Does Solar Energy Make Us Vulnerable?

Here’s a hypothetical situation. You decide to build your own steam generator plant and connect it to the electric grid. No matter where you live, you’d probably have to meet a ton of r…

New Renewable Energy Projects Are Overwhelming US Grids

It’s been clear for a long time that the world has to move away from fossil energy sources. Decades ago, this seemed impractical, when renewable energy was hugely expensive, and we were yet t…

Restarting The Grid When The Grid Is Off The Grid

If you watch YouTube long enough, it seems like going “off the grid” is all the rage these days. But what if the thing that goes off the grid is the grid itself? In the video below the …

Low-Voltage DC Network Build Incited By Solar Panels

Nowadays, some people in Europe worry about energy prices climbing, and even if all the related problems disappear overnight, we’ll no doubt be seeing some amounts of price increase. As a hac…

Japan Wants To Decarbonize With The Help Of Ammonia

With climate change concerns front of mind, the world is desperate to get to net-zero carbon output as soon as possible. While direct electrification is becoming popular for regular passenger cars,…

Cascade Failures, Computer Problems, And Ohms Law: Understanding The Northeast Blackout Of 2003

We’ve all experienced power outages of some kind, be it a breaker tripping at an inconvenient time to a storm causing a lack of separation between a tree and a power line. The impact is gener…

Accurately Track Your Mains Frequency

Depending upon where in the world you live, AC mains frequency is either 50Hz or 60Hz, and that frequency is maintained accurately enough over time that it can be used as a time reference for a clo…

Emulating A Power Grid

The electric power grid, as it exists today, was designed about a century ago to accommodate large, dispersed power plants owned and controlled by the utilities themselves. At the time this seemed …

The Regulatory Side Of Rolling Your Own Moderate Solar Farm

[Russell Graves] lives in Idaho and recently connected his solar installation to the grid, which meant adhering to regulatory requirements for both the National Electric Code (NEC) as well as compl…