Microgeneration Whitepaper – All You Need to Know

By | August 9th, 2005 2 Comments

miniwind.jpgMicrogeneration refers to the spreading-out of energy generation to many places, rather than a few giant powerplants. Examples are small wind turbines on people’s homes, or towns. In addition to being a money saver for people, it’s also a way to ensure a much more stable electricity grid, although it might not entirely supplant it. Many small companies are cashing in on the trend by offering consumers the basic supplies to create their own energy. For more info, the BBC has a great whitepaper on it (PDF link).
(via Curt Rosengren)

2 Comments

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  • Craig

    I’ve been rooting for micro-generation for a while now. I haven’t read the BBC whitepaper yet, but I know that energy storage is as much a stumbling block as efficient generation. I remember a company that was making kinetic energy storage (flywheels), but I don’t know if they ever decided to enter the home market.

  • Nick Aster

    Quite true. One thing that I’ve read is that if properly hooked up, microgeneration can solve a lot of the storage problems simply by dispersing the demand. For example, if your home is producing solar power all day while you’re not at home, the power gets used by someone else down the grid which earns you credits, then at nighttime, when you get home and turn on the lights, power comes back to you from someplace else, possibly a traditional facility, or some neighborhood-scale storage. That would be a lot cheaper (probably) than having a flywheel in your basement.