We’re hard-wired to a conventional energy system that drives our transportation, powers our communications and is the lifeline to industry and commerce. Despite the benefits, we know that this system is regrettably depleting our resources, polluting our air and affecting global climate change. Guaranteed access to energy is no longer being taken for granted and the quest for “energy security” has become the buzz-word behind global trade relations and even a justification for conflict. Who has the power after all? |
The paragraph above is the Synopsis of a documentary by David Chernushenko – a green economy educator, who embarks on a global journey to examine the alternatives to the conventional energy system and experience the critical resistance being met along the way. (source: Powerful: Energy for Everyone! project by Living Lightly)
The Internet of Electricity
A smart grid would be networks, microprocessors and digital sensing technologies, a “web” of clever, hi-tech components that will be as flexible as it is intelligent. View is as the Internet of Electricity – which Al Gore coined the term “electranet” in an op-ed for Newsweek a couple years back. Once you consider the massive and unpredicted explosion of the Internet, a microgrid of “privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables” doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all.
This small, locally made energy can be quite a mouthful that even Fast Company magazine (known to cover the latest best and “next” practices in the business world) stated that “The evidence is growing that privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables could deliver a 100% green-energy future faster and cheaper than big power projects alone.” It was written by Pulitzer Prize-nominee Anya Kamanetz in their July 2009 article “Beyond The Grid“.
Energy Production For Everyone
With Smart Grid system, public and private utilities may begin to lease their infrastructure and focus on managing the exchange of energy between individuals, rather than the distribution of energy from centralized power plants. A massive network of individual energy producers could generate and exchange power instantly with friends, neighbors, and business associates.By taking control of our energy appetites and reclaiming control of our energy supply, we can lead prosperous lives powered mostly by renewable energy, and less social and ecological harm will be done in the name of fuelling our energy needs. Who knew we had such power prior to Smart Grid electricity feasibility?