As exciting as Elon Musk’s bet, and subsequent giant battery may be, there is a hell of a lot more going on in Australia that never gets a mention. Not sexy enough I suppose. Well, I think micro grids, renewables and batteries are very sexy so have a look at this:
This is the proposed plan for a micro grid in Kalibarri, WA. Kalibarri is a rural community which relies on power coming in via the Geraldton Feeder. Just one single source of power. When that power goes down, Kalibarri goes dark. Kind of hard to run homes, not to mention businesses, without power.
But all that will be a thing of the past once the micro grid is up and running. It will include power from the windfarm as well as power contributed by individual homes running solar panels. All that power will charge a 2 MWH [megawatt hour] battery, and the Geraldton Feeder will be there as well. All that equates to power security for a community that has had anything but. On a national level, the Kalibarri micro grid is also an example of what Australia can do in spite of the idiots in Canberra.
You can read the whole story here:
https://westernpower.com.au/about/media/contract-awarded-for-kalbarri-s-renewable-microgrid/
And now a big thank you to Dawn who found out about this development and sent me the URL. Dawn is a Silversmith who loves cheering people up. She would call this a cheeryuppy story and I couldn’t agree more!
Keep smiling, only four more days ’till the weekend. 😀
Meeks
Meeka's Mind 
March 14th, 2018 at 9:57 am
Great to see that they are doing something for the environment.
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March 14th, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Hi Anne. Yes, and isn’t it nice that it’s a win-win in every sense? Environment, energy security and cost too, I’ll bet.
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February 14th, 2018 at 2:13 am
Good to see something promising about the future—for a change!
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February 14th, 2018 at 11:06 am
I know. We need some good to balance all the blah.
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February 13th, 2018 at 1:58 pm
Wind? Solar? I wish. The US is committed to “clean coal.” *Sigh*
It’s embarrassing.
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February 13th, 2018 at 10:01 pm
Trust me, the US is not alone. The monkeys currently in power here in Australia took lumps of coal in to Parliament as a stunt…because they ‘believe’ in clean coal too. Thank god the grass roots are taking things into their own hands.
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February 14th, 2018 at 2:01 am
Bah! Money turns people in monsters and idiots, and sometimes both!
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February 14th, 2018 at 11:10 am
So very true. Doesn’t say much for representational democracy does it? 😦
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February 14th, 2018 at 11:31 am
What’s that? Ha ha
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February 14th, 2018 at 6:41 pm
lmao – I know!
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February 13th, 2018 at 10:42 am
Our traditional power supply is strictly electric and when the power goes everything goes including water. So, we have a back-up generator, a rotating in-house water supply, solar charger, back-up kero heater and gas cooker etc. It ain’t ‘rocket science’.
We had two bouts of freezing rain around Christmas (I live in Canada) which coated everything in 5cm of ice and of course the power lines went down for days When we did a ‘neighbour check’ one couple were freezing and had no way of heating even a single room or preparing hot food. We helped out, of course we did, but we also showed them how easy it was to be self reliant.
… this is a long way of saying that reliance on an infrastructure that is waaaaay past its use-by date is at best naive and at worst lethal, and yet people still don’t get it.
On the other hand, I think the tide is turning with regard to renewable energy sources. Change is happening … in spite of bureaucratic stonewalling and general incompetence.
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February 13th, 2018 at 10:06 pm
Luckily we don’t get freezing cold here, but we do get heatwaves of 40 plus and losing power during one of those can be just as deadly.
A lot of households put in solar panels a few years back [including me], but we’re tied to the grid so when the grid goes down our panels and shut down too. I know it’s a safety measure but I would LOVE to be able to go off grid. -drools- If I had the money….more solar panels, lots of lovely Tesla batteries, a nice Tesla car in the carport….
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February 14th, 2018 at 10:11 am
Ah yes, I too, dream of a Tesla heaven. 😀
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February 14th, 2018 at 11:03 am
-grin- wouldn’t it be nice?
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February 14th, 2018 at 11:05 am
What I really like about Elon Musk is how much fun he seems to have as he disrupts the technological olde guarde. 😀
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February 14th, 2018 at 11:20 am
-giggles- I know! He’s the geek that’s now thumbing his nose at everyone who said he couldn’t do it. 😀
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February 13th, 2018 at 8:57 am
Such a simple solution. It’s up to us to create the solutions, rather than waiting for those idiot in Canberra to organise it for us. Thanks for showing me how it can happen.
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February 13th, 2018 at 9:17 am
Yes! And you are very welcome, Anne. Don’t you just want to kick all the old diehards out of Canberra and let a river of fresh young minds in?
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February 13th, 2018 at 7:11 am
Ha ha! yes it jolly well is a cheeryuppy. Kalbarri is a place MrG and I have visited often, to visit some wonderful people, that have become closer than family. We are well overdue a visit; I reckon this will be fully completed by our next one!
Glad it lifted your spirits, Meeks😉😉 x
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February 13th, 2018 at 8:12 am
It lifted my spirits and gave me hope for the future. Sometimes it seems as if all the changes happening in the world just make things worse. And then sometimes I learn about things like this micro grid, and it’s like ‘Yes, there are people, and companies, doing their bit.’
Australia has so much sun and wind, and hydro and geothermal. We also have a hell of a lot of ordinary people who took up the challenge to put solar panels on their roofs. With batteries and gas powered intermittent power plants [both for backup] there is no reason we couldn’t go completely green in ten years. All it takes is a few incentives from a govt that isn’t stacked with deniers, and we’d do the rest…
-cough-
Sorry, this is so dear to my heart!
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February 13th, 2018 at 6:56 am
YES! Three cheers for this from me in the East 💪🏼🙏🏼🌈🌴
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February 13th, 2018 at 8:13 am
Hi hi. 😀
I don’t want to inflame east/west competition but…those crazies over in WA are beating us! C’mon VIC!
:D:D
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