A hundred thousand points of light
Thinking out of the grid
Behind all the headlines and the hype about the coming energy crisis facing the UK, there are some seriously effective local solutions taking shape. In the pages which follow, we profile this year’s groundbreaking Ashden Award UK winners. But first, Rebecca Willis argues that we should use the looming energy crisis as a chance to rethink some outdated assumptions about how we source and use our power.
The rooftop wind turbine has become a must-have accessory for David Cameron, for energy minister Malcolm Wicks, and for a queue of celebrities eager to mount a very public display of their green credentials. It’s a welcome symbol of a rapidly growing interest in small-scale, sustainable energy.
But while rooftop gestures gather pace, politicians are still failing to ignite the genuinely transformative potential of an energy system based on small-scale, distributed power. Far removed from our present, antiquated grid system, we could call such a system Grid 2.0.
A world away from the hothouses of London, Doreen Attfield talks to her neighbours in Fernside Crescent, Huddersfield, about the weather. It’s more than just chitchat. The brighter the sky, the lower their electricity bills: Fernside is part of the Europe-wide SunCities initiative [see ‘Making sparks around the house’], which has kitted out 2,000 homes with solar panels. As Doreen says, as soon as the panels were installed: “Everyone was busy comparing how much energy we were producing a day. It was really exciting.” And Fernside is not an isolated example. As so many of this year’s Ashden Award winners show, people are beginning to reconnect to their power.
We could be on the cusp of a radical new approach to energy. One in which power generation will no longer be purely remote and centralised, a one-way flow through the wires from big generators to passive consumers. As energy expert Walt Patterson explains, that model dates back to when “the best available generating technologies were based on water power and steam power. It was shaped by economies of scale in generating electricity.”
It’s a system which has made it simple enough to switch a light on, or fire up the central heating. But it’s far from straightforward to provide gas and electricity to over 20 million homes, offices and industrial users. Behind the scenes, there are thousands of people, hundreds of companies, a whole load of technology and a complex regulatory system all working flat-out to ensure that the lights stay on. Our energy system is like a swan, gliding elegantly and seemingly effortlessly through the water, whilst paddling furiously under the surface. And as time goes on, the swan-like serenity becomes harder and harder to sustain.
Grid 2.0 would do it rather differently. In this model, rather than simply receiving power passively from distant gas, coal or nuclear stations, people get help from government to do it themselves. Instead of just being energy consumers, homes become power stations and everyone is involved in saving or generating power.
Spreading investment like this, across a range of options, would make the system more resilient and secure. And thanks to the use of renewable and energy-efficient technologies so suited to this approach, carbon emissions would fall, too. More importantly, perhaps, shifting to Grid 2.0 would give people a sense of ownership and responsibility for their power – providing the incentive to get involved in a collective endeavour to reduce carbon and combat climate change.
In particular, it could transform their attitude to energy efficiency. Attempts to get people to use less energy have focused on the energy efficiency of houses, not the energy demand of individuals. This can lead to perverse outcomes. As Tadj Oreszczyn observes, we have an “almost innate ability to think of new uses for energy, facilitated by improvements in energy efficiency”. Double-glazed conservatories, for example, make it possible for them to be heated and used throughout the winter. Previously, single-glazed conservatories would have been heated through sunlight alone, and used only in the warmer months. Energy efficiency as currently envisaged merely serves to slow down the rate of growth of energy use, rather than reversing the trend. Reconnecting people with the source of their power could help break this pattern.
But Grid 2.0 will not happen unless we take a step back and think about the purpose of our energy system, and the role of individuals within it. Regulations controlling gas and electricity networks will need reform, to allow local generation to connect up. There must be more community ownership of energy assets. Individuals will need to be encouraged systematically, through the tax system; energy companies will have to rethink their business models.
The current energy crisis should be seen as an opportunity. Government must seize the chance to set a framework which puts people first, and rewards the innovators.
Rebecca Willis is an Associate of Green Alliance and author of a new pamphlet, Grid 2.0: The next generation, available from www.green-alliance.org.uk
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