Happenings at the last meeting
Ann Buchanan sent her thanks to the club, through Lyn Lewis, for our support. All David’s systems and vital organs they are functioning well, which is fantastic, David has been taken off his ventilator and is responding and communicating. We are thankful to Lyn for assisting the Buchanans and keeping us up to date.
The guest speaker for the night was Justin McFarlane. Justin has a long history of involvement with environmental studies and government departments. He headed up Landcare Australia. He was also a member in Australian Olympic Skying team and a partner in a geothermal business with Chris Booth.
Justin spoke about the ability to share renewable energy. It started with a pig farmer, who installed a 100 kW solar system on a shed. His excess energy, about 95% of what the solar system produced, was paid at 6c per kW and on other sheds he was paying the retail costs. Justin thought that there must be smarter ways.
Over the past 18 months, he and has been developing virtual energy networks. In Bendigo, for instance, there are three sites; the Eaglehawk land fill site, Epson Recreation Reserve, and the Bendigo Art Gallery and Library. A 70 kW solar system on roof of the recreation reserve building could be used to support the energy requirements at the library.
Their system collects data in real time as shown in the images below. You can see that there is a considerable amount of energy sent to the grid.
The excess energy is now used to power the library through the virtual network. To prevent selling energy to the grid at a low rate and at the same time buying it at another site at a higher cost. They are using a virtual network.
Other examples are Visa Group which spends about $400 on electricity each year. They are using their excess power to pay to their staff’s electricity. Excess energy can also be donated to other members of the community. A more recent example is the Hobson Bay Council which will be setting up a virtual energy network to share energy between their sites.
The system is looking at the wholesale power costs continually and using energy when it is particularly cheap or even when you are being paid to use it.
The use of hydrogen as an energy source was discussed. Electrolysers were used to obtain the hydrogen which is then safely stored and transported using ammonia.
President Rick recommended the District Governor’s Fireside chats.
Secretary Bob, Asked whether the members wanted him to forward his emails from Rotary. It was suggested that he should, just in case.
Bob read an email from Harry, recommending that we use the money that was saved from our meals to support charities. It was recommended that everyone pay the equivalent of one meal to support Interplast.
The Board will look at the suggestion of regular donations to the club and charities.
