[ad_1]
Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Florence in North Carolina and South Carolina, thousands of people still do not have access to electricity, and the power plants' ash ponds have overflowed.
Dam rupture at L.V. Sutton Power Station, a coal-fired power station near Wilmington, North Carolina, has sent coal ash – a form of industrial waste created by burning coal for electricity – in a nearby river. According to the Associated Press, another plant near Goldsboro has three basins of ashes covered with flooded earth. And in South Carolina, floods threaten the ashes, reported Post and Courier.
But according to GTM, solar installations, which provide less than 5% of North Carolina's energy, worked the day after the storm. And while half of Duke Energy's customers were without electricity at any given time, according to CleanTechnica, public utility solar farms suffered no damage.
For environmental advocates, the slow recovery after Florence is a sign that the United States must move faster towards clean, renewable energy.
The pressure comes in response to the Trump administration's decision last year to support coal and nuclear power plants on the pretext that they can store their fuel on site, they can provide consistent power and thus serve targets national security. But the closure of a nuclear power plant in Florence and the ruptures of old coal ash ponds show that no source of energy is safe, ecologists say.
The vast majority of power outages that occur during storms occur because transmission lines or substations are damaged – not because the fuel is exhausted. Airlines, vulnerable to wind, rain and hail, can even fail during a storm, let alone a hurricane.
Redistribution of power
A study conducted in 2017 by the Rhodium group, which examined all power outages between 2012 and 2016, revealed that virtually none was due to a lack of fuel to generate electricity. This scenario is repeated after the events in Florence, according to energy analysts.
The extreme floods in Florence were another reason why the current took a long time to return, although facilities such as wind farms and solar farms remained unscathed.
"No electricity company will power its lines under water," said Chris Burgess, project director at Rocky Mountain Institute. "It's dangerous because you have underwater transformers, underwater meters, underground switchgear, the utility just needs time for the water to fall" , did he declare.
For Burgess, Florence – and last year's hurricanes, especially Maria – plead in favor of "distributed power", such as solar panels on rooftops.
In Puerto Rico, although Maria pulled out the grid, sites with their own solar facilities, including a farm and a community center, remained open.
"Solar is resilient – there are a ton of cases where, as long as the roof stays attached, the solar panel also stays attached.This is the real problem," he said. Given its elevation, a solar installation on the roof has a better chance of survival than power lines or transformers closer to the ground.
It's precisely after a storm that customers have shown interest in solar spikes, said several energy companies operating in North Carolina and South Carolina.
"Storm preparedness and disaster preparedness, especially in the southeast, are major factors for people who opt for solar energy," said Tyson Grinstead, Southeast Sunrun's political director. , a company that rents solar panels. "As we see more and more storms, we are seeing more and more customers coming to us to see what their options are."
In Florida, Sunrun has had success with systems that include solar panels and a storage battery, said Grinstead. A battery works like a generator and can keep critical devices down during a power outage.
Sunrun, which is the largest provider of solar panels leased in South Carolina, has reported no effect of Florence in that state. (The company does not operate in North Carolina.) NC Solar Now, the largest supplier of solar energy in North Carolina, also reported no problems during the Florence period. Yes Solar Solutions, which has installed nearly 3,000 megawatts of solar panels in North Carolina, has received several inquiries from customers wishing to install solar systems, GTM reported. Only six of the 800 business customers reported problems after Florence.
Blowing in the wind
"A hurricane can be very good news for wind power production, which is a very good thing," said Wade Schauer, research director at Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables. The only wind farm in North Carolina, the Amazon facility near Elizabeth, has been propelled by the storm, generating even a portion of electricity.
"The wind farm has suffered no damage and no significant water or drainage problems," said Paul Copleman, spokesperson for Avangrid Renewables, who owns and operates the farm. The result would have been different if Florence had hit the farm directly, he noted – the facility is in the northeastern part of the state and Florence has turned south along the coast.
A US wind farm suffered a hurricane directly last year when Hurricane Harvey shut down several wind farms on the Texas Gulf Coast. But they turned back on in a few days, the Wall Street Journal reported, as several refineries closed and coal plants were flooded.
Hurricane force winds have the power to dismantle wind turbines, as happened in China in 2013, but the new turbines are very wind resistant, with a model designed to work in a typhoon.
"The main manufacturers are mainly designing high-temperature wind turbines for really strong winds," Burgess said, citing examples from the North Sea. "Everything that has been installed in recent years is very wind resistant and extremely resistant to flooding," he said.
The need for more storm-resistant equipment is clear: more and more wind farms are being built near the coast as storms become stronger and more frequent.
However, since wind farms connect to a network, they do not protect against failures caused by transmission failures. That's another vote for battery power, Burgess said.
"When the transmission lines are down, the number of power plants you have is not important," he said. "What's more important at this point is that your critical facilities – hospitals, shelters, ATMs – have local power."
[ad_2]
Source link
