Hacker News Reader

Comment by p1mrx | Hacker News Reader

We're going to need lots of power grid upgrades over the next few decades, for all the new air conditioning (climate change), and the electrification of heat and transportation (trying to avoid climate change.)

Are these upgrades even in the planning phase? People will be hesitant to migrate away from fossil fuels if they can't trust the alternative.

View on HN

In a word, yes. There are plenty of smart people thinking about distribution management systems to control loads, manage local generation (household PV) and even use electric vehicles as an energy store to power the during periods of peak demand.

Supply authorities in my corner of the world (Australia) are planning this shift, but I can’t speak to the situation in other regions.

https://arena.gov.au/assets/2020/06/future-grid-for-distribu...

> Are these upgrades even in the planning phase?

I'm sure there are plenty of plans: the question is whether the general public is willing to deal with the cost.

PG&E (allegedly) delays upgrades:

* https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-07-31/pge-rebuts...

But this was supposedly allowed by (elected) regulators because they didn't want blowback from the electorate about larger bills:

* https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-caused-over-400-fires-in-2...

Air conditioning should be powered on site when possible.

In a different timeline we would have programs for zero interest loans for solar power installations with payments managed through the power company (trading paying for power to paying for the loan to generate the power).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com