IDEAS Insights Strengthening Energy Reliability | Page 7

Another added advantage of using micro-grids with battery storage is the ability of such a system to be both scalable and adaptable for different geographical regions. Countries situated along the Nile and Zambezi rivers are adapting micro-grids to hydroelectric power. [13] These “micro-hydroelectric dams” don’t need to be a large as conventional dams, reducing their potentially negative environmental and sociopolitical impacts. Micro-grid technology enables access to electricity in remote areas where connection to national grids is not possible. With developing countries rapidly urbanising, power demand is set to dramatically increase in the coming decades. This, coupled with increasingly extreme weather induced by climate change, presents a growing threat to electricity supply. We already see this threat manifesting most prominently in Bangladesh, a nation whose average affliction by cyclones is once every three years. [14] With 25% of its landmass annually inundated by floods, [15] the exposure of Bangladesh to climate-based risk is only forecasted to intensify as we see more frequent repeats of the 1978 floods, which covered almost 70% of its landmass. [16] As Bangladesh stands to lose up to an estimated 20% of its landmass from a one metre rise in sea levels, [17] the technologies discussed could help soften the worst consequences of such future flooding. Nations regularly facing devastation by such natural disasters and hindered by poor infrastructure disproportionately tend to be developing countries, for whom energy reliability presents a fundamental challenge. However, with the recent boom in battery and micro-grid technology, and further advancements and investment predicted, the solution may lie closer to what we find in our smartphones than in power stations. 7