Arctic energy needs better batteries: wind and sun supplement diesel and fuel oil.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: ARCTIC IDEAS

It's windy in the Arctic, particularly in coastal areas, and in summer it's light around the clock. Yet small villages pay sky-high costs for fuel transported hundreds of miles by barge, and sometimes even flown in.

Yet the wind--and sun in summer--are inexhaustible energy sources, and free. Why can't they be used?

It's an obvious question that has occupied community leaders in Alaska's remote Arctic villages for years, and their concerns have been passed up the chain to state officials who are working to figure out the technical challenges.

But as with many things, the problem is more complex than it appears. Many of the problems arise because of the small sizes of remote villages, typically several hundred people in size, and the micro-size of the local power grid, according to Sean Skaling, renewable resource program director at the Alaska Energy Authority.

Renewable Challenges

The big challenge with wind, and with wind projects anywhere, is the intermittent nature of the resource and what to do when the wind suddenly dies, Skaling says. Diesel-powered generators must be kept on standby with the engines on idle, ready to quickly ramp up. The diesels can't be completely shut off, at least for now, because with the current state of technology in remote villages they can't be fired up in time to offset a quick loss of wind.

Without having diesel-fired power ready almost instantaneously, and seconds matter, the local grid can crash, causing a blackout. That's not good news for a small village in winter.

Diesel engines on idle still burn fuel, so until a safe strategy is found for a complete "diesel off" plan, the prospect that wind power can substantially reduce the use of fuel oil, and the costs, are not as attractive as many would like, Skaling says.

As for solar, and that 24-hour sunshine during Arctic summers, the issue is that the reverse is true in winter, when it's dark much of the day. However, winter is when maximum power is needed in a village. During summer, when the sun shines a lot, local power demand is lower.

Despite these problems, Skaling says there are actually some advantages for wind and even solar in remote communities, even in the Arctic. For one thing, in cold temperatures the air is denser, which means it packs more weight and can generate more power than air moving through wind turbines in a warmer climate, he says.

Even solar has some unexpected advantages, as shown by experiments with solar power on buildings in...