Redundancy is, in many ways, a cost of doing business. If you need to be operational at all times, no exceptions, that’s going to cost you.
I wrote about this in a previous column, specifically in terms of internet connectivity. As someone who worked mainly from home even before the pandemic, the internet going out leaves me high and dry. I spend extra every month to have two separate internet accounts, using different providers, so I can switch between one and the other as needed in case of an outage.
What about if and when the power goes off, though? That’s a more serious problem. But it is at least one with emerging solutions.
Right now, I have a small battery backup system in my home, but the purpose of that is mainly to run a sump pump (my area is prone to flooded basements). If a power outage related to a rain storm occurs, I have to preserve that limited battery life to make sure my house stays dry. In the event of a longer or more serious outrage, I have an inverter device that I can connect to my car. Idling the engine will keep the alternator running and the battery charged while still allowing me to run a few household essentials. I got through a multi-day blackout that way once, staying connected to work, keeping the kids entertained with devices (heaven forbid they go out) and the fridge and freezer cool, avoiding a huge loss of groceries. This was hard on the car battery, which I eventually replaced after it got grumpy during cold winters, but it was a huge help at the time. Other people I know use gas- or propane-powered generators. I find them a hassle, but they do work, if you can afford one and don’t mind storing fuel.
The ideal backup system is some kind of home-based battery setup with enough stored power to keep at least the basics running. Those exist! But they are very expensive — both to purchase and to install. I have looked at these (Tesla offers the so-called Powerwall), but the high cost is a deterrent. My small battery system and the car inverter (plus the car, which I already have) will suffice until/unless the costs of home battery systems come way down.
Which is why I was fascinated toread in the CBC about a project in Atlantic Canada. Nova Scotia Power put large home-battery systems into 125 homes as part of a trial project. The power utility covered most of the costs, so this was more a technological experiment than it was a real test of the potential market, but the concept was this: the 125 homeowners owe $35 a month for 10 years, for a total of $4,200. The utility ate the rest and is using the batteries (and the control system, operated by the utility in Halifax) to learn how to operate a smart grid. The utility remotely tops up the batteries when bad weather threatens outages, and when there is no apparent risk of a blackout, the batteries can feed energy back into the grid and be recharged in off-peak times. After a decade, the homeowners will have full ownership of the batteries.
One of the participants in the trial told the CBC that after Hurricane Fiona in 2022, his home was without grid power for five days, and the batteries lasted for three of them, providing enough energy to keep the basics like heating and cooling, refrigeration, and his water pump running. Not perfect, clearly, but not bad, either. A two-day outage is a hassle, but it beats the hell out of five!
Nova Scotia Power is getting real-world experience operating a smart grid, but there is, alas, a big difference between a proof of concept and a viable program that can be rolled out at scale. The actual upfront cost to the consumer, if not for the utility subsidizing it, would be roughly triple today. Adding solar arrays either to make a home fully self-sufficient (at least for electricity) or even just to extend the battery life somewhat during emergencies would add even more cost. This is still going to be out of reach for most consumers.
Still. It’s an interesting concept. Nova Scotia Power estimates that the market-rate cost for installing such a system would be, at today’s prices, between $12,000 and $14,000 for a homeowner. That’s generally in line with the numbers I was hearing when I (briefly!) looked into getting a Tesla Powerwall at my home in Toronto.
But what would it take to make these numbers work? It’s not impossible. The Nova Scotia homeowners pay $35 a month for 10 years. Triple that to $105 a month, and you could be looking at a payback window for this kind of system on a timeline of 10 to 11 years and at a price point that would probably be tempting to many. (I’d happily eat that to know my business would always be online and my sump pump ready to go.) That figure does assume a zero-interest loan, as in Nova Scotia’s case, and that’s an admittedly big assumption on my part. With current interest rates, the same upfront cost and 10-year timeline drives the cost to closer to $150 a month. I’d still find that tempting and doubt I’d be alone.
I’m just playing with big numbers here. Widespread adoption of the larger home-battery systems would presumably help drive down the costs, as production volumes rose and installer crews proliferated and became more efficient. So the actual costs would likely come down. Carrying the cost of a loan will drop as interest rates fall, which is widely expected to begin soon. You can also extend out the repayment term. These kinds of systems are a new technology, so we don’t have great data yet on their longevity, but they’re estimated to get about 20 years of life, assuming reasonably normal use. You could pay it off over 15 years and still get good value from the system.
All of the above is just fun with numbers. You can play around with any of the variables and make the concept look more or less appealing. But the timing of the Nova Scotia Power program is interesting. Canadian jurisdictions are pursuing fairly aggressive decarbonization plans, and moving as much as possible away from fossil fuels over to clean electricity is a huge part of that. One of the main challenges is overcoming the lack of energy storage, and distributing storage into millions of big batteries in garages and basements is a great way to do that. Micro-storage, joined with micro-generation via roof-top solar arrays or small wind generators, not only offers some economic appeal, but also has huge public-safety and even national-security benefits in terms of distributing vital but vulnerable critical utilities in a million different places. (So long as the entire thing couldn’t be hacked in one place, of course!)
If our future is going to be electric, or at least largely so, pilot projects like the one in Nova Scotia are going to be a big part of that. It may take a long time — decades, at least, probably — but it’s good to at least see it underway. It would be nice to know that sump pump in my basement would always have power when it needs it. And I wouldn’t have to fry any more car batteries, either.
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