As energy becomes increasingly generated from renewable sources, fluctuations of weather, solar radiation and wind becomes of infrastructural importance. Could we visualise the ways they change across minutes, hours, days and decade at the same time?
The Erractic calendar is an interactive interface prototype developed as part of the Heat Island Research Residency 2020 to explore this question, produced in close collaboration with Zoe Panayi.
Currently, the intermittency of a weather-based renewable energy supply is one the biggest challenges of a green energy transition. This is a beta version of a tool to explore weather-dependent energy data with respect to cyclical axis of time.
The calendar maps the shape of UK energy supply and demand across the day (central circle), year (middle circle) and century (outer circle). Its shows how behaviour patterns shape energy demand across time, and the times when there is a gap between current energy demand and a renewable energy supply. The gaps suggest a set of technological and behavioural shifts which would align with a renewable energy supply and move us towards a renewable grid.
The more closely we are able to make our energy demands match a weather-dependent energy supply (expressed here by the solar irradiance and wind speed), the more renewable energy sources will become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. This is called demand response and alongside storage and interconnection is one of the key tools for making a renewable grid possible.
Read more about the research here:
https://residency2020.heat-island.com/an-erratic-calendar#intro
Heat Island Research Residency 2020
An Erratic Calendar: Time Design and The Rewewable Transition
