
Tiny Island Nation to Host World’s Largest Microgrid - crunchiebones
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-island-nation-to-host-worlds-largest-microgrid/
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NeedMoreTea
"World's largest microgrid" that seems to be significantly smaller than Orkney
islands who are currently running at 105% of need via renewables, and complete
conversion of housing and heat. They're well on with adding storage batteries
to houses too. Much of it community owned.

I think they now have 500+ generation sources smart controlled from where the
old diesel power plant used to be.

They're also working at replacing diesel ferries with hydrogen. Create
hydrogen from sea water from the renewable surplus to power initially the ship
auxiliary systems, then replace the ferries with fully hydrogen powered.

45% from renewables seems absurdly limiting and low, except as short term
interim step to 100%+

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bo0tzz
If I understood correctly, the 45% is what they were estimated to be able to
reach without a complete overhaul of their system, but they are in fact
overhauling everything. I don't believe a final number is mentioned, however.

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WhiteMonkey
> World's Largest Microgrid

Got to be up there (down there?) with World's Smallest Mountain

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therein
I was thinking World's largest hill, whose height would be already capped by
the definition of the term itself.

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spraak
> Consultants from the Energy Department and World Bank Group advised Palau
> that the maximum it could draw from renewable energy was 45 percent

What? Why so low? I don't understand that

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zeckalpha
Sounds suspiciously like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency#/media/File:PVeff\(rev180813\)a.jpg)

Perhaps they meant this, rather than a percentage of their total energy usage.

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zafiro17
No, they meant percentage of total energy production/consumption. It means
that given Palau's existing grid, substations, generators, transformers, etc.
it would be impossible to put on more solar/wind than an amount equivalent to
45% of consumption. Traditional grids are centralized, with the highest
capacity transmission/distribution lines closest to the source, then stepping
down (tree-like) as they fan out over the population to where it's consumed.
It's often impossible to retrofit such grids, because in places you'd like to
produce energy through solar/wind you've got only low capacity lines available
over which to evacuate the power. Thus, the completely-new build out. Another
factor is losses across the network, which were potentially high enough that
no amount of new solar/wind could reach the community's total consumption. The
new grid will be better-built, reducing total losses and therefore the amount
of energy needed to be generated, and therefore allowing renewable energy to
play a greater role. Interesting story, and this is my field, so happy to have
a chance to add to the conversation.

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pjc50
Palau is conveniently close to the equator - 7 degrees North. This maximizes
solar output while minimizing seasonal variation. Looking at their weather,
I'd say the main risk is typhoons:
[https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/palau](https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/palau)
\- whatever infrastructure is built would have to survive them.

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noobermin
Palau has weathered the weather (unintended aliteration) of typhoons before.
The problem isn't catastrophic events (apart from climate change), it's that
the frequent rain and lack of money makes it hard to upkeep maintenance of
almost all the infrastructure already. I worry about how much it will cost
over the long term to maintain this microgrid.

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Nelkins
Doesn't that just make it a "grid"?

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durkie
this is incredibly unambitious of a goal for an island nation that needs to
get off fossil fuels. 70% renewable by 2050? that's insane -- the technology
for this exists right now and is being rapidly deployed. taking 10 years to do
this would already be very generous. 32 is just not even trying.

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TheSmiddy
The entire world could easily be on 100% renewable by 2060.

The average lifetime of a coal fired power plant is 40 years so if we don't
build another one the last one built will expire around then. In the meantime
every time new capacity is needed or an existing coal power plant needs to be
decommissioned replace it with solar/wind/solar thermal/nuclear/pumped
hyrdo/geothermal/a battery system/wave generator/whatever.

Today, with all subsidies removed, and all externalities included, coal is
already not an economically competitive source of electricity, governments
need to stop propping it up and just let it die.

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black6
Story straight out of _Confessions of an Economic Hitman_ — third-world island
nation gets IMF’d into a partnership with a multinational corporation to
upgrade its energy infrastructure.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to make the move to renewables, but completely
revamping the electricity infrastructure of a 340 island nation is not a cheap
undertaking. With a GDP of a mere $291 million[0], how long are the citizens
going to be on the hook for the loans needed to subsidize this effort?

0: [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/ps.html)

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noobermin
I'm all for the worrying about the IMF and I don't know anything about this
deal (my fucking parents don't tell me anything other than what's happening
with the family I guess), but it's not as bad as the article makes it out to
be, which was annoying. Most people in Palau live on one tiny island which is
probably less than 10 sqkm in area. There is one larger island but it isn't as
inhabited, and the two are well connected (powered by the same diesel power
plant). The VAST majority of the tiny islands are not even inhabited, without
coast line, and the ones which are are considered like picnic areas.

One of the main issues I worry about is large infrastructure projects come
usually from loans or aid from foreign sources, but we simply don't have the
money to maintain them, so they tend to rot. Palau is subjected to rain almost
constantly, with the extremely humid air rusting everything. I wish we'd take
notes from more developers in South-East Asia who develop in very rainy, humid
climates, but for some reason we seem to hire people from the west, which is
great and all, but after driving over roads that form potholes less than a
month after being completely replaced, it gets annoying.

EDIT: I should mention I'm a Palauan, at least my parents are.

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3rdAccount
In Arkansas, our roads are nothing but potholes. As soon as they are patched
it rains (or as we say in the South, torrential downpours) and the entire road
is a pothole again. Very annoying. It's always wet here and humid, btw. At
least not as humid as Louisiana though.

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noobermin
I guess the difference is Palau has year round rain, not seasonal rains, so
it's more akin to say Singapore than parts of the US, although may be LA or FL
might be close, I don't know.

Another confounding problem with Palau it's an island in the Pacific. In the
US, if you need to patch the road, you just send a couple of catepillar
machines in an oversized truck down the interstate along with tar and whatever
else to your small town. I mean, of course someone has the catepillars and tar
lying around, but that's at least how it got there. For Palau, you need to get
the tar, caterpillars, and fuel and everything else and send it on a cargo
ship, whilst burning more fuel and putting it into the air. Just the sheer
distance and isolation adds a huge cost to repair for everything that sort
stretches the analogy with small town America for example.

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jcranmer
The closest analogue in the US would be Hawaii, which is basically the Pacific
island problem compounded by sheer remoteness (just about the only things more
remote are French Polynesia, Easter Island, and random subantarctic islands,
although I'm anchoring much of the South Pacific on places like Auckland,
Brisbane, and Port Moresby). And as I've pointed out in the past, Hawaii is
even higher cost of living than California, largely as a result of this
middle-of-nowhere location.

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noobermin
I guess I'm curious how Polynesian islands manage it, but one thing about
Hawaii has a robust economy while Palau does not unfortunately. Palau is
heavily reliant of foreign aid, although it does have a tourism industry, it
has faced some struggles. In a curious contradiction, HI is a US state, so
federal funds being spent there are not really considered "aid" since they pay
federal taxes, while Palau does not pay taxes to the US. Also, scale is
different, Palau has less than 30K people, which makes it much smaller Hawaii
and even many other Polynesian islands.

The curious thing is the cost of living isn't that terrible for things like
land and food (which can be grown on the island). Of course, anything else
including gas is expensive.

