The trend toward homes which are powered by alternative energy sources, ranging from wind turbines and solar collection cells to hydrogen fuel cells and biomass gases, is 1 that needs to continue into the 21st century and beyond. We have great need of becoming much more energy independent, and not having to rely on the supplying of fossil fuels from unstable nations who are often hostile to us and our interests. But even beyond this factor, we as individuals want to get “off the grid” and also stop having to be so reliant on government-lobbying giant oil corporations who, whilst they’re not actually involved in any covert conspiracy, nevertheless have a stranglehold on individuals when it comes to heating their homes (and if not through oil, then heat usually supplied by grid-driven electricity, an additional stranglehold).
As Remi Wilkinson, Senior Analyst with Carbon Free, puts it, inevitably, the growth of distributed generation will lead to the restructuring of the retail electricity market and also the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The power providers may possibly have to diversify their enterprise to make up for revenues lost by means of household energy microgeneration. She is referring to the conclusions by a group of UK analysts, herself included among them, who call themselves Carbon Free of charge. Carbon Free has been studying the ever-growing trend toward alternative energy-using homes in England and the West. This trend is being driven by ever-more government recommendation and occasionally backing of alternative energy analysis and development, the rising cost of oil along with other fossil fuels, concern about environmental degradation, and desires to be energy independent. Carbon Free of charge concludes that, assuming standard energy prices remain at their present level or rise, microgeneration (meeting all of one’s home’s energy needs by installing alternative energy technologies like solar panels or wind turbines) will grow to be to residence energy supply what the internet became to home communications and data gathering, and eventually this will have deep effects on the businesses of the existing energy supply organizations.
Carbon Free’s analyses also show that energy organizations themselves have jumped in on the game and seek to leverage microgeneration to their own advantage for opening up new markets for themselves. Carbon Free of charge cites the example of electricity organizations (in the UK) reporting that they’re seriously researching and developing ideas for new geothermal energy facilities, as these organizations see geothermal energy production as a highly profitable wave of the future. One more conclusion of Carbon Totally free is that solar energy hot water heating technologies is an efficient technologies for decreasing home water heating costs inside the long run, although it is initially really expensive to install. However, solar power isn’t yet cost-effective for corporations, as they need too a lot in the way of specialized plumbing to implement solar energy hot water heating. Lastly, Carbon Totally free tells us that installing wind turbines is an efficient way of reducing residence electricity costs, while also being much more independent. However, once more this is initially a really expensive thing to have installed, and organizations would do well to start slashing their prices on these devices or they could locate themselves losing market share.
