I’m still evaluating climate and weather issues around Alaska, but I’m going pass on that topic this week and return to energy and electrical power systems in Alaska.
Specifically I will discuss difficulties for our transition from hydrocarbon fuels to variable energy sources, in particular those that utilize inverters to connect to the grid. The topics are technically complex, to be sure, so I will not delve into the technical details but only address the type of issues I have been made aware of.
Thinking about the total quantity of inverter-based resources that are being added to grids around the country and being planned around Alaska Railbelt, makes me shudder at the increased risk of failure of the grid when we must trust all the semiconductor components that will be present in those inverter-based resources I’m not referring to the control and communications components but the power semiconductors used in all the inverters that will have high currents and high voltages, with risk of hot spots and eventual failure from heat effects.