Bali Feasbility Draft Report considerations

Even though my project involvement got cut short, the assessment, master planning and general direction for the community microgrid became relatively obvious and of a different nature than my own pursuits.  

The issues of CMG energy sources driving this project are more from a lack of master plan and very limited financial resources, than from a technical or natural resources availability. 

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All electrical systems are driven by connected load and usage.  Two, very different issues. A definitive connected load sheet with nameplate ratings and actual usage % would be essential (not full connected draw 100% of each hour)

There are few easy pickings for CMG feasibility:  Biogas ala chicken manure seems to be a slam dunk.  Minimal gas burners, and perhaps even some back-up lighting can be provided with biogas.  The learning center nature of this project could further enhance this.
Earth tubes and geothermal delta T is also a given since the ground temperature will be cooler than the surface... all other nonsense aside.
Solar hot water and PV is almost too easy.  It's just limited by budget and proper location and connections.  The battery bank issue could be solved, given a master plan.

So the remaining two large energy resources are: biomass and microhydro.
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From the assessment report, the largest energy resource available are the rice husks (it is integral to the local community).  By buying rice husks from the local processors, the project would be supporting the local community and be an integral asset.  The only issue is with the current supply chain, and how removing several tons of rice husks for the project site would affect local farmers. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here.

The bigger biomass issue is that the project does not need the amount of power that even small scale biomass generation can provide until 2-3 years if and when Phase 3 and other developments are realized. When the site is up to 100 people and operating successfully on a continuous basis, then a 10kw genset may be an effective use or local biomass.

Microhydro is a good stand-by and can be staged up for various project phase flexibility, and it would be my recommendation that this is the renewable energy source to focus on.  There will be many issues here, least of which is of a technical nature.

From a cost consideration viewpoint, infrastructure will be the key to allow for future incorporation of various energy and other utilities.  Without a definitive master plan, it would be ludicrous to consider infrastructure scenarios.

Given all these considerations, my feasibility recommendations are:

1. Invest in Solar HW, minimal PV and small battery bank for the reception as the prime ‘business’ power source. 
2. Invest in two electric golf carts and use it for the motel night-time battery back-up. (need one for back-up)
1. Golf carts could be charged at Al Hickey's place temporarily.
2. PV panels on awnings could also charge 2^nd unit.
3. Trench (next to road) and bury empty pipes (plugged, leakproof on all ends) for future district electrical wiring connections. 
4. A definitive master plan must be adopted given the realities of financing, calendar, resources. 

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It's almost too easy on this project to reap the benefits of local energy resources.  Few places in the western 1st world have this type of rich natural resources to be exploited, and such exploitation in 3rd world CMGs I believe should be done by educated village elders.... but that's another issue.

Palm oil 'Smart Thinking'

The article sub-titled 'smart thinking' in an Asian business magazine, starts off with the statement:  'If you were to ask the CEO of one of Malaysia's largest palm oil companies (IOI)  , what the main goal of the business is, the answer would be simple:  International growth.  Only 10% of IOI's output is for domestic consumers.  Over 700,000 metric tonnes of palm oil goes overseas to meet the unquenchable international market's thirst for cheap vegetable oil.  You probably eat it every day if you buy  processed foods.  It ain't good for you. Indonesia dominates the palm oil market in Asia. 

From beautiful rainforests

to cutting down the rainforest

to planting palm oil plantations

to palm oil refineries

to a supermarket near you.

What's this gotta do with Community Microgrids in Bali?  When the natural energy resources contained within a rain forest, within a rice field, within a working, diverse eco-system is replaced by a monoculture for faraway consumption, then any hope of using locally produced energy will be impossible.  And worse, the humus/soil will be so depleted that even simple subsistence farming won't be possible.

It's all in the supply chain.  It all starts somewhere.  As rich flora gets bulldozed down, as western style development encroaches, as we continue to consume and demand products based on vegetable oil, we are the causation of these plantations.  Like a drug addict being supplied by a cartel...  without the addict there would be no cartel.  Without our appetite for palm-oil based products, there would be no continuous rain forest destruction.

So take a look at the cereal box, at those cookies, at those snack bags.. if it says 'vegetable oil' on the ingredient label anywhere - it's palm oil derived. Plain and simple.

if you wanna get sustainable Palm Oil check out  www.rspo.org

Here's the profile of one palm oil company in Malaysia:

IOI Group's formation years were associated with real estate when it forayed into property development in 1982 followed by Oil Palm plantations in 1985.

Today, IOI Group is internationally known as a leading global integrated palm oil player with operations stretching the entire palm value chain from seedlings to plantations to crop oil extraction to diverse value-added manufacturing across major continents - serving global markets in more than 65 countries. Close to its home-base in Malaysia, the Group is also prominently known as one of the leading property developer with significant investment holdings of prime real-estates.
IOI Group employs more than 30,000 personnel of more than 23 different nationalities in 15 countries. 

Equatorial 'Don't Worry Be Happy'

As if the picture of Bob Marley on the back of trucks isn't enough, as if the sweltering heat (to this skier) isn't enough, the sheer kick-back, easy-going lifestyle of equatorial living is obvious all over Bali.  Everyone is happy, there are no rules, everyone travel fast, everyone laughs, no one runs into each other, no one lets anyone else in front of them, we all just going to work...

My opinion has always been that the closer one gets to the equator, the most kicked back everything gets.  People are just easier and slower going when the sun is up 12 hours a day each and every day, and the temperature is an even 30C or 80F 24/7/365.  Ok give or take a couple degrees.

I find myself slowing down more every day.  My culture shock is slowly receding.  I am accepting the bee hive buzzing of motorbikes everywhere.  I just can't put up with the belching diesel trucks and ESPECIALLY the tourist buses.  Just yesterday, I walked out of the temple museum where I take my morning walks and meditations, to at least 6 parked large sparkling tourist buses ALL with the engines on.  As I walked through them, I almost choked!  That 5 minutes exceeding my 6 month allotment of carcinogens and aldehydes in the states.  Thank god for strict government smog standards in California!

What's this gotta do with Community Microgrids?  A lot it turns out.  It's EASY to find local, natural resource based energy sources.  It's everywhere.  Everything grows leaps and bounds... unless someone (humans? :-) have stripped the land bare of all trees and branches, not replenished any of the soil, and turned the land into a vast, barren desert... well that's another story.

So the challenge for community microgrids here (and its a BIG one) is on the demand side of the energy equation.  Incandescent and CFL lights are left on 24/7, fans are left running, large refrigerators are everywhere, on and on... it makes us USA energy hogs look downright like energy conservation experts.  On a per capita basis, I would bet that the average expatriate household and middle-class Balinese use way more than the average American's energy tab of 12,000 watts/person/day.
And until that changes, 'appropriate' community microgrids will be difficult to realize.  it's the old adage of taking only what you need, living within your means, and quit squandering the next generations' resources.

But here on Bali, Indonesia... and all around for 1000's of km.. there is an abundance, a richness that is incredible.  The land is blessed, the people are blessed, and of course there's money-grubbing exploitation like I've never seen before.  Large companies and their CEO's just can't grow quick enough to plant palms, extract the oil, and sell it to the west.  See my next blog on a profile of one such company.

CMG observation phase

The purpose of CMG observation is to assess the presence of raw energy potential within a 3km area of the project site.  One can think of it on strictly scientific terms - like the potential energy available, but that would limit and perhaps preclude some energy forms.

Just like a community resource guide for libraries, public services, social programs, etc., a community microgrid energy resource guide needs to be established.  Observation, and identifying the raw energies available within a 3 km area, is essential to forming a CMG.


Observation process

The observation is to be free of judgment, evaluation or assessment.  It is strictly to observe and record what is present.  Empirical and scientific observation are essential.  Measurements of water flow, actual PV panel output, SHW panel HW output and temps, river flows, ground and subterranean soil temperatures, et.

Estimated volumes of various biomass and biogas potential is a bit tricky to measure.  There are accepted forestry and biomass measurement techniques, but they may prove to be a bit cumbersome for this initial phase.


One of the dilemnas with this observation phase is the limited time and resources (people on the ground, funding, instrumentation, etc) available.  AND... what if one spends 20+ hours on ... say biomass measurements, only to have the project leadership team decide not to use biomass as a community energy source.




Once the observation is completed, it can be organized into the context of an assessment.  Field observations on quantity and quality of each energy source needs to be made.  Scientific measurements and engineering know-how are essential.

1st step: Observation. CMG resources are easy here...

I am in the middle of the first step of the microgrid process - on site observation.  This may sound easy, but it is one of the most difficult steps.  I am tainted by years of assumption and blindness in everyday observation.  They say that one would not recognized oneself walking down the street - so how would I recognize an obvious source of energy?  I have my list of renewable technologies that we can harness for power -right now -  but they are limited by western thinking and systems.  I am also tainted by volumes of information and discussions about the energy demand side on this project (something I tried to avoid and vocally resisted):  what the project needs are, people's favorite pet renewable energies, opinions, vendor sales pitches, etc.  This has colored by bias, and in future projects I will keep that to a minimum.  Resource observations need to be made with a pure mind and pure heart.

View of walkpath to project site - Mondan Village
(Picture note:  These are all on-site pictures, 1mg... click on pic to enlarge)

I have practice in meditation and sitting, and that has come in handy for pure observation.  On the 4th day of my site observations, I started noticing WAY more.  I was more relaxed and comfortable from the culture shock, had made friends with local workers and crew leader (Dodi), and was enjoying the smiles and greetings of the local Balinese.  On my long walks, I started noticing more fish ponds, gravity opportunities, local practices, transition zones, nature's multi-use processes, etc.  I had to put aside much of my engineering brain and 'western' assumptions and open myself up to the energy flows and ebbs of natural systems on the site.  They were amazingly plentiful.
I wonder how many natural energy systems I am oblivious to at WinSol3.

Subak Canal
(Picture note:  These are all on-site pictures, 1mg... click on pic to enlarge)

The concept that you can power a community from the resources provided locally (within a 5 km circle),  is much easier in Bali than in the USA and Europe.  Here, there are whole plethora of choices, in unspoiled landscapes.  There is true abundance here!  From coconut and rice husks for biomass, to cow and chicken manure for biogas, to 12 hours of same angled solar radiation exactly the same on each of 365 days/year, and endless subak canal (river) flows for microhydro - we have almost TOO many choices.

[Part of me wonders what this bodes for the future of this community?  Where there are abundant resources and a desire for others to live, there will soon be development and exploitation.  But that's a story for a whole other time.]

The only downsides on the resource side I've come across is the wetness, moisture and amazing wildlife. 
     Geothermal is not as usable here given the climate and ground conditions -
       however there should be a way to extract some dry coolness from underground  
       earth tubes.
    Wind power is minimal, even the big storms will not provide much.  Perhaps as
        wind technology scales down and gets more ingenious with cowlings and large
        volume area harvestings, it may be useful here.  I would dread seeing a
        multi-bladed monstrosity in the middle of these beautiful rice fields.

Construction materials are AMPLE here - from endless bamboo to local cinderblocks and bricks to local traditional Balinese artisan builders - there is a lot to choose from and at very low cost. I understand that a typical Balinese worker makes around $2/day - and it is hard manual labor.


On the downside - and it is a big one - there is absolutely no ethos for downstream appropriate energy usage.  Just like the prevalent plastic garbage strewn everywhere, including the middle of rolling rice fields; leaving lights on 24/7 everywhere is prevalent.  Electric water heaters are prevalent, although most houses have water 'towers' which could be easily retrofitted for solar hot water. Yet no one uses solar hot water.  In one test, a simple batch SHW heater with a small black barrel inside, produced 150 liters of free hot water each day.  And then, as I am profusely sweating after an easy walk in the rice fields, and jump into the cold shower... why would any NEED hot water here?

  The yellow tank is the gravity fed water tank (no UV inhibitors in it!!), the unit on the left is a solar distiller, the one on the right is a batch hot water heater.

The reason for this lack of appropriate energy usage is age-old behavior driven by a clash of cultures.  Electricity has only been around for ~30 years, plastic for ~15 years.  Western influence....ahh such a long reach it has.

Bullshit + Chicken Shit

How many chickens do you need to cook your dinner?  

That question has totally different meaning when your into bio-digesters.  The better question is:  How much chicken shit does it take to keep a gas burner on for 1 hour?  Turns out to be around 3 chickens. 

Here's the math:   (note:  m3 is a cubic meter)
Each chicken produces 0.17 m3/day of manure,
which turns into 0.45m3 of biogas. 
A stove burner uses about 0.2 - 0.45 m3/hour. 
Crunch the numbers and you get 2.6 to 5.8 chickens. No bullshit! 

oh...speaking of which: it takes 1/100 of a cow to do the same thing, because one cow produced around 120lbs of bullshit each day.  Hey, now that's a lot of BS!
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We took a tour of bio  digester facilities yesterday:  Our first stop was a commercial company that employs 8 people,  and then we visited a simple family with 4 cows and a small scale digester producing clean gas for cooking and lights.  Their entire operation was SO simple and it rocked my renewable energy world.  And it hardly smelled!

Unfortunately these things are just inappropriate in California and other US cities.  If you think septic tanks are an issue, wait until biogesters hit the streets...errr small farms.  With careful western bureacracies, I can see the code book being a few hundred pages thick.  Never mind that 50% of India families have them, we're going to focus on the 1 in 1000000 chance that all that ammonia in a digester is gonna kill a baby.  Ahhh... western fear mongering, I miss it so.... NOT!

The really cool thing about these biodigesters is the rich HUMUS that's produced when the digester is emptied and readied for the next cycle.  I'm told in Indonesia the animal manure is used about 60% for soil fertilizer and 40% for biogas. I hope so... that seems sustainable.

India has over 50% of households using biogas for their cooking needs.  They are almost too successful at this, since their latest problem is they are depriving the soil of all that manure fertilizer.  So one of the big lessons I've already learned is to stick with the 'higher' order of things:

Learning #1:  Don't use cow/pig/chicken shit for making energy until you are certain that your growing needs have been met.  RE (renewable energy) must be sustainable at it's source, and not be a detriment to food supplies, etc.  If you don't have any food to cook, there's no sense in making biogas for a stove!

We did this same thing on a macro scale a few years ago when the Feds mandated 15% bio(corn)-ethanol.  This policy drove the price of global food up and started starving poor people are the world...and pissed off one poor kid in Tunisia.  But we didn't give a damn, because we never see the starving 3rd world.     ... it's all about how we can maintain cheap gasoline for our addictive car habits.

And if you think we're bad, after learning that electrical prices here are actually 4X higher due to subsidies... it makes us look like saints.

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On a personal note  I'm having a hard time getting used to all the bugs.  I don't mind the mosquitos and ants... well i do mind today's ants that came out of nowhere because I left a garbage bag sitting on the floor, and haven't been sweeping the floor every single day.  No... it's the flying weird bugs that i've never seen before.  They seem to be different and more prevalent here in the countryside.  I keep finding some big 'droppings' in the middle of the house and have no clue as to what animal (can't be small) would have 'dropped' them off.  stay tuned...

Bali Realities

Ubud is a noisy, motorbike bee hive, diesel truck smoke belching, major metropolitan area.  It was shocking for me to face this reality... after all the things I heard from friends. I was expecting a 'better' Hawaii. 

Yes, the western artistan shops and restaurants are  there, and it is a bit less crowded - but 80% white tourists (100's++ of them!) mill around.  Seems that the book 'Eat, pray, love' about 2-3 years ago, and Oprah's big push on that book - - has changed this city for the worse.  Everyone's trying to find 'love' and their salvation guru here.  So sad to see what western phenoms can do... and too bad that the author is not more like Sir Edmund Hillary - leveraging her riches from the book, helping undo the damages her success has caused, not just in Ubud, but to all the upstream farmers who are running out of water.

The Bali countryside, is a picture right out of the wild west of China or Thailand.  It is beautiful and sad at the same time.  Beautiful for all the terraced rice fields... sad because they burn all their plastic bottles in open fires that children breathe... instant cancer! I've heard that it costs too much money to put plastic into the landfill. There's not really a Reduce, Reuse, Recycle culture here...it's more like where the USA was 50 years ago... 'somebody will clean up after me'.

Ok - enough on the bad news.  The good news, is that I am staying at the project job site, which is about 2 hours from Ubud.  I've finally found a little corner of Bali heaven.  Yesterday, I was at a small local village's  annual temple birthday ceremony/blessing the rice harvest/ full moon... event on the job site, and was able to participate in the ceremony.    I had only seen this in Hollywood movies before... people screaming, in trances, sacrificing an animal, and the coolest music and dancing.  ~4 hours I sat there doing what everyone around me was doing.

The project is another lesson in reality.  Working within Balinese culture is teaching me a lot about how to approach 'different' projects, and it is a BIG eye opener on how cheap, state subsidized power + gas can totally keep the renewable industry 'in the dark'.  Oh how I yearn for the 'sane-ness' of western politics and economics.

I am staying in the guest house of a compound of an American author, and enjoying incredible sunrises with blue skies and fog covered mountains and rolling rice fields.  Seems like I've traded mosquitos for house flies here. I enjoy most: getting up and walking barefoot through the rice fields to the job site, talking with the local workers.


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If you'd like to read more about Bali's underside: here's more details from a Reuter's article. I would imagine that Hawaii went through this a while back.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters Life!) - Construction cranes on beaches, damaged coral, and floating trash in the turquoise waters off Bali are an unfortunate sign of just how successful the Indonesian resort island has been in attracting tourists.

Foreign visitors have been drawn to the unique Hindu culture, art and volcanic landscapes of Bali since the 19th century, but in recent years growing wealth in Asia has spurred new hordes of tourists from around the region.

The island has also used its charm to become a top venue for international conferences and events involving thousands more people, many of which take place in the Nusa Dua resort complex, south of the airport, where international hotel chains such as Westin and Marriott have taken root.

The flood of cash from these conferences, during which room prices surge due to tight demand, is prompting the bulldozing of hills for more resorts in an island that some people already think is far too crowded, with little or no thought given to the limits of the environment.

'What is happening in Bali now is over-exploitation of the tourism industry. A policy of selling it cheap, and exploiting it to the last bit,' said Wayan Suardana, the head of local green group Walhi in Bali.

Suardana said old resorts should be renovated and that attention needs to be paid to a host of problems born from the surging success that include a scarcity of electricity and clean water, mounting trash, and traffic jams.

But instead, the local government has given the go-ahead to build a 200-hectare resort to host the 2013 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Jimbaran, a hilly area overlooking a beautiful bay, threatening farmers' livelihood, Suardana said.

In the Nusa Dua area, the small, winding road is misted by dust from construction on developments in at least three adjacent areas and streams of trucks carrying rocks and cement.

Wayan Solo, the administrative head of Benoa—where Nusa Dua is located—said two resorts and a villa complex are being built just south of Nusa Dua, with completion set for next year.

TOURISM'S MIDAS TOUCH

Mass-market tourism, which arrived in Bali several decades ago, proved invaluable for the tiny, densely populated island, half the size of Jamaica but with a population of 3.5 million.

With not enough fertile land to go around, tourism provided jobs in hotels, services, manufacturing of things such as souvenirs and furniture, and construction.

Despite some downturns during the political turmoil of the late 1990s and after incidents such as 9/11 attacks in the United States, the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, and the 2008 financial crisis, tourism is rebounding more strongly than ever.

Some 2.4 million people flew in to Bali in 2009, nearly double the 2005 figure. According to government statistics, the number of arrivals at Bali's airport for the first half of this year is up 10 percent compared to the same period last year.

With its magnificent aquamarine water, white sand beaches, majestic cliffs, and numerous hotels, arid southern Bali has been Indonesia's main tourist magnet for decades.

But the hundreds of hotels have absorbed water in the small island of 3.5 million residents, said Suardana, leaving farmers in the northern part of Bali, which has working plantations of crops such as rice and coffee, chronically short of water.

Still more land is taken out of agricultural commission all the time. Bali's Environmental Agency said 700 hectares of land is converted yearly for hotels, roads and housing, some of it villas for foreigners and wealthy Indonesians.

In addition, the hotels produce growing mountains of trash. Some 13,000 cubic metres of trash arriving at processing plants across Bali per day, but only half is being processed, said Alit Sastrawan, head of the agency.

Lack of monitoring has also meant that trash from big hotels may be dumped on just any available empty land, said Made Suarnata, the head of the Wisnu Foundation, which campaigns for community-based waste recycling.

Perhaps even more serious is damage to one of the island's biggest draws, its pristine waters.

Decades of development in southern Bali have contributed to coral bleaching and beach erosion, adding to damage from an El Nino weather pattern in the late 1990s.

'What used to be a huge reef in Sanur, the natural barrier of Bali, was covered by sedimentation, the result of massive development and reclamation in southern Bali, bleaching and eventually killing the coral,' said Ketut Sarjana Putra, a scientist at Bali-based Conservation International Indonesia.

While Sanur's reef is beyond hope, coral is recovering in northwestern Pemuteran and the neighbouring island of Nusa Penida. But something has still been lost, with long-term divers saying fish numbers are sharply lower.

Thinking of the environmental degradation, Suarnata recalled an old Balinese saying, 'Merta matemahang Wishya'—'a blessing that is not managed well can turn to danger.'

He added: 'The tourism industry has given us good benefits, but if we aren't serious about managing it, with trash piling up across the island and inviting disease, who would want to come?'