Column: Electric grids should be adapted to climate change faster - The Herald-Times

Column: Electric grids should be adapted to climate change faster

Column: Energy providers are moving too slow to adapt to climate change

I suspect that many of you are as frustrated as I am with the state of our electric grid.

We should not all have to be considering purchasing generators or batteries. The smoke, severe weather and prolonged power outages we have experienced recently are linked to climate change. For years, we have been warned repeatedly to expect these events to increase in frequency and severity in the future. For our electric companies these events are also very predictable in frequency and severity, if not on a specific timeline.

It is very frustrating to me, our state, and those of us who are members of electric cooperatives that so little has been done to mitigate and adapt to these changes in our weather. Hardening our distribution and transmission grids is reasonable.

More in opinion: We need more information about Bloomington's air quality

Encouraging renewable energy, both utility scale and distributed on individual’s homes, would help with both mitigation and adaptation. If there is more distributed energy capability on the distribution grids, it will eventually decrease costs for everyone on the grid. Having power sources other than from the generation and transmission companies will allow the distribution grids to supply some energy when the transmission lines are down, making us more resilient.

When there are enough distributed energy sources, it will avoid the need to build new generation and transmission infrastructure, which we all pay for on our monthly bills. For some reason our legislators and utilities pay more attention to the fossil fuel companies than to science and common sense. They promote technologies that are not in commercial use yet and are years or decades away, such as modular nuclear and carbon capture and sequestration instead of proven technologies like wind and solar.

The fossil fuel companies promote solutions to climate change that are long in the future to maintain their profits while ignoring the expensive and harmful effects of their products.

If you purchase electricity from a cooperative, remember that you are a member OWNER. Make your wishes known to the company and individual board members. If able, run for a seat on the board of directors and amplify your voice. Remember, our cooperatives own Hoosier Energy, so they do have a voice in its operation. One board member from each member cooperative has a seat on Hoosier Energy’s board of directors.

If you purchase electricity from Duke Energy, let that company know your wishes. Contact your state legislators and our governor to make your wishes known.

The governor appoints people to the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission, which oversees the rates and the plans for future energy generation. They hear from the fossil fuel companies all the time. Make your voice heard so they have views from those of us who want change.

The sooner we all do a little to make changes, the more it encourages and rewards innovation and a more sensible approach to our electricity generation and utilization. If you are told that change cannot happen, check out Green Mountain Energy for an example of a forward-thinking, investor-owned utility and Holy Cross Energy for an example of a cooperative that champions renewable energy.

Change in our state’s and utilities’ energy system can happen if we all push for it.

Jim Koch is a resident of Unionville.