Tiny Island Nation to Host World’s Largest Microgrid | Hacker News Reader

Tiny Island Nation to Host World’s Largest Microgrid

scientificamerican.com

58 pointscrunchiebones19 comments

"World's largest microgrid" that seems to be significantly smaller than Orkney islands who are currently running at 105% of need via renewables, and complete conversion of housing and heat. They're well on with adding storage batteries to houses too. Much of it community owned.

I think they now have 500+ generation sources smart controlled from where the old diesel power plant used to be.

They're also working at replacing diesel ferries with hydrogen. Create hydrogen from sea water from the renewable surplus to power initially the ship auxiliary systems, then replace the ferries with fully hydrogen powered.

45% from renewables seems absurdly limiting and low, except as short term interim step to 100%+

If I understood correctly, the 45% is what they were estimated to be able to reach without a complete overhaul of their system, but they are in fact overhauling everything. I don't believe a final number is mentioned, however.

> World's Largest Microgrid

Got to be up there (down there?) with World's Smallest Mountain

I was thinking World's largest hill, whose height would be already capped by the definition of the term itself.

> Consultants from the Energy Department and World Bank Group advised Palau that the maximum it could draw from renewable energy was 45 percent

What? Why so low? I don't understand that

Sounds suspiciously like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency#/media/F...

Perhaps they meant this, rather than a percentage of their total energy usage.

No, they meant percentage of total energy production/consumption. It means that given Palau's existing grid, substations, generators, transformers, etc. it would be impossible to put on more solar/wind than an amount equivalent to 45% of consumption. Traditional grids are centralized, with the highest capacity transmission/distribution lines closest to the source, then stepping down (tree-like) as they fan out over the population to where it's consumed. It's often impossible to retrofit such grids, because in places you'd like to produce energy through solar/wind you've got only low capacity lines available over which to evacuate the power. Thus, the completely-new build out. Another factor is losses across the network, which were potentially high enough that no amount of new solar/wind could reach the community's total consumption. The new grid will be better-built, reducing total losses and therefore the amount of energy needed to be generated, and therefore allowing renewable energy to play a greater role. Interesting story, and this is my field, so happy to have a chance to add to the conversation.

Palau is conveniently close to the equator - 7 degrees North. This maximizes solar output while minimizing seasonal variation. Looking at their weather, I'd say the main risk is typhoons: https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/palau - whatever infrastructure is built would have to survive them.

Palau has weathered the weather (unintended aliteration) of typhoons before. The problem isn't catastrophic events (apart from climate change), it's that the frequent rain and lack of money makes it hard to upkeep maintenance of almost all the infrastructure already. I worry about how much it will cost over the long term to maintain this microgrid.

Doesn't that just make it a "grid"?

this is incredibly unambitious of a goal for an island nation that needs to get off fossil fuels. 70% renewable by 2050? that's insane -- the technology for this exists right now and is being rapidly deployed. taking 10 years to do this would already be very generous. 32 is just not even trying.

The entire world could easily be on 100% renewable by 2060.

The average lifetime of a coal fired power plant is 40 years so if we don't build another one the last one built will expire around then. In the meantime every time new capacity is needed or an existing coal power plant needs to be decommissioned replace it with solar/wind/solar thermal/nuclear/pumped hyrdo/geothermal/a battery system/wave generator/whatever.

Today, with all subsidies removed, and all externalities included, coal is already not an economically competitive source of electricity, governments need to stop propping it up and just let it die.

Story straight out of Confessions of an Economic Hitman — third-world island nation gets IMF’d into a partnership with a multinational corporation to upgrade its energy infrastructure.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to make the move to renewables, but completely revamping the electricity infrastructure of a 340 island nation is not a cheap undertaking. With a GDP of a mere $291 million[0], how long are the citizens going to be on the hook for the loans needed to subsidize this effort?

0: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

Palau is an interesting and unique place. I was lucky to vacation there maybe five years ago. I believe it has the world's best snorkeling and scuba diving. Despite tourism being probably being the major industry, this Island nation actually seemed to have a culture of independence - they'd just rejected a proposed development project from some billionaire.

I think they will be just fine. Loans to sovereign nations are more or less unsecured - the only threat an entity can make is cutting nation X off from world trade and "Palau doesn't care" - they recognize Taiwan and they take ex-Guantanamo prisoners.

Btw: Your comment involves no reference to any facts cited in the article and is merely assuming there's credit extension going on. The article make no reference to credit extension at all.

I'm all for the worrying about the IMF and I don't know anything about this deal (my fucking parents don't tell me anything other than what's happening with the family I guess), but it's not as bad as the article makes it out to be, which was annoying. Most people in Palau live on one tiny island which is probably less than 10 sqkm in area. There is one larger island but it isn't as inhabited, and the two are well connected (powered by the same diesel power plant). The VAST majority of the tiny islands are not even inhabited, without coast line, and the ones which are are considered like picnic areas.

One of the main issues I worry about is large infrastructure projects come usually from loans or aid from foreign sources, but we simply don't have the money to maintain them, so they tend to rot. Palau is subjected to rain almost constantly, with the extremely humid air rusting everything. I wish we'd take notes from more developers in South-East Asia who develop in very rainy, humid climates, but for some reason we seem to hire people from the west, which is great and all, but after driving over roads that form potholes less than a month after being completely replaced, it gets annoying.

EDIT: I should mention I'm a Palauan, at least my parents are.

In Arkansas, our roads are nothing but potholes. As soon as they are patched it rains (or as we say in the South, torrential downpours) and the entire road is a pothole again. Very annoying. It's always wet here and humid, btw. At least not as humid as Louisiana though.

I guess the difference is Palau has year round rain, not seasonal rains, so it's more akin to say Singapore than parts of the US, although may be LA or FL might be close, I don't know.

Another confounding problem with Palau it's an island in the Pacific. In the US, if you need to patch the road, you just send a couple of catepillar machines in an oversized truck down the interstate along with tar and whatever else to your small town. I mean, of course someone has the catepillars and tar lying around, but that's at least how it got there. For Palau, you need to get the tar, caterpillars, and fuel and everything else and send it on a cargo ship, whilst burning more fuel and putting it into the air. Just the sheer distance and isolation adds a huge cost to repair for everything that sort stretches the analogy with small town America for example.

The closest analogue in the US would be Hawaii, which is basically the Pacific island problem compounded by sheer remoteness (just about the only things more remote are French Polynesia, Easter Island, and random subantarctic islands, although I'm anchoring much of the South Pacific on places like Auckland, Brisbane, and Port Moresby). And as I've pointed out in the past, Hawaii is even higher cost of living than California, largely as a result of this middle-of-nowhere location.

I guess I'm curious how Polynesian islands manage it, but one thing about Hawaii has a robust economy while Palau does not unfortunately. Palau is heavily reliant of foreign aid, although it does have a tourism industry, it has faced some struggles. In a curious contradiction, HI is a US state, so federal funds being spent there are not really considered "aid" since they pay federal taxes, while Palau does not pay taxes to the US. Also, scale is different, Palau has less than 30K people, which makes it much smaller Hawaii and even many other Polynesian islands.

The curious thing is the cost of living isn't that terrible for things like land and food (which can be grown on the island). Of course, anything else including gas is expensive.

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