A Power Grid Smartens Up

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• 	I want one of these meters on my home Sjobeck on 03/20/2008 at 1:11 AM
  Posts: 16 Avg Rating:	Great idea. Hope it works. I'd like one of these meters, if youre reading PGE, you know where to contact me. Thanks. Cheers. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Some work regarding consumer responsiveness has been done already Siphon on 03/20/2008 at 12:38 PM

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  In Japan and some other countries as well. The results were significant but way too modest to considerably mitigate the need for storage/backup. More interesting work was going on in the Netherlands, where large cooled storehouses were incorporated into the grid so they could act as as 'batteries'. That is, supercooling during high demand and shutting down mostly during low demand. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Charging Plug-in Hybrids jadamone on 03/20/2008 at 4:09 PM

  Posts: 1

  Your charging station could be programmed to request power when power is available without overloading the transmission grid or when off peak rates are in effect. This would enable the computers controlling the Power Grid to prevent blackouts and or charge your vehicle only when the price is right. Obviously meter readers would be unnecessary and the system could be instantaneously remotely adjusted limiting the potential for cascading blackouts.      Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • Re: Charging Plug-in Hybrids TobyConsidine on 03/21/2008 at 5:30 AM

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    Distributed security tokens become an interesting part of such cars. To take maximum advantage of the "crevices" in demand to charge my car, I will want to keep it plugged in much of the time. This may include plugging it in at your hosue when I come to dinner. You will want the cost, however to come to me. It is interesting to wonder if you will be able to throttle the requests of my car, or choose to allow it to use your houses stored energy, etc. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • 	Re: Charging Plug-in Hybrids javs on 03/22/2008 at 9:05 AM
    Posts: 52 Avg Rating:	Just like the financial system, a power system is subject to systemic risks. The shift from today's situation to that of near real-time control of the systemic risk of physical system failure has been oversold. There is a need for both long run and short run systemic risk of the whole system that needs to be taken into account. Read below about EWPC to get the message. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Regulated Energy Marketplace javs on 03/20/2008 at 6:57 PM

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  Xcel is in the process of implementing the regulated energy marketplace envisioned by the late MIT professor Fred C. Schweppe and his research team. On page 111 of their book, “Spot Pricing of Electricity,” Schweppe et al introduced, “A Possible Future: Deregulation,” by stating “This chapter shows how the establishment of a spot price based energy marketplace in a regulated environment (which we do advocate) can evolve into a deregulated system. The reader may be surprised to learn that the trip from regulation to deregulation need not be very long (although it may be bumpy).” ------------------------------------------- It is very important to highlight the statement “the trip from regulation to deregulation need not be very long.” What the authors meant by regulation is the regulation corresponding spot price based regulated energy marketplace (SPBREM). The trip from old regulation to the SPBREM has taken 20 years, because the deregulation experiment bypassed its development. ------------------------------------ In the meantime, the need for the two stages is no longer necessary. In the past two years and a quarter of a year, a breakthrough - the Electricity Without Price Controls (EWPC) market architecture and design – has emerged. To get introduced to EWPC, please read my comments under the TR Editor blog post Slashing Energy Use by Kevin Bullis. -------------------------------- There are more than 100 EWPC articles so far, in the EWPC Blog. From that blog, I also suggest the EWPC articles The Smart Grid Transportation Utility, High Leverage Shake-Up in California and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly II. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• This opens up more than one market TobyConsidine on 03/21/2008 at 5:26 AM

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  This is solid work, and even more important because it has long been “known” that consumer-controlled demand shaping didn’t work in the home. This has led to centralized control approaches that were both unpopular with the consumer and didn’t work that well. What is more exciting is how this creates opportunities for other technology. The markets for energy management and storage have been limited to the energy utilities. These companies are interested in shaving peaks, but are not really interested in creating new markets that do not include them. One the end nodes are in control of their energy use, then the home and office buildings are the market for energy storage and conversion. Local energy storage and conversion is at the heart of the zero net energy initiatives. Local energy storage and conversion is what enables the Galvin Perfect Power vision. Site-based variance in conditions demands a variety of technologies for local generation and conversion. Site-based autonomy opens up the markets that makers of new technologies will sell to. To control these diverse sources of energy, to scale up the installations to a size sufficient really shape energy demand, we will need to shed the deep control that power companies have used in the past. Whirlpool, for example, has recognized that a washing machine must not respond the grid signals if it contains a load full of bleach. We will see a gradual movement from control-based systems to agent-based systems. These intelligent two-way communicating thermostats are the harbingers of building agents that will choreograph the system agents within the home and office. These agents will represent the owner’s wishes in negotiations with the power grid. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • Re: This opens up more than one market javs on 03/21/2008 at 6:54 PM

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    The summary of the EWPC article Missing From Gridwise is: "Missing from the GridWise approach is the need to restructure as soon as possible the power industry to eliminate the barriers imposed by "the lumbering old style utilities companies" and to manage the physical systemic risks of power system failure. The EWPC market architecture and design should be the End-State of the power industry for quite some time to enable the mentioned approach."----------------------------------------- I am asking readers about introducing competitive retailers that replace the regulated retailers (the utility enterprise). In that sense, I repeat an ongoing discussion with Bob Amorosi under the EnergyPulse article A Fresh Approach to Managing Peak Demand, where I wrote the following:----------------------------------------- [Bob] wrote “The consumer should therefore have and will demand a huge say in how the money should be spent on in-home technology and services. This is completely opposed however to the normal business practices of utility companies because they are normally free to dictate which partners in-home products and services will be provided to consumers…” and I agree with [him]. ----------------------------------------- In the EWPC article PCT One of Many Business Model Innovations , I quoted that “Bowing to public pressure, the California Energy Commission has removed its proposed mandate for utility-controlled thermostats from its 2008 energy efficiency building code.” That is an example that the regulator can’t impose one single system to all customers. ----------------------------------------- Since the regulated utility enterprise is a monopoly, it is unable to satisfy individual customers whom have different perceptions and “have and will demand a huge say in how the money should be spent on in-home technology and services.” The solution for that is to replace the utility monopoly with alternate providers with their corresponding business model. That is what EWPC provides: a technology neutral market architecture and design. ----------------------------------------- I don’t understand [Bob] position. The “normal business practices of utility companies” – their business model - is to earn a return by winning rate cases to the regulator. Do you want to keep the utilities as a monopoly or do you want that they separate the utility grid from the utility enterprise, introducing competitive retailers that replace the utility enterprise? I need your response to this key issue before anything else. Rate this comment: (Reply)

    • 	Re: This opens up more than one market javs on 03/22/2008 at 8:11 PM
      Posts: 52 Avg Rating:	Bob Amorosi responded and I replied back. Go to the article "A Fresh Approach to Managing Peak Demand" for an update. The link is above. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • 	Re: This opens up more than one market javs on 03/27/2008 at 12:06 PM
    Posts: 52 Avg Rating:	The GridWise AC and EWPC are bound to be complementary components of the third industrial revolution power industry. For more details read the latest developments on the EWPC articles Missing From Gridwise and EWPC Leadership (w/o links), and under the EnergyPulse article A Fresh Approach to Managing Peak Demand. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• World's smartest? No way tjh on 03/21/2008 at 10:58 AM

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  The "world's smartest power grid"? I don't think so. Not even in North America. Ontario already has 800,000 smart meters installed, supported by two-way communications, and is scheduled to introduce time-of-use pricing this year. In Toronto alone there are 400,000 of these meters already installed. The program will be rolled out to the rest of the province by 2010. We've also got pilot projects underway that are testing remote energy management to the home through the Web and residential participation in demand-response programs. Testing of plug-in hybrids and how they can be put in an overnight charging queue on the grid is also being done in Toronto on a very small scale. I'd be careful with this view that if it's the first in the United States is must be the first in the world. Go to the next smart grid conference and you'll see that U.S. utilities are taking tips and learning from the experiences in Ontario, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this deployment. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • Re: World's smartest? No way javs on 03/21/2008 at 9:22 PM

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    Maybe the questions should change to: 1)Has Ontario the most cost effective power industry of the world. 2) Are the regulators making bets they are not prepare to make and that should be left the individual customers in an open market to decide? 3) Is the market architecture and design the best? 4) How much value destruction is in the making? Hint: read about EWPC above. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• neighbourhood generation takes advantage of a "smart grid" Cpt_Nemo on 03/22/2008 at 2:32 AM

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  A smart grid provides the feedback that creates an informed market that can price the costs of its options. A household can juggle its hierarcy of needs(washing clothes versus refrigeration) based on the current price of electricity - helping to reduce and stabilise the energy requirement. A neighbourhod could build a plumbing circuit that allows it to share solar-heated hotwater or receive a productivity gain from waste bodyheat, like the trainstation in Sweden. Adding stirling engines increases the benefits that can be derived from the resource. It might help to identify a neighbourhood that is using more than the "average" amount of energy and focus energy saving education and technology on that neighbourhood to fix the situation. Alternatively, discovering what methods are being utilised by a neighbourhood using considerably less than "average" energy could work to distribute the cost-effective designs to reduce energy consumption - capitalising on independent R&D efforts. My personal favourite is an idea that I call "Aeolian Hydro". This system would combine a vertical axis wind turbine with an archemedes screw to lift water into a holding tank and be released as required to power a microhydro facility. This would work on a neighbourhood level to convert intermittent wind into a reliable source of power to aid in flattening out spikes in energy demand. Some neighbourhoods might decide to use it to finance neighbourhood maintenance programs by releasing the excess power back into the grid when the price signals are favourable(when there is a dearth of energy available compared to what is required). A utility may decide to purchase and refit a sewerage works to produce methane from the communities waste for fueling LNG powered hybrid airships. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • 	Re: neighbourhood generation takes advantage of a "smart grid" javs on 03/22/2008 at 8:50 AM
    Posts: 52 Avg Rating:	Those are all great potential solutions on the development of the resources on the demand side. The problem is that the power industry market architecture and design is biased towards the development of the resources of the supply side. To level the playing field, new legislation is needed to enable the development of the resources of the demand side. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Smart Cards + Smart Appliances gprao on 03/31/2008 at 12:58 AM

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  It takes more than smart cards to smarten up a power grid. Power appliances - plug-in electric cars, refrigerators, heating/air conditioning units and washing machines need devices that communicate on one hand with the power supplier and on the other with customers. Each appliance should have a screen that displays the rate schedule for various hours of the day, and another screen that permits the user to program his or her preferences regarding equipment use (I want the apartment heated at 6 pm on return from work). The device should have an 'auto' mode and a 'manual override' mode. The auto mode would have the algorithm necessary to rejuggle schedules to minimize cost of operation. It could also display information on estimated monthly cost of operation under the two modes. Consumers are more likely to engage in convenience-cost trade-offs when they are fully informed of 'time of day' prices and are equipped to take advantage of the same. The situation gets more complicated when the power supplied is sourced from utilities with varying environmental performance, and those costs are not reflected in the rate schedule (or is reflected in some but not all producers or when such information varies from state to state). Again, providing consumer that information (power betwen noon and 3pm is wind-based) could potentially change his behavior to the better of the environment. Rate this comment: (Reply)