Friday 2 March 2018

Thomas Fire spurs sustainable recovery

The largest wildfire in California history had case closed on the 28th of February.  The final statistics of the Santa Barbara County fire show:

Acres Burned - Containment:281,893 acres - 100% contained *** CAL FIRE is no longer in Unified Command of the Thomas Fire. Visit inciweb for more information on this incident.
Structures Destroyed:1,063 Structures Destroyed, 280 Structures Damaged

Already, the rebuilding is beginning, even though some are questioning if that's wise and new mudslides threaten.



But one vineyard is doing something different. They are applying everything they learned during the fires to expand and install sustainable and safe energy systems. Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards & Winery, in the Mayacamas Mountains of Sonoma, won an award in January, not for its wines, but for its environmental and economic leadership. The 16-acre property was recently in the news for its microgrid system that held up with remote management during the devastating fires in Northern California. The staff was sent off and managed the entire winery and grid from positions of safety.



They are now expanding into a remote area perfect for growing grapes but without utilities. To bring them in would be astronomically expensive, so they are going completely off the grid, applying what they learned from the original site during the fire emergency. They will have no back up if something goes wrong. Gutsy! The new Silver Cloud Vineyard is planted with three varieties.

Stone Edge Farm applies new technologies to conserve resources. The farm is divided into watering zones that receive information from a weather station on the property. A smartphone remotely controls 150 irrigation valves and 25,000 emitters. Metering and monitoring have reduced their water usage by half. A fiber-optic network monitors each electrical circuit in their microgrid setup. Electrical power is provided by a combination of photovoltaic arrays, a fuel cell, and, soon, a microturbine. Very exciting. I'll be following them for certain.

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