Reclaiming power

By Rapid Transition Alliance Staff, Rapid Transition Alliance

The rapid rise of community renewable energy and why the added benefits of local, clean power can help accelerate transition

Thinking Outside the Grid

By Steven Gorelick, Local Futures

Ultimately, a greater reliance on local power would eliminate one of the most destructive side-effects of the grid: the implicit notion that energy is limitless. The expectation is that our homes and workplaces should have as much power as we’re willing to pay for, 24/7, year in and year out.

Rebel Cities: These Community Wind Farms in Denmark and Scotland are Decentralising Power to the People

By Steve Rushton, Occupy.com

The future is bright for wind and renewables just about everywhere. Now it's a matter of people, and communities, recognizing and acting on that potential.

Integrated Decentralized Power Systems

By Chris Nelder, Energy Transition Show

As more distributed energy resources arrive unbidden onto the power grid, they are increasingly requiring us not to just think about new utility business models, but to radically rethink what a utility might look like.

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Heat your House with a Water Brake Windmill

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

Direct heat production thus offers the possibility to save three times more greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels using the same number of windmills, which are also cheaper and more sustainable to build. Hopefully, direct heat production will be given the priority it deserves.

Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

Going off-grid? Think twice before you invest in a battery system. Compressed air energy storage is the sustainable and resilient alternative to batteries, with much longer life expectancy, lower life cycle costs, technical simplicity, and low maintenance.

3 Examples of Local and Shared Renewable Energy Systems

By Shareable Staff, Shareable

A locally based vision of renewable energy generation could eliminate global or national-level domination of the energy infrastructure by a few large players, and thus the concentration of profits in the hands of a very few. It could also reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to very low levels, comparable to the emissions before the industrial revolution.

Power for Puerto Ricans, not Private Investors

By Johanna Bozuwa, The Next System Project

It has been almost a month since Maria devastated Puerto Rico. Since then, most of the island’s 3.4 million residents have been without electricity or running water. The power grid was effectively destroyed, with only 7 percent back online to date. This means that the entire system, from generation to distribution, will need to be rebuilt. The question now is: how?

Renewables will Give more People Access to Electricity than Coal, says IEA

By Simon Evans, Carbon Brief

Today’s new IEA report shows that coal’s role in expanding electricity access is set to decline dramatically. Renewables, both on and off the grid, will provide most new connections, as the population without access falls by another third to 700 million. If the world hopes to meet its goal of universal electricity access by 2030, then the IEA report suggests it is solar – not coal – that will bridge the gap.

Jeremy Leggett’s New Serialised Free-Download Book, The Test: Chapter 1

By Jeremy Leggett, Jeremy Leggett blog

It seems clear to me now what SolarAid should do in the next year. We should try to work with enough of those companies and organisations, in clever enough ways, that we play a useful role - maybe a catalytic role, if we can - in ensuring that civilisation passes The Test.

Combining Energies

By Marcela Basch, Future Perfect

A hot shower, even where there is no electricity: low-income families in Argentina build their own solar water heaters using recycled materials. A non-profit organization hosts the workshops, gathers helpers and shows participants how to utilize renewable energy.

What Rural Alaska can Teach the World about Renewable Energy

By David W. Shaw, Ensia

“Microgrids, not large-scale power generation, will be the most effective way to provide electricity to those still unconnected,” Wilder says. Microgrids are essentially small power grids customized for single communities.