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In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults

169 points · 195 comments · JumpCrisscross

jmyeet · 1791106138 · focus · HN ↗
I've been thinking about this (more [1]) and I do believe smaller grids will be the future for many reasons. I guess this is another reason. But the transition from large grids to small grids has no obvious, easy path because a large grid without total market saturation falls apart as maintenance is averaged over fewer and fewer users.
One side benefit though is that it would stop utilities being able to push data center costs onto consumers, something that regulators and governments thus far seem completely unwilling to do.
Oh and distributed infrastructure and leadership (the so-called "mosaic defense") is (yet) another reason why the Iran war was always unwinnable from the start.
[1]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49902903">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49902903
1. MomsAVoxell · 1791106932 · focus · HN ↗
  The transition is off-grid.
  The technology and the means are there - whats required is the willingness to adopt to the self-powered lifestyle.
  Many, many folks have done this - stepped off the grid and live on self-harvested local energy sources - however, the grid is powerful.
  It is difficult for entire cities to do away with it so rapidly .. at least until PV harvesting gets a significant order or two cheaper and more efficient…
  I think it’s pretty obvious that electric transportation needs to fully adopt integrated energy harvesting. This seems to be an obvious legislative low-hanging fruit.
  1. tancop · 1791113503 · focus · HN ↗
    Individual self sufficiency is a bad solution. It's hard to scale to the point everyone can afford it, and it means risks like your inverter breaking down turn catastrophic so you need to invest in extra backups. You lose a lot of efficiency and flexibility.
    I think it's way better to make a community grid. That means your home might only have solar without a storage system because there's a shared battery down the road, using cheaper but more dangerous chemistry you don't want in your home. You pay a small share of maintenance costs and pay off investments you helped decide because it's a co-op. And if that's not enough you can exchange with another neighborhood.
    Basically I'm saying power should work like the internet. Independent systems that don't need to be self sufficient, but they're still resistant to failure because there is no centralized control.
    thelastgallon · 1791117090 · focus · HN ↗
    > I think it's way better to make a community grid.
    Indeed, like Internet, autonomous networks with connections.
    US subdivisions can be a micro grid, a few hundred homes.
    There are a lot of condo communities, the common elements (roof, etc) are the HOA responsibility. These can do community solar and grid.
    In the metros of third world countries, there is a huge growth of gated communities with high rises. These can be net zero with their own production and grid.

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