The dawn of micro power

IN California, U.S., thousands of homes have small rooftop solar panels which turn sunlight into electricity. In Mongolia and China, thousands of small, locally manufactured windmills are generating electricity from breeze. These images, from two very different parts of the world, signal the dawn of the age of micro power.

"Small is Beautiful" can no longer be dismissed as the slogan of eco-romantics. It is an imperative that seems set to shape the 21st Century. The gigantic electricity-generating plants of the 20th Century are just about as out of date as the earliest computers which filled large rooms. Renewable energy options are no longer a hopeful but distant possibility. Their day has come. The average power plant size used to be 800 megawatts and now it is 100 megawatts. The largest plants now being built are about 500 megawatts.

We are in the midst of a historic transition from central supply to distributed utility, says Dr. John Byrne of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy, at the University of Delaware, U.S.. Byrne was recently in India to meet with Indian colleagues in the field of renewable energy and some of his former students.

The fastest growing energy forms in the world today are wind and solar. In 1980, there was virtually no wind-based energy generation in the world. Today, a total of about 10,000 megawatts is generated through wind-power. These new systems mean more and more freedom from dependence on a central electricity grid. They also create the possibility of once again making energy more of a common property resource than a commodity.

This may seem ridiculous to many urban Indians who have recently been hit by a sharp escalation in their electricity bill. There are as yet no visible signs that we can be liberated from abject dependence on a centralised electricity grid. If that grid is to be supplied by Enron-like companies, which generate electricity at a much higher cost, then our future is indeed grim.

Even the example from California may seem misleading to those who have followed news reports about the spiralling electricity costs in that American state. The Governor of California was recently quoted as saying that his state's experience in energy deregulation has turned out to be a colossal and dangerous failure.

Nevertheless, let us examine some of the creative possibilities which were recently placed before a gathering of businessmen by Dr. Byrne, at the Indian Merchants Chamber in Mumbai.

Firstly, here is why the city of Sacramento offers a beacon of hope amid the energy-blues of California. In 1988, the citizens of Sacramento, the capital city of California, decided to close down a six-year-old nuclear powerplant. They wanted an alternative that was more ecologically sound, cheaper and decentralised. So the city administration launched a Photo- Voltaic Pioneers Program. Under this program, thousands of Sacramento residents installed roof-top solar power systems.

In the short-run, the photo-voltaic panels cost more than electricity generated from fossil fuels. So, under the Pioneers Program, the city administration picks up 50 per cent of the extra cost, thus making it a more attractive option for consumers. This program is over-subscribed every year and is particularly popular in working class areas. The best indication of success is that now numerous utility companies in the U.S. offer such pioneer programs which give consumers a green-energy option.

There is an element of subsidy in such programs but in the long run, subsidies may not be necessary. At present, the rooftop solar panels do not provide all the energy needs of Sacramento and the city still has a fossil fuel backup. But, says Byrne, this is a good example of positive market development where public and private resources are combined to serve a larger good and enable a more ecologically and financially sustainable technology choice.

Large energy systems impact our daily life with a kind of disempowerment because the problems they create seem impossible to solve, except by technical experts because people do not have a say in the choice of the technology but have to just adjust and pay for it. Thus, people feel functionally disenfranchised by this, says Byrne. By contrast, the citizens of Sacramento feel the electricity system is their common institutional framework or commons.

From the beginning of civilisation, energy was a common-property resource. Pre-modern forest dwelling people, and even semi-modern rural villages, still improvise their energy needs from their surroundings. The invention of the steam engine and the industrial revolution which followed changed all that. It took energy from the commons and put it in the market as a commodity. We are now trying to find ways of returning to an energy commons, for renewable sources like sun and wind cannot be commodified, says Byrne.

Here is an opportunity for countries like India, which are otherwise regarded as energy-deficient, to leap-frog into the 21st Century by bypassing outdated modes of energy generation. In this emerging scenario, the advantage will go to nations that have technological know-how, skilled labour force, openness to innovation, efficient financial structures and strategic foresight to position themselves for the era - just as India did for Information Technology, suggests Byrne.

This is what the Chinese have done for some of the areas which still cannot be provided electricity from the centralised grid, based on conventional energy systems. So in inner Mongolia, the Chinese have developed small wind machines that generate 300 watts, using their local rural entrepreneurial and technical skills. According to Byrne, there is no commercial manufacturer that can produce such a small wind-energy generator. The Chinese were able to do it, says Byrne, because they have used small, rather than heavy, industry for economic growth.

India is ideally poised to maximise the promise of micro power and not merely because of the abundance of sun and wind. One, it has a wealth of non-governmental organisations and political action groups which are already pressing for sustainable and equitable policies. Such groups are both doing pioneering technical work and also intervening in public policy. For example, the Society for the Advancement of Renewable Materials and Energy Technologies, in Mumbai, has experimented with manufacture of small turbines at the taluka level. Two, there is a network of polytechnics whose graduates can be further trained to manufacture and/or maintain the micro units.

Of course, this does not mean that micro-power is immediately going to proliferate all over India. While it is true that renewable energy sources are being encouraged, the policy thrust still favors fairly large plants that feed the central grid.

So in the short run, the dawn of micro power is clouded by a paradox. Even as innovations in this sector abound, old style plants are still being commissioned. China is simultaneously a leading innovator and the builder of the world's most ambitious and criticised mega-hydel power project - the Three Gorges Dam. In India, in spite of the pitched resistance to mega projects, many are still being commissioned.

However, Byrne argues that even if the environmental movement does not succeed and the commodity-oriented market prevails, the energy regime will change drastically in the next 25 years. Industrialists are themselves more and more likely to opt for smaller, captive energy units of their own. For, the new technologies are modular and can be scaled to suit specific needs. The conventional principle of economies of scale may no longer apply.

We are now at a point where the choice is being made, says Byrne. The technology inherently lends itself to community control and empowerment but that potential will not be realised without the determination and perseverance of active citizens.

RAJNI BAKSHI

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