Anaheim has a unique position within the county, since it owns its own municipal electric utility. This benefits residents and the city in numerous ways. Just looking at the differences in rates between Anaheim Public Utilities and Southern California Edison nicely illustrates one of the biggest benefits: our rates are much lower. There are other benefits as well: investments in our power grid directly benefits Anaheim residents; Anaheim Public Utilities also has the ability to adjust rates and institute policies to advance certain goals that would benefit the city.
One goal that Anaheim Public Utilities should try to advance is the creation of distributed power generation throughout the city.
First, what is distributed power? Most of our electricity comes from large centralized power plants. Coal, nuclear and hydro-electric plants, such as San Onofre and the Hoover Dam, are where the majority of our electricity comes from. Distributed power, on the other hand, is a large collection of smaller electric facilities located much closer to where the electricity is used. The most recognizable is rooftop photovoltaics, or solar. However, solar isn’t the only way to produce distributed electricity. There are also micro wind turbines that would work very well in Anaheim Hills and The Canyon.
There are many advantages to distributed over centrally produced electricity. Distributed power is more efficient, resilient and sustainable.
Large central power plants must produce considerably more power than will be used since power is lost when transmitting the electricity over long distances. Because electricity generated in a distributed system doesn’t need to travel as far, for instance from your rooftop to your living room, or to your neighbor’s house, it doesn’t suffer from these losses. This makes distributed power more efficient than centrally produced power.
Another advantage of distributed power is its relicensey. The power grid across America is amazingly fragile. California saw this first hand with the power crisis and rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001, and then again in 2005 due to a key transmission line going down due to a faulty sensor. And while we didn’t experience it first hand, we saw the wholesale failure of the power grid in the northeast in 2003. While these issues are rare, they will become increasingly common as we continue to tax our power grid and fail to invest in it. Because of Anaheim’s unique position, it’s possible to mitigate these crises with a distributed power system. A distributed system does not have a single point of failure. If the power fails, but you have enough solar on your roof to generate as much electricity as you use, your power will still work. If your neighborhood’s subgrid generates enough power, your neighborhood’s power will still work. And if the City of Anaheim generates enough power within the city, and something happens to the rest of Southern California’s power grid, our lights will still turn on.
The final benefit of distributed power is that it is green and renewable. Fossil fuels, oil and coal, will become increasingly expensive as demand increases and supplies decrease. Most, but not all, distributed power systems are renewable, such as wind and solar. If we build these renewable systems, we will be able to ensure our electric rates stay low even as the price for electricity continues to rise for most of our neighboring cities.
While the advantages of a distributed power system are great and many, so are the hurdles to installing such a system. The biggest hurdle is two pronged: cost. For your average house, it will easily cost ten or twenty thousand dollars. For an apartment complex, a system can be a quarter million or more. This is a huge outlay of money for any home owner.
Coupled with the initial outlay of funds, a homeowner will never recoup their expenses from the savings they would expect to see in their electric bill because of Anaheim’s low electric rates. While some home owners will install such systems in an effort to be green, or because of other financial considerations that make such a system feasible, the majority of Anaheim will choose not to spend the money.
Another hurdle to adoption is the aesthetics of solar systems. While it’s clear that solar on the roof of one of Anaheim’s many historic homes would ruin the character of that house and neighborhood, newer homes can support solar without much problem. As solar becomes more prevalent, we will become accustomed to seeing it and it will therefore be less obtrusive.
Thankfully, there is a relatively simple solution to all of these barriers, although it will be unwanted by many. If Anaheim Public Utilities raises rates a little, not even to the same price as SCE or PG&E, just a little, and then uses that excess revenue to provide subsidies to homeowners who install solar or wind power systems, such systems will suddenly make financial sense. By attacking the cost issue from both sides, the initial outlay of money and its payback period, the city can minimize the burden on homeowners while still improving our power system.
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