Smarter Electric Grid Could Save Power

Wired has a timely story about putting more of the automated and non-automated decisions behind the use of electrical power into and around households. From the summary: "If the electric grid stops being just a passive supplier of juice, consumers could make choices about how and when to consume power. Power providers and tech companies are working to redesign the grid so you can switch off your house when high demand strains the system, or program your house or appliances to make that move." A similar story is featured right now on PhysOrg, highlighting a particular pilot project involving "smart meters" in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

Comments

Re:3rd world status?

[Eivind]

You get it wrong. This is not the same thing. It does not mean reducing comfort at all in most cases.

The problem is, transporting power costs MORE in peak-times (both due to resistive heating, and because extra use in peak times is what triggers the need for grid-updates), but people use power as if the price was constant.

My mother has a smart water-heater that adapts to actual load, and gets cheap power when the load is low. The practical result is she saves money, the power-company saves money, and the comfort is identical.

A normal water-heater may have a thermostat that turns on the heating when water-temperature drops to 60C, and turns it off when water-temperature reaches 70C.

My mothers heater instead normally heats the water to 75C, turning on the heater at 70C if loads are low (and power cheap) but turning on the heater at 55C if loads are high (and power expensive). (furthermore it pre-mixes cold water so that delivered water is always 55-60C, regardless of the temperature in the tank.

Where's the drawback ?

Same goes for a freezer. It wants to stay permanently -15C to -25C, but it make precisely NO difference at all to you if that is done by a dumb termostat that always turns on cooling at -18C and turns it off at -22C, or if it's done by a smarter termostat that cools to -25C on cheap power, but lets the temperature drift upwards to -18C when power is expensive. You food stays solidly frozen the entire time regardless. (infact the smart one will be better at keeping a stable temperature so you'll get less ice-crystals and HIGHER quality food-storage)