Emergency Power For All Disasters
Abstract
Anytime and anywhere, a man-made or natural disaster can happen. The impact can be as minor as a lightning strike temporarily knocking out power or as major as a hurricane affecting thousands of people, damaging homes, businesses and civic infrastructure. Electrical utilities can be damaged or destroyed, leaving people without power for water, sanitation, medical services, refrigeration and communications. In 1989, following Hurricane Hugo, portable solar-powered consumer items such as lamps, chargers and radios were first used in response to a disaster. At that time, there were a few solar-powered homes and business and passive natural energy buildings. These homes and businesses had solar electric systems which included batteries for storage and were connected to the utility grid. When disaster struck and utility power was out, these buildings generated their own electricity. Since then, the use of photovoltaic with or without storage has become more common and is moving towards becoming mainstream in various configurations. Also, growing is the application of zero-energy building design with energy efficient appliances and passive energy design. These buildings, powered by the sun, can achieve real resilience and sustainability. Distributed generation of passive and renewable energy balances generation with conservation in a holistic design approach. With the introduction of enhanced building codes and fortified structural designs, plus the implementation of sustainable renewable energy, it is now possible to minimize the impact of disasters and climate change.
Keywords
: disaster, Emergency, Outage, Power, Photovoltaic, Electricity, Solar, Resilience, Sustainability.