It almost had us. The Kincade Fire came unbelievably close to consuming the town of Windsor. More and more residents are realizing we are under chronic threat. So what is to be done?
It is increasingly apparent that the fires are part of a nationwide and worldwide climate change. Extreme events are happening all over the nation on an increasingly frequent basis, including our fires, massive flooding, weather bombs, drought, tornadoes and more. Over 11,000 climate scientists across the globe have declared that we have a climate emergency on our hands.
To address this, we must change the systems we have built that feed these fires and climate warming in general. Nowhere is this more apparent than with how we distribute energy in Northern California.
We rely on PG&E, which in turn relies on a century-old huge network of power lines. Such a system has shown us that our reliance is misplaced. What we need now are 1) innovations that distribute reliable energy with minimum risk of causing fires and outage problems; 2) a designed periphery around the town that will offer some protection against a raging fire; 3) fire-hardening our homes, so that flying embers have very little chance of igniting a blaze in residential areas; and 4) finally (and perhaps most importantly) community engagement so that we are united in our will and action to change the systems and our behavior that are fueling the fires and other extreme weather events.
There is much to think about in each of these four areas, but I would like to focus on the first: innovations that distribute reliable energy.
There is a growing interest in developing decentralized distribution of electricity, starting with solar arrays and now including battery backup for them. Beyond this comes the idea of “micro grid” systems, where we can combine solar+storage+smart inverter systems that work better and more seamlessly during a blackout. They can be connected together into a microgrid—a network much smaller than the current centralized system, and their collective generation and consumption can be balanced out, maximizing backup power. Smart inverters can “island” microgrids off from any larger grid, and “smart appliances” can shift their energy usage based on circumstances. We can even use electric vehicles that can exchange energy with the microgrid.
Mind you, this will not prevent more radical fires, but it will help minimize the black outs and damage that these fires produce, as well as giving us more local control of our energy and resilient systems for managing our power.
I believe that there are solutions for each of the first three areas mentioned above. But this will only happen if we have the collective will and collaborate as a community to work on thinking them through and putting them into place. We have local organizations that are already blazing the trail for this.
The Climate Center in Santa Rosa, in partnership with many others, birthed Sonoma Clean Power which distributes clean energy such as wind and solar to county residents, has initiated ACE, Advanced Community Energy which is pushing for a clean, resilient, more affordable and equitable electricity system in California.
On a local Windsor level, a Climate Emergency Task Force is being formed, with the mission of working with the town on addressing climate change through community-wide action and cooperation.
We must and can come together to prepare and reduce the causes of climate change and our chronic fires. It is a time for new ways of thinking and developing systems that sustain us, our beautiful county and our planet.
Terry Taylor is a resident of Windsor and is part of the Windsor Climate Emergency Task Force.
