The heat is on: California and Alberta
My sympathies go out to the folks in California, Alberta and other regions who are going through a nasty heatwave and facing rolling blackouts as a result. Given that Ontario is typically the jurisdiction facing the power crunch these days, it’s odd to see it happening elsewhere — particularly in Alberta. It will be interesting to see how conservation and demand-management efforts help California work through this crisis. I’m looking forward to the post-mortem report on how well those efforts worked and how much worse the situation would have been had the state not implemented its programs. We can all learn from it.
I wonder if this latest power crunch will spur even more homeowners and businesses in California to embrace solar? (Though from what I understand most grid-tie solar systems shut down during blackouts, so they wouldn’t be much help).
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
July 25th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Google LA Times article, Wildfires Linked to Climate Change to read the astonishing effects that heat is having on the region’s forests.
August 12th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Solar will help before the power goes out. The grid tied systems shut down with the blackout, but will help to prevent the Blackout in the first place.
Energy is used the most during hot sunny days with AC used to the max by most people. The time the good solar systems produce to the MAX!