Decentralised Energy Canada turns 20 – Interview with founder Anouk Kendall

Source: David Dodge | · GREEN ENERGY FUTURES · | January 3, 2024

I first met Anouk Kendall back in 2011 when she worked for the World Alliance for Decentralised Energy originally formed in 1997 in response to UNFCCC meets in Kyoto.

We were on the roof of EECOL Electric in Calgary, looking at their 47.2-kilowatt solar system and talking about the virtues of decentralised energy.

Kendall has been around the renewable energy industry for decades and helped found Decentralised Energy Canada 20 years ago.

Back in 2011, she told us: “There is no other industry that has stagnated for as long as the energy industry. We’re still looking at 50-year-old powerplants, coal-fired facilities, that are connected to 80-year-old powerlines that are located 200 plus kilometres away from the user,” she told Green Energy Futures.

My how things have changed. The coal plants are gone, renewable energy is booming and the companies she works with are busy building a much more decentralised grid of the future.

Small is beautiful and efficient

Decentralised energy is often referred to as on-site generation and or energy storage performed by small, grid-connected devices located close to the point of consumption.

Solar is the classic example: “That is the epitome of a decentralised energy system. So, you put it in your house, you can have solar panels, you can have an energy storage wall in your house, you can have electric vehicles charging within. It’s a whole little system,” says Kendall today. In other words, your electricity, heating, and cooling all come from on-site sources.

Today we are living with the hang-over of a massive, centralised energy system as charges for distribution, transmission and other administrative charges can comprise more than 50% of your bill.