The times they are achanging…
The “mid-transition” is upon us – people everywhere are recognising that the answer to their energy needs is electrification. For 15 years we have seen it in rooftop solar (and soon balcony solar), now we are seeing it in electric cars, trucks and vans, home batteries and home power packs.
The diagram below explains why.
The diagram shows the flow of energy from how it is sourced to what that energy produces, in this case for the 20th Century fossil fuel system.
The left hand side starts with what you care about – the energy you “usefully” employ to do the actions that help you enjoy your life. These might include preparing the food you eat, your movement around your neighbourhood, keeping your home comfortable.
Moving right represents how the fossil system supplies that energy to you. The centre “Final” band represents the point at which you purchase energy from suppliers – final from their point of view. While this is what is delivered to you, in energy terms it is not what you pay for. That is described as “Primary” energy – in a fossil fuel system, what is literally in the ground.
What the diagram makes clear is that the energy useful to you is a fraction of what you pay for. The primary energy comes from a long way away, it takes energy to extract and transport to you, then in a fossil form the process of you consuming it throws away most of that energy.
The diagram above illustrates why the 21 Century energy system will be electrified.
This focuses on a home, but the principle is unversal. Renewable generation technologies like solar and wind harvest energy asn electricity. There are some losses transporting electricity over distances, and storing it over time, but these are relatively small. There are some further losses in the appliances that transform electricity into the action, heat or movement that we want, but again that is small.
So overall you get to use most of the energy you pay for.
That’s an energy system I’m happy to pay for.