After Sandy: Solar More Than Ever - battery storage systems
After super storm Sandy, the power is back, and people in New York and New Jersey are talking about how to rebuild and how to change the energy infrastructure to cope with the new storm reality.
For example, the Dot Earth blog is talking about small gas cogeneration plants that keep New York University powered when lower Manhattan gets dark.
There are also people talking about micro-grids, smart planning and flood control systems.
Solar energy must be mixed together.
Sandy-affected areas have huge untapped potential in producing clean energy and reducing carbon emissions, which may exacerbate these storms in the first place.
Let's take a county as an example.
Hudson County, New Jersey, across the Manhattan River, was heavily attacked by Sandy.
The town of Hoboken was flooded and nearly 641,000 residents of the county did not have electricity for a few days.
In addition to the most radical mobile devices,
Power failure means no cell phone, no news, no plug necessary
No refrigerator in medical equipment
All of these people will benefit from solar energy.
What needs to be clear: the most common roof solar system during a power outage will not allow you to charge your phone or run a dialysis machine.
Typically, they are bundled in the grid and they are automatically disconnected when the grid is closed.
To be completely independent, you need a system configured to provide energy directly to your property, or you need a battery storage system.
Because the battery is more expensive than the generator, not many people buy it.
However, municipalities, community cooperatives
Operations and business projects can change this.
Public Storage solutions can be found.
As Sandy has shown, even a building with electricity can be a support center for the entire community.
Geostellar runs some numbers in Hudson County just to get an idea of how much potential has not been developed there.
We're sure there are 101,475 buildings in Hudson County.
Suitable for roof solar installations, observe solar irradiance, roof spacing, shadows of trees and buildings, and other factors.
We then calculated the amount of energy that would be generated at each site if a solar array was installed. The result?
Our solar energy calculator says Hudson County can produce 2 by plastering each suitable roof.
42 megawatts of electricity per year. That's 2.
42 million MW.
This is a huge potential!
Hudson County has a lot of commercial buildings and a lot of large flat roofs, so the average size of a system will be large-almost 17 kW.
But let's be more realistic.
For example, the county uses only 10% of electricity: 242 gigawatts of electricity will still be available every year.
That means there could be a storm in Hudson County.
Source of proof of 27.
6 megawatts of electricity per hour.
This is enough to power 172,500 refrigerators, 81,176 PCs or 460,000 incandescent lamps
There are watt bulbs 24 hours a day.
This is also enough to reduce the load of the county No. 1.
The givette Hudson power station in Jersey City runs two dirty fossils --fuel-
Carbon pollution is emitted by combustion units.
In fact, the development of 10% of the county's solar potential will avoid producing 170,594,310 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, not to mention mercury, arsenic and other toxins from coal.
Fired Hudson.
This is equivalent to removing 15,173 passenger cars from roads or saving 767 acres of forest from deforestation.
This will not only make the air cleaner, but also reduce the possibility of Sandy happening again.
The same 10% development could save $39,241,524 in electricity bills, assuming the average home bill in New Jersey is £ 16.
24 cents per kilowatthour.
Every move that makes solar installation cheaper makes power costs lower and saves more.
Now in New Jersey, policy is helping solar to achieve grid parity with conventional power (nuclear weapons, coal, natural gas): New Jersey's powerful solar renewable energy credit program, pollution-
Create utilities to pay the owners of solar systems the cost of producing clean energy per megawatt, reducing costs and making solar more viable.
With real grid parity achieved, the use of solar energy is expected to soar. Bottom line?
Residents of New Jersey will have more money to buy these battery storage systems.
This is just the beginning: many other counties in the state have greater solar potential.
When we talk about rebuilding after Sandy, solar energy has to be part of the plan.
Regardless of the weather, we can make our community more livable.
# Dean Kuipers is the community and content director of Geostellar for online solar resources and markets.
A former editor in Los AngelesA.
Times, he is the author of books such as "bite back action" and "Burning Rainbow Farm. He lives in L. A.