Energy Should Be Free

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

energy

should be free and by energy i mean the

energy we use

to heat our house cook our food

and power our cars

technically energy is free already

isn’t it or you need in some way to

capture it

like a solar panel or a window mill or a

water turbine

but then you need some way to store it

because when you capture it might not be

when you want to use it

but technically that’s already free as

well

you could use unwanted car batteries

a large body of water like a lake or a

water tank

or even a large thermal mess to store

heat

now when i say energy should be free i

don’t necessarily mean for everyone

but for those who really need it those

who are struggling right now

by not being able to afford to pay for

energy to meet their basic living needs

for many people they can’t afford to pay

for energy

it’s not a big part of their budget but

for some people

it’s not like that some people can’t

afford to pay for energy to

heat their house cook safely

or provide life after dark

for these people not being able to

afford to pay for energy

will affect their opportunities in life

for these people energy being free

would change their lives

so why when we already have options for

free energy

do we still have people experiencing

energy hardship

where they’re unable to pay for energy

to meet their basic living needs

this seems a little bit odd a little bit

counterintuitive

i believe we can make energy free for

those who really need it

and use this to reduce energy hardship

and there’s three key things that we

need to do to make this happen

first we need to involve those very

people who would benefit the most from

free energy

when coming up with energy solutions we

need their perspective

second we need to look at this problem

from both a social

and a technical perspective

and third we could open source the free

energy solutions that work

so people around the world could benefit

so i’ll talk about each of those ideas

but first i want to explain what

motivates me

to talk about this topic so i worked

with teams of electrical engineers

at the local power lines company unison

and while unison’s a very

forward-thinking company these ideas i’m

talking about are not necessarily the

views of unison

but i do feel very privileged to have

been part of some very robust

discussions with some very smart people

both at my company and others about what

the energy systems of the future will

look like

and more importantly what our society

needs from their wider energy landscape

now it’s clear to many people that are

on the cusp of some major changes

in the way we generate store

and use energy what got me interested in

working in the electricity industry

with the exciting new technologies

things like electric vehicles

solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells

these things really interest me and

these are the things that i felt would

change the world for the better

but what i’ve come to realize is that

these aren’t the really important energy

problems that we need to solve

the really important problem we need to

solve is energy hardship

energy hardship is where a house or

family

can’t afford to heat their home to make

it healthy and safe

and in some more extreme cases it

prevents people providing light after

dark

or cooking safely an energy hardship is

particularly concerning

as it leads to health issues things like

increased asthma rates for children and

increased winter death for the elderly

in new zealand over a hundred thousand

households

can’t afford to adequately heat their

homes

and that’s according to the electricity

pricing review conducted by the new

zealand government last year

worryingly children live in many of

these homes

the result is unhealthy living

conditions that disproportionately

affect children

this will affect these children’s health

their education

and their employment opportunities in

life

according to the international energy

agency over a billion people

don’t have access to any electricity and

many who do

can’t afford to use it they also

estimate

around 3 million people die prematurely

every year

from smoky environments caused by

cooking with

solid fuels like wood and coal

and women and children suffer the worst

effects of that

and this is despite new energy

technologies emerging every year

and some existing ones like solar panels

and batteries having significantly

decreasing cost over the last decade

so where is the disconnect why can’t we

as a society harness these technological

improvements

to solve energy hardship

and the irony of the situation is that

some of the exciting new technologies

actually end up making electricity

cheaper for the rich

and more expensive for the poor and this

is because

most of the costs associated with

supplying electricity are fixed

and don’t change based on how much

electricity you use

the network and infrastructure required

to bring electricity to your home

doesn’t change based on how much you use

and therefore

those who can afford to install solar

panels can reduce their contribution to

those fixed network costs

leaving it for those who can’t afford

solar panels to pay for

i believe the underlying reason why

these promising new technologies

aren’t helping to address energy

hardship

simply comes down to perspective

we all have our own world view our way

of looking at the world

our values and beliefs and that’s why i

think the first thing we need to do

to tackle energy hardship is to involve

those people who would benefit the most

from free energy when we’re coming up

with energy solutions

there’s a saying that you need to walk a

mile in someone’s shoes to really

understand what they’re going through

and i believe that applies to this

problem of energy hardship

if we’re going to make energy free for

those who really need it

we need the perspective of those who

need it most

but i’d also argue with a little bit

more than that we need to take a wider

view

of the problem we need to look at it

from both the social

and the technical perspective so if we

look at energy hardship as a

socio-technical system

we can see on the one hand we’ve got the

promising new technologies

and on the other the needs and

perspectives that people bring to the

problem

there’s this potential synergy between

the technology and people’s needs

but only if we can combine those

technical capabilities

with the needs and perspectives of

people who understand and have

experienced energy hardship

and this is because our perspective is

laden with assumptions

many of which we’re completely unaware

of

and that makes it hard for us to

understand how people different to us

live their lives and what’s important to

them

if we have people coming up with energy

solutions whose values

and assumptions are different to those

experiencing energy hardship

then those energy solutions aren’t going

to solve that problem

for example in new zealand we know that

many of the

families experiencing energy hardship

are mary and pacifica families

so these are the cultural values that

will matter if we’re going to address

energy hardship we also know that many

of the homes

where there is energy hardship include a

solo mother bringing up a family

so it’s her perspective it will matter

if we want solutions that will work

so to tackle this problem of energy

hardship we need the engineers and the

business leaders

but we also need these other views

and when you get people working together

from different backgrounds

something very interesting happens they

don’t just bring a better understanding

of what people really need

groups that are diverse are actually

much better at solving complex problems

they’re better at coming up with a wider

range of ideas

sort of thinking outside the box

i’ve seen in my own research where i’ve

seen firsthand how teams that are

diverse

really are better at solving real world

problems

the team that i was looking at were

using technology to

innovate and solve complex problems and

where there was diversity in the teams

they were better able to come up with a

wider range of ideas

sift out the bad ones as well as having

a better understanding of what outcomes

were needed to be successful

and that brings me to my third point if

we’re going to help people experiencing

energy hardship on a larger scale

globally we need to open source the free

energy solutions that work

so open sourcing is about making

knowledge freely available to people

to use and enhance and the idea

originally comes from the software

development industry but it’s been used

really effectively in other domains

things like sharing creating clothing

patterns to share

so they can be used for free and

creating designs for people to use for

3d printing but for free

so if we’re going to solve this problem

on this larger scale we need a way of

freely sharing knowledge about these

free energy solutions

you need a way of connecting up some of

the great energy projects that are

happening in communities around the

world

but in isolated pockets

so for example here in hawke’s bay

there’s a um

a great project to build a solar farm to

power 400 low-income households

power to the people is a charitable

organization which is building the solar

farm and flaxmir

the solar panels still have to pay their

own way but it’s about giving the

profits back to the people

in the form of cheaper power the group

says

it’s really about tackling health issues

which flows onto school attendance

and employment opportunities the local

community worker says there’s many

examples of families that are unable

to pay their bills and these solar

panels could be part of the solution

depending on the cost and looking a bit

further afield

another great energy project is the blue

skin energy network

and this is a solar sharing venture set

up by a community in the southern part

of new zealand

and this works in collaboration with a

peer-to-peer trading platform

from a company called emh trade that

allows people to buy and sell power from

each other

so in this project 60 households have

joined together

and they can sell solar power solar

power they generate to others in their

community

in the same way they might sell produce

to others in the community

and looking further afield this time

globally another great example of a

community energy project

is in bangladesh so in bangladesh i

think there’s around 29 million

households and about

17 million can’t connect to the

electricity grid

the company’s sole share set up this

solar sharing platform so

houses with a solar panel on their roof

can sell to others in their micro grid

and this has created a new business

model that um covers areas where there’s

mobile coverage but no electricity net

network

and it works by providing low-cost

energy services to the poor

but at the same time as improving the

energy services that they experience

so these community projects are great

but they’re not the whole solution

each project works well for the

community within which it operates

but it doesn’t help those experiencing

hardship in other communities

if we are going to help those

experiencing hardship in other

communities on that larger scale

we need a way of capturing what works

sharing it and then enhancing it

we need a way of organizing the energy

future it’s like a self-learning system

that breaks in this collaboration and

learning

and this sort of approach has been

called a cybernetic system

so a cybernetic system is one that uses

feedback to continuously improve

so using this approach we could

continually improve the free energy

solutions

from feedback so the overall energy

model becomes more effective

and every now and again there’s

breakthrough ideas or

a new technology emerges on the energy

landscape and that allows

a step change in the energy for engineer

solutions which allows a new energy

model to emerge

which is then continuously improved

until the next big breakthrough occurs

and finally a cybernetic energy system

would need

a central hub a centralized knowledge

repository

open sourced and shared for free

like a knowledge network built on the

principles of free exchange

and including diversity by incorporating

ideas from different communities

now every community is different the the

values

and the needs of the people involved

differ

but the ideas from one project can

always be applied to other communities

to other projects

and that’s the value of diversity ideas

from different

sources and perspectives brought

together to produce an optimal solution

so just to wrap up i’d like to just

leave you with one last idea

and that is that energy can be compared

to water

so with water you have tap water which

is free

or almost free

or you can have bottled water always

available when you want it

you can install a water filter at your

home for pure water

without any of those unwanted chemicals

like a guaranteed level of quality

well likewise for energy free energy

can be made available to those who

really need it

but for people who want a guaranteed

level of quality and availability

they can pay for it free energy is

already typically possible the

opportunity that we have is to use that

to help those who need it most

thank you

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you