? More panels and batteries? The reality is that batteries still have only about 3hrs discharge storage. There are 4 here, but older generation. 4X3 = 12 hrs, not nearly enough for several days of rain. They will charge slowly with cloud cover, but to ensure enough electricity for an all electric home, what is sufficient? Stoves need a huge amount of electricity., fridges and washing machines are no slouches either. If we are to avoid covering the planet with solar, we do need a lot more wind, but still. It creates a huge dilemma going forward.
The metabolic rift also came alive for me. Grid connected systems are by and large ignorant of weather, availability of sun, how much its raining, how cold it is, how much power is needed. When one must trudge to the outdoor shower, whose hot water is heated by a fussy on demand gas water heater, supplied by a gas bottle, or cook on a camping stove also supplied by a gas bottle, there is a reality check that takes place about the immense power density of fossil energy. My water was not heated by wood, nor did I cook over wood, though both were options given the amount of wood available on the orchard (glad I did not have to!). Still, all the transactions, walking through a somewhat muddy orchard and the mulch, setting things up, carrying a heavy battery to the shed with the old solar system etc. . . was physical, laborious, and dirty. Taking shoes off, washing feet, sweeping mud and dirt, all made me (once again) acutely aware of place, of the Earth beneath my feet, of the cloud cover, of the chill. While no fun, it immersed me in place, a bit in planetary rhythms, and in more clear understanding of what it takes to sustain daily life. No abstractions here. At the same time, I could retire to a house with no leaks, to a warm bed, to running water. To relative comfort provided by our little back up batteries, head lamps and lots of candles. It was doable, even if exasperating. Such experiences make you really understand better what it takes for daily life, what the inputs are, what the place where you are living, is.
More of us need to learn these lessons, to know how much high energy modernist urban life, obscures and disempowers.
