What is an Energy Network?
In a video for the hub last year, I was asked “What is an energy network?”. And I talked about delivering energy from one place to another, infrastructure, formal networks, informal networks, and lots of other things. And I mean, as an investigator on the Supergen Energy Networks Hub, you would hope I knew what I was talking about! But often the challenge we have in defining things is that they don’t always match with real life, the reality is that the edges of the definitions are often blurred.
Picture: Photovoltaic generators on Ilha das Onças feeding the DC microgrid with a house and a church connected.
Why am I talking about this?
I’ve just returned from an incredibly interesting, if somewhat frenetic, visit to colleagues at the Federal University of Pará in Belém. The amazing team in GEDAE has been pioneering using off-the-shelf solar home system equipment to build resilient direct current microgrids for off-grid, remote communities in the Amazon rainforest. From concept inception and development, to testing it in their external microgrid laboratory, and finally rolling out three microgrids across two remote communities, they have been building a real understanding of how the system operates, a strong data on its use and availability, and vital user feedback on the system. This system sits in this blur between formal and informal, infrastructure and bottom-up technology implementation, but an energy network it certainly is.
Off-grid remote communities
The DC microgrid design, which we have just published a paper on, enables each household to utilise the system without needing a photovoltaic (PV) generator or a battery close to their building. This open-structure system allows for the use of equipment from various manufacturers, guarding it against product obsolescence. Additionally, the microgrid can integrate generation systems that do not require storage, supplying electricity directly to loads and reducing consumption for other subsystems within the microgrid. This flexibility enables different levels of investment in the network and helps keep costs low since off-the-shelf equipment can be utilized, along with strategies that minimize storage expenses. By allowing the integration of various brands, the system remains resilient against obsolescence.
These initial field tests of the microgrid are in two locations.
The community in is only a 20-minute boat ride from Belém, but could not be more different from the city hosting in November. River-dwelling communities hug the side of the river, household jetties sporting small rabeta ‘long tail’ boats, no grid connected infrastructure for any services and householders that rely on fishing and farming the local forest for their income. Twelve households and community buildings are connected onto this microgrid, including an electric boat charging station, where the boat can be charged from the grid or the boat can provide power to the grid (similar to bidirectional charging for electric vehicles).
Picture: Households inland of the river in Ilha das Onças, connected onto the DC microgrid.
Ilha do Pacoca is a small island community of six households in the middle of the Maratauira river, near Abaetetuba. (Local legend says that the head of a giant snake is buried under the island.) As with Onças the householders are fisherfolk and farmers, living on one side of the island. Due to their remote location and small demand, the electricity grid will never reach the island. A perfect place for the microgrid. Two groups of three households are connected on the microgrid.
Picture: One of the six households on Ilha do Pacoca, with PV panels on the roof of the home/Electric boat developed by GEDAE
Communities a key part of research work
These communities previously relied on generator sets, that would provide electricity for 2 – 4 hours a day. Now with the microgrid, they can get nearly 24 hours a day electricity for their current loads from their local resources. It’s not a formal grid structure. But it’s safe, it meets local regulations and standards, and there is pragmatism in the design. The team know that to get the same service we would expect from the distribution network would just cost too much, for very little benefit. So, they have worked closely with the communities to help them work with the limitations of the system. The communities are a key part of this research work, supporting with the system monitoring, able to make small fixes when failures happen, and have really invested into the system.
For communities, their new energy network has enabled them to do so much more. They can process their own produce, fruit such as açai berries, at a much lower cost, increasing their income. I met a woman who used the internet and mobile communication that the DC microgrid offered to take orders and sell her artisan crafts directly to customers locally and nationally. Households were able to make, consume, and sell fruit lollipops made from locally grown fruits (which, by the way are absolutely delicious!).
Using refrigerators and freezers, they could keep food for longer, save rather than throw away excess cooked food, and some even had developed small food-based businesses. The electric boat enabled households to reduce their dependency on gasoline, using local energy instead, and provided a clean and quieter way to travel. And community spaces could provide music, video and ventilation to support community events and building cohesion amongst households.
Picture: Getting ready to sleep in a hammock in Ilha do Pacoca.
So, maybe the question shouldn’t be what is an energy network? Instead, it should be, what can an energy network do?
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