AS countries navigate around competing demands for energy, rising gas and oil prices, security of supply and carbon emissions, one strategy seems to have been overlooked. A house turned into a power plant by fitting photovoltaic panels, a small wind turbine or a gas boiler that also generates electricity may seem trivial next to a giant hydroelectric dam. But looks can be deceiving. A recent UK government report estimates that such microgeneration could supply 25 per cent of the country鈥檚 electricity by 2050.
If you doubt the power of small-scale investment, think computer power. Thirty years ago computers were mainframes and home use was non-existent. Today there is vastly more computing power in people鈥檚 homes than in large installations.
Microgeneration is starting to take off, and government help could turn the trickle into a torrent. Building generators in their hundreds is costly, just as home computers were in 1980. Building them in hundreds of thousands is cheap. A rooftop wind turbine will pay for itself in 12 years. That鈥檚 too long for most home owners, but halve the payback time and investment becomes more attractive.
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In the UK, the government introduced subsidies power generators can apply for. But the process is too complex for most householders. The German model, which is to pay microgenerators over the odds for every kilowatt-hour they produce, is far more promising. The key is simplicity. Technology must be 鈥減lug and produce鈥�, with little paperwork. Distributed computing is now seen as the way forward: distributed power generation need not be far behind.
