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ETIPP Workshop

Course of Action Summary

Deer Isle/Stonington ETIPP Team

September 2024

Partnership Project

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PROGRAMS | GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE WATER POWER TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | WIND ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

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ENERGY TRANSITIONS INITIATIVE

PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PROGRAMS | GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE WATER POWER TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | WIND ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

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Course of Action Recap: Caveats

  • Some courses of action are already being implemented
  • No one course of action will totally solve the (reliability) problem for everyone
  • The listed courses of action are not mutually exclusive
  • Every course of action comes with its tradeoffs (cost is often a big one) – Pick your poison

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ENERGY TRANSITIONS INITIATIVE

PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PROGRAMS | GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE WATER POWER TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | WIND ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

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Course of Action Recap

Course of Action

Advantages

Disadvantages/Limitations

Vegetation Management

-- Ongoing

  • Mitigates the cause of most outages (falling trees)
  • Never ends (like mowing the lawn)

Retrofit distribution lines with covered conductors

Mitigates the cause of most outages (falling trees)

  • Limited budget, which is for Versant’s entire service area

Individual behind the meter (BTM) systems

  • Something an individual building owner can decide to do (or not)
  • Good choice for someone at the far end of a spur line
  • Expensive to do on a broad scale

Community-scale battery

  • Provides multiple benefits/services to the distribution grid
  • No fuel required
  • High capital cost (but grants are potentially available)
  • Can’t cover longer interruptions

Community-scale generator

  • Can cover longer interruptions
  • High capital cost
  • Fuel supply/resupply
  • Air quality/greenhouse gas emissions

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ENERGY TRANSITIONS INITIATIVE

PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PROGRAMS | GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE WATER POWER TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | WIND ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

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Thank You

This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding provided by U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Office, Energy Transitions Initiative, Geothermal Technologies Office, Solar Energy Technologies Office, Vehicle Technologies Office, Water Power Technologies Office, and Wind Energy Technologies Office. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

ENERGY TRANSITIONS INITIATIVE

PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PROGRAMS | GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE WATER POWER TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | WIND ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

4

ENERGY TRANSITIONS INITIATIVE

PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC PROGRAMS | GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE WATER POWER TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE | WIND ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE