now's the time and we actually don't
have a choice
we must reimagine our electrical system
because so much in society hinges on it
for us today you have to understand the
issues and you have to find the
relationships that are sometimes a
little bit obscure the water in that
glass is actually related to the power
in your phone too much water too little
water will actually determine whether or
not you've got power this slide is from
NASA it's a slide of the soil moisture
content for North America what you see
is from the year 2000 until now from now
until 2000 95 clearly what you're seeing
is dramatic unprecedented change and
it's interesting because we're starting
to realize this even at a government
level so the BC government about two
weeks ago said that they were not sure
whether or not there was going to be
enough water behind the dams BC has some
of the best hydroelectric assets in the
world they weren't sure if there was
gonna be enough water behind the dams in
ten years to meet their clean energy
goals in California we're seeing
devastating effects of lack of water in
fact the utility down there is shutting
off parts of the grid because they're
afraid that the grid is actually gonna
catch the place on fire this year even
without awareness their policy of no
grid activity in certain areas has
created 19 fires in 2017 and 2018
tens of billions of dollars of damage
were created by these fires created by
the energy infrastructure a town of
27,000 people was obliterated and sadly
85 35 people were killed you also see
this in things like the Hurricane Maria
for Puerto Rico the flooding and the
devastation there topped ninety billion
dollars their grid was so vulnerable
that even after three months of
rebuilding 45 percent of their
population did not have power
can you imagine what your life would be
like if you did not have power for three
months what we learned in that is that
you cannot react to these issues once
the wheels have fallen off the bus you
can't steer the bus we have to start
getting in front of this way also now
we're seeing destructive storms they
call them psyche bomb cyclones on the US
side in 2017 one storm alone caused
100,000 power outages one storm
locally we saw a similar phenomenon for
five days some people did not have power
last year and it's getting worse these
problems are not all linked to weather
of course the aging infrastructure is
starting to become more difficult to
maintain starting to become unreliable
this summer in London southern part of
England they had an unexpected blackout
that blackout wiped out the Internet
wiped out mobile phones wiped out the
trains subways even the hospitals were
affected because their backup systems
did not come online and they were
fighting off
back foot some described it as
apocalyptic so what happened there
it was one power strike one power spike
rather two generators snapped offline
and millions or without power so what's
happening now there are places in this
province that are solely relying on
diesel for their power it's the only
thing remote communities First Nations
they are paying anywhere between 44 and
80 over 80 cents a kilowatt hour what
that means is they're paying more than
four to eight times what we're doing
today down here there's a real problem
with this and it's around their energy
sovereignty so the government has a role
in all of this that role generally you
want it to be good but sometimes it's
bad policy can steer the participants
into wanted and needed changes of
behavior bad policy though that is not
well thought through knee-jerk simply
following popular opinion sometimes
leads us to unintended consequences
these politicians feel pressure they
feel pressure from the constituents for
ee-vie charging stations they feel
pressure from the international world to
do something about climate change like
the Paris agreement Norway has jumped
out and said we're gonna do something
about it in Norway they will be banning
the sale of gasoline cars in the year
2025 that's only five years from now no
gas cars are gonna be sold
BC is trying to do its part as well 2040
is when we will not have gasoline cars
sold here
he's a good policies a bad policy well
it's gonna be we're gonna tell over time
it really depend on how these pieces are
put together but this energy consumption
is hitting unprecedented levels smart
phones smart homes high voltage evey
cars you know this is really starting to
go the other way we have
energy-efficient lighting and
energy-efficient appliances that aren't
doing the offset a building now has
about 40% more domestic load than it had
before so this unmet demand is starting
to show up in society just two weeks ago
BC Hydro give us a report they said one
in four electric vehicle owners one in
four had gotten into an altercation at
an electric charging station one in four
had an altercation you're starting to
see now society starting to feel this
this is before the ban of gas
electricity our gas vehicles actually
kicks in so you take a look there are
big buildings hundred cars what are we
gonna do are we going to try and bring
so much high-voltage power into a
building that everyone has their own
charging station that's huge power where
is that coming from how is it getting
there oh and that's just one building
what about the dozens that are around
how are we gonna do that I heard an
interesting statistic actually just
yesterday at the clean tech conference
it will take if every car in British
Columbia today was electric it would
take to sightsee dams to meet that
demand not one two of them and how do
you keep from tearing up the city and
putting this infrastructure in
so we're looking squirrely down the
barrel of physical disruption but we
have to reimagine these systems we have
to change the way we're solving these
problems we have to disrupt this
thinking on a proactive basis otherwise
we're gonna be like Puerto Rico and
picking up the pieces we can take
existing infrastructure and combine it
with new models with new assets without
creating content chaos this is a micro
grid so what is it it's one or more
generation assets that are combined with
control systems that have a distribution
over a limited geography these grids can
be smart they can work together that
brings resilience to a system in case
one node goes down more importantly it
can be islanded and what I mean by that
is it can operate autonomously but it's
also intelligent enough to operate with
the wider grid structure so this is the
kind of model that we need to take a
look at the advantages with new demand
you can bring on new generation assets
new storage assets very easily it's very
flexible that way the new technologies
that are being developed are
mind-blowing actually and we can
incorporate those and it's a great way
to decarbonize our existing generation
profile some of these technologies have
big impacts on big fleets
so imagine a transit company they have
700 buses electric buses for context
that was four it has 65 those buses have
to be charged every night to take six to
seven hours for them to charge can you
imagine just the labor to plug and
unplug
700 buses it's a big job yeah might not
be that big Shenzhen China let me give
you some context to this in 1980 which
many of you will remember it's only 50
years ago night 40 years ago I remember
40 years ago they were 30,000 people in
a rural area today right now they are a
city of 11 million people in 40 years
they are part of a contiguous corridor
of urbanization that houses 60 million
people
Shenzhen did not buy 700 buses 100%
electric buses they bought 16,000 buses
and each one of those buses need to be
charged daily
so he sit back and you look at the scale
of some of these issues but if I said
there is technology if someone came to
us and said you know I think I can do
this better we actually won't charge
them in six to seven hours we can charge
them in 30 seconds 30 seconds to fully
charge an electric bus sounds almost
like science fiction but it's actually
not two groups one in the UK one in
China are working on this technology
today and it looks viable so the time
that takes to load and unload people at
one bus stop can fully recharge that bus
can you imagine building that
infrastructure you know go to your boss
say hey listen we have to charge 700
buses it's gonna take six to seven hours
oh by the way I'm going to need you know
millions maybe tens of millions of
dollars to do so and have someone walk
up and instantly obsolete that entire
infrastructure so you sit back and you
say okay why is there resistance to some
of these micro grid technologies why why
is this not being adopted everywhere
because it makes so much sense well the
answer lies in the fact that and it does
have some disadvantages it's easier when
it's on a piece of paper than it is in
real life it's hard to get assets to
work together to balance their phases
and loads so the technology is
implementable today but it's still
relatively immature the interesting part
is when it comes to utilities utilities
were created to do things better cheaper
more reliably for the good of society
they have been guardians of us if you
will they're measured on things like
grid time or grid uptime and grid
stability
they're very risk-averse with this they
look at these new participants and they
say who is this person what assets are
they bringing to this are those assets
well maintained
well those assets actually be online and
ready when I need them and how do we
make money both of us participating in
this so the behavior of utilities and
the resistance is actually not
irrational but it is deeply misaligned
to the realities of that we face we
don't have time for one-trick ponies
anymore we don't have time for utilities
who only have one speed one business
model one way of interacting with the
world
there's no one magic technology there's
no silver bullet you know some people
say oh and wind it's the only way to go
well maybe but really it's part of a
solution and we need to take a look at
it
that holistically so what needs to
happen we need to think in a new way we
need to problem-solve in a completely
different fashion whether that's
end-users entrepreneurs the utilities
themselves the regulators and the
government all need to approach us
differently
also regulators and the government need
to give utilities a new mandate need to
fundamentally change the way the grid is
operated and how it relates to these
other parties and it is imperative for
every community to sit down and think
about how they are going to manage not
if but when a major weather event
happens doesn't matter first world third
world urban remote it affects us all so
micro grids while they are physical
assets they're also it's also a
philosophical approach a new way to
bring problem-solving to a new level
that does not allow the old thinking of
the past to interfere with it you need
to make this these kinds of
conversations a priority you need to
find out why this is going to be a
priority is that family and friends is
because you care about the environment
is it because you care about your
community but now is the time we don't
have a choice we will either have to
disrupt this thinking or we will be just
thank you
[Applause]
you