Northbay Uprising - Information for the liberated zones of the San Pablo Bay

2011-02-22 "On the (Micro)grid: Bottom-up energy innovation takes off in Marin" by Peter Asmus, open forum published in "San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper
[http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-02-22/opinion/28617528_1_smartmeter-electric-grid-solar-power]
Most folks are gung-ho on the amazing power of wireless communications technology. Yet in my Marin County town, citizens are up in arms, blockading trucks and opposing the mandatory installation of SmartMeters - pulsing wireless signals about real-time energy usage so Pacific Gas and Electric Co. knows exactly how much power I consume, and when. Unfortunately, PG&E and other utilities have been slow to recognize that a top-down "one size fits all" approach to modernizing our aging, dinosaur electricity grid is not the only path forward.
PG&E has somehow been able to galvanize a constituency opposed to SmartMeters that reaches to both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Tea Party moms and pops are joining hands (at least temporarily) with ex-hippies. Scientists are also now engaged, warning about the possible health impacts of a completely wireless world running our communications and power systems.
SmartMeter opponents have been bolstered by recent developments. Last month, a study by Sage and Associates claimed that wireless SmartMeters may cause neurological symptoms such as headache, sleep disruption, restlessness, tremors, cognitive impairment and tinnitus, as well as increased cancer risk and heart problems. The Marin County Board of Supervisors also passed an emergency ordinance that effectively creates a one-year moratorium on SmartMeter installations in unincorporated Marin (which includes my West Marin home). Meanwhile, the list of counties looking to ban wireless SmartMeters continues to grow, with Santa Cruz and Mendocino joining Marin, and Monterey perhaps soon to follow.
If the truth be known, the Marin Clean Energy program - which allows the county to decide where the power comes from to keep the lights on while still plugged into PG&E's electric grid - will only succeed in its goals of relying on local, indigenous renewable resources if more technology to monitor time and volume of energy use is integrated into our homes, businesses and communities. There has to be some level of knowledge of when a solar or wind system is on or off in order to manage such a decentralized grid for the greater good.
Luckily there are choices. An alternative to the utility top-down smart grid could be "microgrids," little islands of self-sufficiency that could be created at city halls or community centers, strategically placed farms and ranches, and even new master-planned subdivisions. By this summer, every large community hall in West Marin will be powered by solar power, setting the stage for future "microgrids" to provide emergency power during natural disasters. If investments are also made in devices that can store the energy from the sun, each one of these public buildings can serve as emergency shelters not dependent upon finite, polluting fossil fuels. New storage technologies - such as lithium ion batteries (also to be installed in tomorrow's plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) - are one promising possibility.
The Marin Agricultural Wind Collaborative has been working quietly behind the scenes, lining up enough willing landowners to develop "community wind" projects owned by locals - rather than developed by large corporations. They would also feature smaller wind turbines that might not raise the same kind of opposition as the gigantic machines manufactured by companies such as General Electric that now populate Texas. This "community wind" approach was pioneered in Denmark decades ago.
The Marin collaborative organizers claim they have garnered enough sites and agreements and political support to meet the power needs of 25,000 average California homes, or roughly 12 percent of all of Marin County's peak power supply.
Microgrids could also create islands of energy self-sufficiency for entire new residential communities. In Lucas Valley, which straddles West Marin and Highway 101, plans are moving forward with a master-planned community for 85 to 100 residents featuring homes equipped with a technology called "PlotWatt." It offers device-by-device details on energy consumption in every home, more detailed and more useful data than PG&E's SmartMeters will ever be able to deliver. This new community is being designed for self-sufficiency from the very start, drawing as much power from local resources, and filling in the rest from Marin Clean Energy's increasingly green portfolio.
In the long run, the push to empower consumers with more real-time information so they can reduce electricity consumption when prices are high is inevitable, and a logical evolution of technology trends. Still unanswered is consumer acceptance of the idea of taking more responsibility for on-site energy management.
The experiments going on in my own backyard will go a long way in determining whether the bottom-up strategy will work better, or will also be sabotaged by a uniquely American preoccupation with entitlement and the freedom to simply waste energy.