Smart Grids for Small Grids

A major challenge in building micro-grids is to size the power capacity to meet the demand requirements of community members, yet still be financially viable for the community as a whole. Since power demand fluctuates throughout the day with peak periods for home use in the morning and evening and limited demand during other times of the day, power systems are often designed to meet part of the peak community need and have extra capacity off-peak.  

A major community development goal is to identify beneficial uses for power during off-peak hours. In run of the river systems (with no storage reservoir) power production is fixed and all power produced must be used for the system to remain stable.  When power production is greater than demand excess power is sent to a ballast tank where the power is wasted through water heating.  Green Empowerment and its partners have already developed an open source Electronic Load Controller (ELC) that automatically monitors and manages power delivery to the grid and ballast loads based on instantaneous power demand.  

Our goal is to minimize service interruptions during peak use and increase the beneficial use of produced power by developing locally manufactured open source technology that automatically turns loads (ie appliances) on and off during the 24 hour power cycle each day. 

While current market solutions exist, they are designed for either much larger systems or for single user configurations in developed countries which make them either too costly for or incompatible with micro-grid systems in the developing world.

In addition, a major benefit of creating an open source solution is that engineers and technicians can assemble these controllers locally.  Local design and assembly increases the impact of the project through technology transfer and reinforces system sustainability by making local repairs more feasible.

Imagine your community invested two years of time and a large amount of money to construct a local micro-grid. A large part of the budget went to buying an off the shelf technology from a far-away country.  A year later there is a power surge and this piece breaks.  Your local technicians do not know how to fix it, and the way it works is proprietary. It will be expensive and take months to order a new part. If only local engineers had designed this part themselves using open source schematics. It could be fixed in a matter of hours, not only turning the lights back on, but also reinforcing community trust in the system.

Yes, while our work up to this point has focused on micro-hydro systems, the technology we are now looking to develop has the potential to improve the efficiency and reliability of micro-grids running on solar and other renewable technologies as well.

In addition our design strategy is modular making the technology adaptable to a variety of system configurations.

Because Green Empowerment works collaboratively with communities and local partner organizations, we are uniquely positioned to create solutions that fit the actual consumer need and take into account the local cultural and financial realities.

In addition, Green Empowerment and our regional partners Sibat and TONIBUNG have been operating in the community based renewable energy and appropriate technology sectors for many years and have considerable in-house staff experience. Together we have collaborated on numerous successful projects and have a solid record of high quality implementation. Our most recent and relevant R&D and capacity building project is the open source Electronic Load Controller (ELC) which has already been successfully piloted in seven communities.

The community based renewable energy systems we work with typically consist of one plant/point of power generation with a capacity in the range of 5-30KW serving communities of 50-1000+ people. 

The term open source refers to something people can access, modify and share because its design is publicly accessible. Open source technology allows for communities and energy practitioners to

• build the technology for a much lower cost
• learn how to repair/maintain it themselves.
• add new features and capabilities through collaboration with other energy developers

Green Empowerment will develop this technology collaboratively with practitioners working in indigenous communities in Malaysian Borneo and the Philippines.  Our partners will have full access to the technology and development process. In addition we publish all design materials online which are freely accessible to all at www.elcwiki.info.  Through this wiki other practitioners in the field can also build on and modify the designs and share their new solutions with the community at large.

A major benefit of more reliable grids is that they can support larger appliances that supplement and/or replace household work that is typically completed by women.  Pounding rice into flour, processing other crops, and washing clothes can all be accomplished through modern appliances during off-peak hours by this open source load sharing technology. These appliances can free up time in women’s lives for other pursuits and/or starting small businesses based on their current skills and newly created time.  There are many cultural and economic factors that affect whether this possibility can be realized, but access to electricity is a key component to creating the opportunity for change.