Post #4377455
2026-08-04 13:55 UTC
Replies (1)
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@jpaskaruk@growers.social 2026-08-04 14:28
@alessandro@cosocial.ca I actually read an explanation why we are not doing it in Manitoba, which satisfied me on that particular point: Lake Winnipeg. It's a natural battery, in that we can lower the gates of a whole bunch of dams spread across the province when we need more. It's pushed at the moment cause there hasn't been enough precipitation the last few years (hmmmmmm). Basically though, we have very good, very clean, very cheap hydroelectric power here (we even call it "Hydro" for short), with a lot of resilience, so investing a shitton of money into Utility battery deployments makes zero sense for our province. What that leads to, though, is that what makes sense here is a distributed battery grid, ie, batteries should be subsidized for every home and apartment unit, so that individuals can leverage Solar to the hilt. In turn, this would give us a whole bunch more grid power to use in things like the Datacentres that are coming whether we like it or not... though I am so fucking stoked about our Premier right now, he is doing quite a lot of things completely right, including nixing at least one megashit that was trying to get there. He did not go deep on details, he stuck to things like "Nah, better if that money goes into things that benefit humans here, rather than billionaires in silicon valley," but my guess is that a completely exploitative level of access to the local grid was a requirement of the "opportunity". Along with the ability to wreck the tap water with zero consequences.