Australian concerns about nation's power grid
The Business Spectator reported that the Ministerial Council on Energy commissioned a review and subsequently concluded that the federal government's proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme, along with its commitments to an expanded renewable energy target, could result in the short term in electricity supplies being stretched beyond critical reserve levels as producers in the country's $9 billion national electricity market struggle to fulfill the new environmental mandates.
The report found that when the nation's power companies attempt to implement the new mandates the national grid was put at a higher risk of technical failure if as a consequence of the new legislation the nation's power stations would be required to operate differently after the new policies were introduced. The report accordingly recommends that the Ministerial Council on Energy be given enhanced powers during the transitional period, including expanding its ability to tender for major consumers to forgo power or feed their own power into the grid during a supply crisis.
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Why Fort Frances wants to build an integrated microgrid to deliver its electricity
TORONTO - When the power goes out in Fort Frances, Ont., the community may be left in the dark for hours.
The hydro system's unreliability — caused by its location on the provincial power grid — has prompted the town to seek a creative solution: its own self-contained electricity grid with its own source of power, known as a microgrid.
Located more than 340 kilometres west of Thunder Bay, Ont., on the border of Minnesota, Fort Frances gets its power from a single supply point on Ontario's grid.
"Sometimes, it's inevitable that we have to have like a six- to eight-hour power outage…
