Alternate Home Power In A Disaster Zone

 

Considering that power is still out for many of the those affected by
hurricane Katrina and will be for some time, I would be curious to hear
from the group what alternative power system they would recommend for
someone sitting in the middle of this still unfolding nightmare...for
the next time a hurricane visits.

Thanks for suggestions.

TMT

and FYI...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050912/ts_nm/utilities_katrina_outages_dc&printer=1;_ylt=AoLsrPAKh263uTiwl4Gl5htg.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Some 471,000 still lack power in US after Katrina Mon Sep 12,


Less than 471,000 electricity customers still lacked power 14 days
after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the U.S. Gulf Coast in Louisiana and
Mississippi, according to area utilities and the U.S. Department of
Energy.

About 384,000, or 35 percent, of the homes and businesses in Louisiana
remained without power, while Mississippi had about 86,000 customers
with no service.

Katrina initially left more than 4.5 million homes and businesses
without power when it struck early last week.

Entergy Corp., which restored power to all customers who can receive
power in Mississippi over the weekend, still has about 278,000
customers out in Louisiana, primarily in the heavily damaged parishes
in and around New Orleans.

Entergy is still not estimating how long it will likely take to restore
service to all customers in Louisiana.

Southern Co.'s Mississippi Power subsidiary restored power to all
customers able to receive power by the end of September 10, one day
ahead of its projection. The company has about 27,000 customers who are
unable to receive power.

POWER PLANTS

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized the restart of
Entergy's 1,089-megawatt Waterford nuclear power station in Louisiana
on Friday. Workers, however, are still performing maintenance unrelated
to the hurricane prior to restarting the plant.

The reactor shut as a precautionary measure on August 28 due to a
hurricane warning for St. Charles Parish about 30 miles west of New
Orleans where the plant is located.

Entergy has 17 generating units in the New Orleans area fueled by
natural gas and/or oil. The company said it has returned 10 of those
units to service. Despite the outages, the utility said generating
capacity is sufficient to meet demand.

Some of the biggest remaining outages include Entergy's 959 MW Michoud
station in Orleans Parish, Louisiana and Southern's 1,047 MW Jack
Watson coal-, natural gas- and oil-fired station in Harrison County,
Mississippi.

Entergy has not estimated when Michoud would return to service but
noted the floodwaters around the plant were receding making the plant
partially assessable.

Southern said the hurricane seriously damaged the Watson plant, which
will likely remain out of service for six weeks to three months.

One MW can power 800 homes, according to North American averages.

Entergy's subsidiaries own and operate about 30,000 megawatts of
generating capacity, market energy commodities and transmit and
distribute power to 2.6 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Texas.

Southern's subsidiaries own and operate more than 39,000 MW of
generating capacity and provide power to more than 4 million customers
in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

 

Too_Many_Tools wrote:

Wind, PV, and a diesel generator. The wind and PV will reduce their fuel
usage on the diesel.

--
Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html

 

Steve Spence wrote:

it's probably more practical to just mention the diesel generator, any
wind system probably would have been ripped out, and PV is so expensive
you would be better off buying two diesel generators, or just buying
extra diesel.

 

Mike McWilliams wrote:


I'm not so sure about the wind turbine.  My self-installed Air-X survived a
Category 2 hurricane, so a properly done professional one should be good
for _most_ hurricanes - obviously Katrina wasn't _most_ hurricanes, either.

I'd think the PV is a worse risk in a hurricane - they have beautiful
surfaces for catching a wind.  

On the whole, though, I agree.  Installing wind & PV _just_ for emergency
backup seems like a poor risk.  But you'd better have a few weeks diesel on
hand.
--
derek

 

They had lots of warning time. PV could be taken down and protected until
after the fact when the winds settle down . Dried off first , off course.


either.