Decentralising power

Chemistry and Industry, May 25, 2009 by Patrick Walter

A third industrial revolution is called for if the world is to move to carbon neutral energy systems and attempt to avert dangerous changes to the world's climate. The gauntlet was thrown down to the European research community by Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, who said the window to act on climate change is now, not in 10 years time. The future Rifkin envisages is a world where decentralised information communication technology (ICT) leads naturally to a decentralised energy grid and a lateral, rather than top down, form of capitalism.

Rifkin gave his speech at the opening of Research Connection 2009 in Prague in the Czech Republic, a conference to highlight the successes of the European Framework programme to researchers and business. According to Rifkin, the world is facing a bleak future beset by an energy crisis, global recession and climate change and that to tackle these problems the world needs to act in an interconnected, global manner. 'We are in the sunset of a great energy era. What do we do now?,' he asks.

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Now is the time to move from what Rifkin calls 'elite' energy sources such as coal, uranium and oil that require vast investments in economic infrastructure, as well as military muscle to ensure their continued delivery. 'This has been the dark underside of the great energy revolution and civilisation,' Rifkin says. A move to distributed energy will mean that everyone will be meeting part of their own energy needs through the use of solar, micro-wind and rubbish incineration. 'Centralised electricity, centralised energy is all sunset technology ... we are on the cusp of a third industrial revolution.'

There are four key requirements for Rifkin's new industrial revolution. The first is the move to renewable electricity, the second requires buildings to be converted into mini-power plants, the third is storing this energy for when the sun's not shining and the wind is not blowing and the fourth is to share this power amongst everyone. Sharing the power would require 'smart' meters that can send electricity that is not being used back into the grid and can reduce power to appliances at times of high power demand. Rifkin compares it to peer-to-peer information sharing that has become the norm on the internet. Decentralised power will mean when your house is generating energy it does not need it can be fed back into the grid for others to use through 'net metering'.

As things stand, Rifkin says the EU is ahead of the game in moving towards this decentralised kind of power generation with 13 projects in the seventh framework programme working in these areas. 'I think Europe has the story, the narrative, but I think the president [Obama] doesn't have this story yet ... Washington is thinking in a centralised way.'