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Consumers May Find Smart Appliances a Dumb Idea
theodp writes "As GE readies appliances that communicate with smart meters in the hope of taking advantage of cheaper electricity rates, CNet asks a big question: Are consumers ready for the smart grid? Right now, most utilities only offer a flat rate, not time-of-use pricing, so the example of a drier that reacts to a 'price signal' about peak rates by keeping one's clothes wet until a more affordable time is pretty much a fantasy. And longer-term, a big question is whether consumers will want to deal with the hassle of optimizing household appliance energy usage themselves, or be willing to relinquish monitoring and control to utility companies — with a concomitant loss of privacy. After all, losing one's copy of 1984 is one thing — losing one's lights and refrigerator is another thing altogether."
As a single guy (rare for Slashdot, I know..) I don't use much energy at home during the day because surprise surprise I'm out at work. On the other hand, I'm sure there are many people who have families where one adult is home part of the day and probably takes care of cleaning, laundry, etc. during that time, probably watches TV and/or uses the computer, has kids to entertain, needs air conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter, etc. It doesn't seem like smart electronics are going to substantially change these behaviors. Great, the dryer wants to wait until off-peak to dry my clothes, but I have 3 loads of laundry to get done..
What may change things is something that we've discussed here several times: Electric cars that have the ability to return electricity to the grid during times of high demand. Hopefully this or other means of localized power storage will reduce the need for "peak" pricing in future. Hopefully devices will also consume less power in future. For example, if you're spending time online with your notebook you aren't drawing anywhere near the 100-200w you would if you were using a desktop system (my Eee 1000HE netbook draws 9-12 watts).
I would rather see us find ways to better match power availability to demand instead of a short-lived period of doing the inverse. Electric cars are a great way to do so because it's a natural leverage of developments in our lives that are already taking place with widespread support.
I was very close to someone who, in all intents and purposes, had a "smart" house. Practically every key component of the house, including lighting, air conditioning, and heating, was controlled by a computer running some Microsoft product. (I forgot the name of it, but it runs great!) Considering that most of the family was blind, this network made their lives a lot easier.
However, I can see the benefits of "smart" houses being useful for everyone. Massive living room speakerphone connected to Skype and POTS could come in handy. Morever, appliances now a days are already "smart" to some capacity when compared with their predecessors. We see this on timers in air conditioners and refridgerators as well as cooking thermometers on ovens and stove-tops, for instance.
Adjustment might take a while, but if it serves a good use, people will appreciate it. Remember, ultimate convenience is the goal!
...welcome our, um -- ah, screw it.
Smart appliances are a truly dumb idea. What things in your home consume the most power?
Tier 1
Refrigerator.
Stove/Oven/Microwave.
Heating/Cooling.
Dishwasher.
Dryer.
Tier 2
Lighting
Entertainment system.
Hair dryer etc.
Can you wait for off-peak power for any of those? Of those things, what can really be delayed?
The fridge? Not if you dont want you food to spoil.
Stove/Oven. Not if you want to have dinner.
Heating/Cooling. Not if you want to be in your house while you are awake.
Dishwasher. Yes. That one.
Dryer. Maybe, if you are okay with wet clothes sitting around (mold). Not if you have more than one load.
Lighting Not if you want to be in your house while you are awake.
Entertainment system. Not if you want to actually use it.
Hair dryer? No, that's not how it works.
So there was what? Just the dishwasher?
This whole idea sounds like some dumb-ass' PhD topic. Fascinating in theory, doesn't work in reality.
There was someone who thought Smart Appliances were a smart idea? They've only been talking about this for over a decade...it's just now people are figuring out it's a dumb idea? Why would anyone want to subject their appliances, of all things, to omething that's completely unnecessary, and will cost a lot of money to fix when it glitches, which it most likely will, like they did with their cars? I'm sure anyone who's had to pay for an expensive repair for a car problem, due to a computer problem, will never buy one of these appliances, that is until, like cars, they are the only models offered...
Just look at the troll stories he has posted before: http://www.google.com/search?q=theodp+writes+site%3Aslashdot.org
etc, I don't want it done via taking away rights and freedoms and forcing people to not use electronic devices until off-peak hours. I also don't want it done in a way, like cap and trade, that makes energy use so expensive that it costs jobs and forces poor people to go without electricity.
This "Smart Grid" has a way of spying on a home owners (or renters) privacy as well as shutting off devices so that they cannot use them until off-peak hours. Can you imagine your washing and drier being shut off, and you need to get three loads of clothes done, and you are forced to wear dirty clothes until the washer and drier can be turned back on. Not only that but sweating it out during the summer when the A/C is turned off by the grid and possibly dying of heat stroke and freezing to death in the winter when the heater is forced off until it turns back on during non-peak hours. I got a feeling there will be a lot of death by the smart grid lawsuits if this thing passes.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
My guess is no. They've almost certainly had lawyers, lobbyists, and campaign contributors focusing on the liability issue for a while.
We, the public, generally cannot afford such luxuries.
My house is on a peak/off-peak schedule, with the peak rate being based on highest demand during the peak hours, which are at specific hours of the day, with a set summer and a set winter (rest of the year) schedule. We have a demand control computer that limits the peak demand during on-peak hours. It monitors the rate of consumption, and it has direct control of the water heater, and X-10 control of the heating and air-conditioning to limit the peak amount used, but only during on-peak periods. We do our own time-based control of the rest of the appliances, like we don't do laundry or run the dishwasher during peak hours, etc. It doesn't require smart appliances.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
This "Smart Grid" has a way of spying on a home owners (or renters) privacy as well as shutting off devices so that they cannot use them until off-peak hours.
Exactly. I don't want the power company, or the government, controlling when and how I use appliances in my house. MY house, MY appliances. STAY OUT. Smart-meter my ass.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
I kind of like the idea of peak rates. But the idea of "smart" appliances talking to the power company over the Internet is just dumb.
If you publish a schedule of prices, and I can save money by modifying my behavior, I'll do it. With the appliances I have.
Example: Puget Sound Energy experimented with giving us peak rates, so we began doing laundry later in the evening. We used the delay timer on our dishwasher to make it start itself at about 4am. At no point did we wish we had Internet 3.0 appliances.
By the way, PSE found that most people disliked the peak rates program. The discounts for modifying your behavior were not generous enough to make it worth the hassle for most people. I live in the suburbs near Seattle, so we have relatively cheap (mostly hydro) power anyway.
So, for success, make up a simple table of rates vs. times; make sure the discounts for off-peak power are sufficient to adequately reward the people who modify their behavior; done. You can do this now, and no one needs new appliances.
P.S. I did actually RTFA, and there is a bit more to their ideas than just Internet 3.0 appliances. One actually good idea is to have an energy manager in your home, and be able to tell your home that you are going on vacation. Your hot water heater can chill down and take a break, and your air conditioner can work less hard (keep the house at 76 degrees F, say, instead of 70 (24 Celsius instead of 21). But I really don't need my dishwasher to talk to the power company.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I don't welcome greater government oversight in my private life but I do welcome a more refined two way grid because it may facilitate a "nano" economics and the necessary infrastructure. I just made up the term nano economics and may I rot in hell if it catches on as yet another catch phrase but the idea of individuals and small groups having the means necessary to incorporate into larger entities and supply small quantities of resources for exchange over a grid or in a larger project has many attractive features. Recently /. ran a story on music indies being under fire from large corporations trying to corner markets. A sort of nano economics could have positive benefits from small business startups to undermining unconscionable copyright laws. One of the things missing is a government interface such as might develop from managing power grids at the micro level and burgeoning into a nests set of systems that would allow for a broader array of nano economic possibilities. Some developing countries have experimented with micro banking wherein community members pool small sums of monies to help startups get going. I think a nano economic revolution is available via the current technology but will require the necessary government infrastructure and a shift in thinking and practise on the part of the public. Perhaps mature, industrial countries with the requisite resources and an educated working class could bootstrap such a micro revolution.
ideopath @ play
At first I thought it was an awesome idea. But the more I think about it it is a bad solution looking for a problem.
Why would I want to let some remote computer somewhere decide 'your house is too cool' and I need few extra mega watts that some other company is willing to pay more for. That is when it hit me the idea is really about 2 things. Not building better infrastructure and keep using the same that power companies have in place right now. As guess what its expensive to add more better lines and more better power plants. Then having the ability to shunt power to people who are willing to pay more.
They are trying to sell us on the idea that it will 'save us money' when in reality it is about optimizing the profit per KW. Then charge you for the ability to do it. It is an amazingly brilliant MBA's wet dream.
Maybe I am being conspiratorial today, but raise your hand if you could easily see it happening. Monopolies are always looking for ways to monetize the thing that wasnt before and create more sources of revenue then lock you into it.
The sales pitch is 'you can save power if you just know how much you use'. I can figure that already fairly easily. Not sure why I would drop 30k to do it. And do you REALLY REALLY REALLY trust the power company to do the right thing?
I bet power companies think it is an awesome idea. The people who buy power? Not so much. We just do not use power that way.
I think the biggest problem is that all these devices are advertised as smart first, appliances second. They focus so much on the benefits of being able to access the "smart grid" or whatever, they don't do enough to tell the consumer that the appliances are good in their own right. I think if they make quality appliances with these features, market them as quality that also has "smart capabilities," they would probably sell better.
I mean, sure, it's awesome that when my local power company rolls out peak and off-peak rates that my appliances can tell me when it's more expensive to use them, but I want them to be good appliances first. I want them to be efficient in the first place so I don't have to manage my usage by the hour. I already do enough to keep my appliance usage to a minimum to save money; I don't want to also manage when that minimum occurs.
Ahh, wonderful. They can use the methane during peak hours to generate additional electricity.
No one is talking about taking away your lights - this is the exact opposite. By having people spread out their electricity usage, you guarantee that there is enough capacity for everyone. The grid is big enough that everyone can use as much electricity as they want; the grid is small enough that we can't all use it at the same time. These "smart" appliances are a stab at an optimization problem.
Most of these appliances will have an override mode anyway, so its not that big a deal.
And consider this - you shower twice a day (hopefully). After every shower, the water heater kicks on and heats up enough water for your next shower plus a little extra to compensate for the fact that its going to sit their idle for 12 hours cooling off. A smart water heater learns when you use hot water and waits until just before you get in the shower to start heating water, significantly reducing the heat loss due to cooling.
Even better scenario: the smart dish washer and smart washing machine signal the smart hot water heater 30 minutes before they start so that they are guaranteed hot water.
As a guy who clearly remembers the "smart" cars, with computers doing more and more voluntary things I wish they wouldn't (ever try to be quite and polite, coming home at 3AM in a sleepy, crowded apartment complex? CLICK! CLACK! Lights on! Lights off! Wake the neigbors!) This is precisely as expected.
And can anyone point out the radio-thief that doesn't STEAL your radio, so much as listen to it without permission, so as to require the key in the ignition to be able to listen? I spent three years as a security guard (it's a small town...) it was so annoying. Try a factory-installed radio with a die-hard battery. It takes MONTHS to run that battery down, with constant use.
Back to the pseudo-brains in appliances- this is like another release of Windows:
1. New release- great things!
2. No one will buy this new version...everyone will wait.
3. New release! Great things, but many want to keep the old!
4. Repeat, except never defeat viruses nor mature the code.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
My mother in law had off-peak rates at the family home, and you couldn't get a damned shower unless you could shower at noon. Mornings and evenings were both out. You also couldn't wash the dishes after dinner (she didn't have a dishwasher). That led to all kinds of idiocies like warming up water for the dishes on the gas stove--a real savings!
Utility companies aren't out to conserve energy, and they're not out to help you save money on your bill. They're out to make money for their investors. If you want an example of utility monitoring, look no further than the elderly man in Michigan who froze to death in his home this past winter because there was some kind of governor on his electric meter. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/04/freezing.death.folo/index.html). And he had plenty of money to pay--he'd just lost his competency to handle his bills. "Smart" appliances are an open invitation for this sort of idiocy to increase.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Especially since you know there is going to be a "crackdown", the "War On Electricity", originally, there might have been 2 hours a day when you were restricted, then 3, then 4... then that, plus all of Sunday from 9am to 5pm, then section X of City Y. Forcing people into some form of extra tax on electricity because you can't avoid the "limited" hours. Giving more money to the electric companies, so they can what, reduce the electricity output even more?
Then you get some weird prohibition, people selling electrical equipment on some black market, devices to by-pass the restrictions, throw some people in jail, that'l teach them, require people to get some form of Electrical Consumption Identification, Enter Your ECI To Run Your Stove...
What? Slippery Slope? It's fucking hot out, and I can't use my air-conditioner, leave me alone!
At this point, yes, it is optional.
However, if it becomes widespread, it could potential turn into something that's NOT optional - and probably on a federal level. Take a look at car emissions/mileage standards... used to be a power of the states, but no longer... Yeah, I'm a libertarian (for the most part, I am a proponent of a strong national defense - note: not offense) and I want the government involved in my personal life as little as possible.
You can dismiss this as fear mongering or alarmism, but if you look through history, as soon as you give the government the tools and authority to do something (despite many claims of 'oh no that would never happen'), they generally do it. Usually under the guise of 'terrorism!' or 'economic collapse!' or 'think of the children!'
Why should the anybody else dictate when and where I can use my appliances, with electricity that I am paying for with my hard earned cash? (What portion of it I'm allowed to keep of it after the government takes its cut, that is) What if I am happy doing my laundry in three huge loads once a week? Or if I'm only home and awake for an hour a day, which is a peak hour?
I don't see why they keep pushing this stuff, when nuclear energy is a (relatively) clean alternative, and very safe. It's like nuclear energy is just being dismissed as dangerous and does not warrant further investigation - you'd think we're living in the fifties with nuclear mutant scares. (Well, maybe it'd have some credibility of being scary if The Happening had been a success)
Bleh.
I would fight tooth and nail to keep utility companies and the government out of my home so far as HOW I'm using the energy I use. Why? Because if it's 105F outside, it's MY decision whether I want the air conditioner on. If I get up in the morning and my clothes are still sopping wet and sitting in the dryer because someone else decided it wasn't convenient to use that energy just then, there'd be hell to pay (especially if I got in trouble with my employer for being late to work because of it!). I also sure as HELL don't need anyone sending me targeted advertisements based on some bullshit "analysis" of my energy usage patterns. Not anyone's business!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I'm all for cheaper electricity, but at least in my city, I don't have to pay for rates; the electric company sends them to me annually for free, printed on a piece of paper.
As far as I can see, this whole smart-grid concept is being sold as a money saving move when it's really about convincing the citizenry to freely accept rationing, even ask for it. The whole basis for the smart-grid is the notion that we cannot or more correctly, should not generate more electricity. If this is allowed to continue, we will all be forced to accept a lower standard of living.
Maybe they should look into wasting this money on home economics classes, smart people > smart appliances, and if you can't grasp the concepts you will be slightly poorer... so what? Who want's to schedule their lives around the power grid? I mean, if it's going to save you.... $10-$20 a month and that's a bank buster for you then sure schedule you're life around it, peak hours are posted, but for normal people who work for a living this isn't an option. What about computers? computers use alot of power, and I'm sure many people on this website have more then one, like I do, and that at least one of them is never turned off other then the odd restart, and with lots of fancy gadgets in them like two graphics cards, physX card, 4 hard drives, fans and the works probably looking at 300W on idle at least, making it essentially an appliance, probably consuming more power then a dryer that is used for 2 hours once a week (when looking at a one month period), so now an AI is in charge of when your computer is on based on usage?
Now the opposite side of the coin is how smart are these appliances going to be, will there be an override so that if I need this laundry done now, or I don't ever want to shut off my computer, I don't have to? Obviously the largest power hogs in a house are refrigerators, furnaces, water heaters, A/C. Things that for liability reasons can't be 'smart' because those all are things that are necessary to run at certain times that are going to almost always fall in a peak period (if it's cold EVERYONE will need heat creating a large strain on the grid, if it's morning a large amount of people will need hot water to shower, and so on)
Also just because as with anything 'green' is this actually going to reduce strain on the grid? Will it ultimately have a smaller environmental impact? Probably not in my opinion, things getting used at different times are still things getting used, if I drive my car 100miles and you drive your car 100miles does it hurt the environment less if we do it not at the same time? I doubt it. Not too mention the massive amount of power consumed by the large data storage and process/analysis facilities that will need to be created to make usage statistics so that someone from the power company knows when I'm doing laundry and how often so it can be a lighter side note on the evening news, altho it would be funny, "In other news, power companies are reporting that 4.6% of americans do their laundry at 3am, that certainly is interesting, back to you Tom."
This money is probably best spent researching lower power consumption appliances/electronics and greater efficiency power production, make more power and make things use less power is the only solution.
From the article:
For example, a person can allow the clothes dryer to go into "conservation" mode when the utility signals through the smart meter that peak prices are in effect.
Note the 'a person can allow' part.
The last link in the summary, regarding the student who was without power for two weeks has absolutely nothing to do with smart appliances or smart grids. Why is it even included? Perhaps an article detailing the rolling brownouts that some areas have had to deal with during times when demand is greater than supply would be more appropriate (and would be something that a smart grid could address in a better way).
Oh wait, a balanced story detailing the pros and cons of an issue is probably way too much to ask for.
Ubik, I think, was set in a world were even the doors were 'smart' so you had to pay a toll every time you went in and out of your apartment... unless, of course, you had a screwdriver handy. Somehow I doubt that any 'consumer' really wants to live in a world like that.
I get the impression that clothes dryers are mostly a U.S. institution. In most countries I've visited, everyone uses washing machines because they really save a lot of work compared to hand laundering. But after they wash the clothes they just hang them up to dry. That's what I do at home, not even on an outdoor clothesline, but just on a drying rack in my apartment. It takes a day or so, usually not a big deal. If I'm in a hurry for something to get dry, I can put it on the radiator for an hour, or even dry it with a clothes iron in a few minutes. The laundry room does have a (coin op) dryer and I occasionally have reason to use it, but not very often.
I wouldn't trust you either.
An insightful article coming from kdawson? The world is about end! RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!
That the "Smart Appliance/grid" proposals seem to be skipping the simple, obvious, and substantially less problematic option in favor of a complex mess of remote control crap.
Fact is, the farther from base load you go, the more the marginal unit of electricity costs. No getting around that, barring amazing advances in generation or storage technology. Because of that, there are clear efficiencies to be had if load that can be moved off-peak is moved off peak. Unfortunately, the "smart grid/appliance" setups that involve utilities remote controlling your stuff are invasive, complex, and downright paternalistic.
Far better would be a simple price signalling mechanism. The electricity company's meter would report, every period(could be simple "off peak"/"on peak" could be each hour, could be each minute, could be each second, doesn't matter in principle) the cost of a unit of electricity consumed during that period and the value of a unit of electricity sent back to the grid during that period. The reporting would be via a standardized protocol on a standardized header on the unit and/or over the powerline and/or a standard wireless mechanism(again, details aren't wildly important).
That reporting would be all. If I wished to adjust my usage to save money, I could purchase appliances capable of interpreting the standard electricity price information(either built in to the appliance, or in the form of a smart breaker box, that could turn on and off power to specific outlets). I could then program the device or devices to respond as I wished to price signals("AC: NEVER go above 80c, go to 68 if price is less than 10cents, go to 70 if price is between 10 and 15 cents" "Dishwasher: do not run if price is greater than 10 cents, unless override button is pressed").
This scheme would have three major virtues: First, it would avoid the invasiveness of having somebody else control your home systems. Second, it would allow each individual to set his own priorities on the value of various uses of electricity, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Third, it would allow unconstrained innovation/optimization by device manufacturers in what options to provide and how granular to be.
For instance, a computer could be set to manipulate its own ACPI settings according to the current price level, wifi devices could trade off between throughput, range, and power in response, AC could adjust target temperature, etc. Devices that store or generate electricity on site would know their own costs of operation, and only operate when economically viable. If a utility, for whatever reason, was facing capacity problems, they could simply raise the price of a unit sent back to the grid, to encourage local generators to start up.
Obviously, serious configuration of the details in each device would be substantially beyond the interests(and quite possibly the capacity) of a lot of people. For them, manufacturers could simply provide a suitably small set of sane default options(probably the same ones that a one-size-fits-all policy would apply across the board). For complex programmable devices like computers and game consoles, interested organizations could even distribute suggested settings packages over the internet.
I live in Central Florida and we had the "great" box in the garage that controlled A/C, Water-heater and Pool. For a ~$8 saving per month, the power company would send a signal over the wire to turn-off these items to save power on grid.
I had small children that were are home and temperature in house soared to 95+ for hours on end. The A/C cycle time was to at most 80 degrees. We were running the system for 4hrs or more at night to bring the temp back to ~75 degrees.
The pool was constantly green, causing more shock treatments and forcing us to run the filtering all night to catch up.
Finally, had to power company "cut" the connection. Lowered my power bill, 20% since the internal systems did not have catch up.
Also around that time, the power company was also cross connecting the meter with cable. The reason was to improve this control and let them read meter from afar. I had that removed when the power company would not warrant any damage that joining these isolated systems could cause since I was running multiple surge protectors. Lighting strikes were common, one hit the tree behind my neighbor's house taking out the power to back of the house (fried wires). Power Company tired to get me to leave installed after they offered upgrade my wiring to "full house" surge protecting - If I paid them $1000 to install it.
I'm always interested by the "Government has too much power" meme - its an effective mask for the rise in (multi/trans national) corporate power. I wonder who has the greater influence over government these days? Those that vote, or those that "pay" contributions? Artificial barriers to entry (e.g. copyright extension) that do not improve the common good are a case in point.
You mean the consumer is about to be sold equipment that has features we can't use yet!? Say it ain't so! I see stuff like this regularly.
Remember the "64-bit' revolution of the CPU back 5 years ago? Friends went out and bought the same CPU they had in the 64-bit version and drooled over how awesome it would be to have 64-bit OS & apps. I told them all the same thing... it's a waste of money. By the time 64-bit becomes a viable option their CPUs will be long obsolete. Sure enough, only 1 of them still has their CPU, and it's not fast enough for Vista. WinXP64 sucked for driver support etc.
Why not just set up appliances with a clock and run it at 11pm or something. You prepare the appliance, hit start, and at like 4am your washer does your laundry. You wake up at 6am and you throw them in the dryer.
Me, I did my part to save electricity. I can turn on ALL of the lights in my living room, both bedrooms, and kitchen and use a whopping 120watts of electricity. Why? I bought LED lighting. They're an expensive initial investment, but (hopefully) they'll pay off in the long run. Some are quite expensive, so you replace the lights that you use the most and ignore the others.
Who needs to add all this extra smart infrastructure when anyone can start cutting back on their electricity usage now.
On another note... When I lived in AZ, you were billed based on usage during peak and off peak hours. The peak hours were a bit more expensive. Here in IL, a kWh is a kWh. You pay 1 flat rate. Why spend all that money to create a smart infrastructure when spending money on something as benign as changing a few light bulbs can save you quite a bit of electricity. Not to mention I don't have glowing balls of fire heating up my house in the summer months which means less A/C used.
Yes, repair is going to be an issue. If appliance manufacturers continue to use the current level of quality in their 'smart' appliances, I don't see these working well or for long. Our two year old Westinghouse moderately high end oven with just a fancy clock and glass top has had two failures. One in warranty and one out.
The 'tech' could do nothing but unplug the likely offending module and get another one. And charge almost $200 for what appeared to be about $10 in poorly made Chinese parts. No going to the local hardware store and getting another burner and plugging it in. Good luck fixing a 6 year old machine when the company only stocks three years worth of parts. Sure, I could spend hours trying to reverse engineer the part and replace the likely failed (cheapass) SCR, but I really have better things to do with my time and most folks don't have a relatively complete electronics workbench in their basement.
All the downsides of complexity with little of the benefits. I'll pass, thanks. Off the lawn, please.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Power usage plans similar to cell phone plans!
Cheaper weekend and nighttime minutes! Plans with cheaper any time minutes!
Calling the power company to add extra minutes to your plan (and extend your contract for 2 more years) when you discover you have more laundry than usual you need to get done this week!
Won't this be wonderful???
I can hardly wait.
What them hell? The link for "losing one's lights and refrigerator" has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. It's about a woman who through an account screw up of a previous tenant could not get her power connected. This kind of thing has been happening for about a century.
As for "loss of privacy"? The idea is that the power company signals your system when the power is cheaper. They know how much power you're using (as again, they have for the last century), but not what you're doing with it.
For the last 40 years or so my father has had an off-peak hot water heater. It switches on late at nigh, heats up the insulated water tank. Saves him money, smooths out the demand. No one has to run around to "optimize household energy usage". Set and forget.
This article is, as usual for kdawson, a load of sensationalist crap.
I'm waiting for GE to figure out how to build a fridge that lasts more than 3 years. The PFS22 I bought in 2006 has a failing main logic board. Ironically, the house I bought has a 1970s vintage GE fridge that is still running fine.
So based on my experiences with this and other recent GE products, a GE-driven smart-grid will save gigawatts of power within a short time as all of its appliances die and cease operating. We'll all be cutting ice in the winter and back to the original meaning of the "icebox".
General Electric should stick to being the banking operation that it primarily is now, and leave engineering to people that know how to do it.
Step 1: Presume everyone breaks "the rules". Corollary: The more "rules" there are, the more people there will be who break them.
Step 2: Impose measures to prevent such "rule-breaking," through which permission is granted by some Higher Authority to do... whatever. Examples: Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, Windows Genuine Advantage, PlaysForSure.
Step 3: Squelch the nay-sayers and their ilk, long enough for everyone else to accept it. The nay-sayers will eventually give in to the inertia. Make object lessons of those who don't. Example: the MafiAA.
George Orwell tried to warn us, but now even he has been silenced. By cowardly Amazon, no less.
I get the impression that clothes dryers are mostly a U.S. institution.
The only place I've ever used them is in the US, but they've started to creep out.
They sure would have been convenient when I lived in Japan where there isn't much sunlight in the winter and even if you start drying at dawn (on that side of the building) your clothes won't get dry by sunset.
Washing machines are different. They are not a luxury, they are a necessity. IMO.
No slippery slope.
We were always at war with Eastasia.
I think that the best way to do this would be some kind of battery bank / fuel cell / energy storage. The customer charges it at night, and it reduces the load during the day.
While this would be expensive, it would complement a house with solar power well, since they typically already have a battery bank. The other advantage is that because you simply draw the power at night into a reservoir, there is no way to monitor usage.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
Good luck with that. In Ontario, they've already mandated smart meters by law. Here come higher hydro rates too, we're about to get screwed and they said that it will net us lower rates. They did the same in Quebec, rates jumped by 15-35%. Big shock, there is such a glut in raw hydro here, that they're actually shutting down one of our nuclear reactors for several weeks because of excess power.
Annoying as all piss. There was no input on this, bloody statists.
Om, nomnomnom...
Where I live, homes are billed for their water and sewage based on how many bedrooms the home has.
They don't monitor usage, because the meters are too expensive (however there is a mandate to replace it in a few years, but it's not yet determined if that will change the billing).
I'm all for smart stuff, but I'd be happy if the billing were fair. I should not pay the same as my neighbor who has three kids, a spouse, and a larger lawn to water.
-David
My very new Sharp TV has a lot of bells and whistles. One of them sounds pretty neat on the surface. If it's showing a dark movie, the screen dims a bit to preserve power. If it's showing a colorful movie, it brightens up for more contrast.
And when you're playing a video game that can't make up its mind, the brightness is continually going up and down on this thing making it very distracting.
Thankfully it's a feature than can be disabled.
-David
I was thinking along similar lines when California was having rolling blackouts in the early aughties. Should be simple to implement.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
"And I already have a programmable thermostat for the A/C and furnace, but I've never seen any real cost savings by setting it up to run less often during the day when nobody's home. "
I live in Dallas and have a setback thermostat. It goes to 99dF from 8am to 4pm. When I use it in July and August, I use about 1,000 kw a month. When I don't use the thermostat I use about 1,400 kw a month. That is over 25% savings.
"(Once the walls and floors and ceilings warm up (or cool down in the winter) to a certain point, then the A/C or furnace has to work a lot harder to move the temperature back to the comfort zone for your return home."
This is untrue. First most A/C units have one speed. So they don't work harder to cool the house down when it is very hot, they just run longer. Second, they don't run longer to move the temp back down when it is allowed to heat up than if the house was kept at a constant temperature. In fact in toto they run less, the time running is just deferred and compressed together. Otherwise the system would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Air conditioners are also more efficient with a large temperature delta (hot house) than they are with a small temperature delta (cool house).
I liked the idea of each house having it's own trans/rec capable of producing a variety of ac/dc voltages. Then, when you plugged something in, it would tell the plug what it needed and the household transformer would deliver. Thus increasing the efficiency...kinda like the combining power supplies argument for data centers.
We need appliances that are more energy efficient.
And we need to have mandatory energy efficiency labels on appliances.
Here in Australia, my Fridge, Washer and Dryer all have "star rating" labels that tell you how energy efficient they are. Electronics and electrical appliances should be required to carry energy efficiency labels. Devices such as the following:
Fridges and Freezers
Dishwashers
Electric ovens and stoves
Washers and dryers
Microwaves
Electric hot water systems
Fans and air conditioners
Electric heaters
Vacuum cleaners
TV sets
DVD players
Blu-Ray Players
Game consoles
Set top boxes
Stereo systems
Home theater systems
Computer monitors
Computers
Printers
If people could see how much power devices use they might choose more energy efficient models.
But at least they're not being made by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
This sig is false.
Step 1: Presume everyone breaks "the rules". Corollary: The more "rules" there are, the more people there will be who break them.
Step 2: Impose measures to prevent such "rule-breaking," through which permission is granted by some Higher Authority to do... whatever. Examples: Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, Windows Genuine Advantage, PlaysForSure.
Step 3: Squelch the nay-sayers and their ilk, long enough for everyone else to accept it. The nay-sayers will eventually give in to the inertia. Make object lessons of those who don't. Example: the MafiAA.
George Orwell tried to warn us, but now even he has been silenced. By cowardly Amazon, no less.
There needs to be a "civil rights" corollary to this.
Do you earnestly believe the average world citizen has less access to information than their counterparts of 25 years ago? 50 years? 100? 250? 1000? How about the ability to listen to alternative / unpopular viewpoints?
Or the reverse: Could the average person a generation or two ago reach a larger audience than they can today? Are there more taboos?
Do you think that there are more political prisoners today (as a percentage of population) than there were in any previous era?
Of course, there are plenty of people still in the world who would love to curtail the rights of others—for profit, for control, or simply out of a misguided desire to avert "social decline". And if you narrow your gaze to the microscopic, you will find instances where civil rights have diminished in recent years. But in the broad view, the average person has never had access to so broad a spectrum of viewpoints, or such ability to express his own opinions without fear of persecution.
"We have always been at war with Eastasia" crumbles before the might—not of armies, not of kings, not of fascists or communists or religious fundamentalists—of Twitter.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
These are all optional devices completely under the control of the owner. They are there for your convenience to save you money. If you don't want the power company turning off your devices, then don't let them.
The current way this is done is by having rolling blackouts. Not the smartest way to go.
You're ruining the conspiracy theories by actually reading the article.
Okay. You have a few options:
1) Generate your own power. If you really don't want the government "all up in your business," this is really the only way to go. Otherwise, you're going to learn to accept the rules of playing nicely in a shared society with limited resources.
2) Don't use "smart appliances" with your "smart meters." They'll operate whenever you want, and you'll pay the rate according to the time of day that you choose to use them. It's an extremely capitalist system.
3) Use smart appliances, and activate the override switch. Once again, you'll pay for your usage. The federal government does not have the legal authority to control what time of day you do the wash. If the government decides to go fascist and start implementing these sort of controls, we'll have more pressing concerns to worry about.
The amount of spin that this story has gotten is completely out of hand. The summarized gist is that electric companies are going to begin to bill for usage based upon the time of day that the usage was incurred. To help accomplish this, technologies are being developed to allow appliances to talk to the meter to help minimize unnecessary usage during peak hours. Nobody is seriously proposing for the government to micromanage your electricity usage.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Newsflash: New company claims success in 80% efficiency solar power generation, and it appears likely that the system can be reproduced cheaply. In other news hundreds of other companies developing more energy efficient, non-mobile electronics have suddenly seen there stock values plummet as...
I live in western Washington state in the US. My electric utility, which was Puget Power at the time, allowed people to opt in to what they called "smart billing" IIRC - basically it was instituting off peak versus on peak electricity rates. They made a big deal about how Joe Consumer could save boatloads of money by changing his behavior. I did participate for a while, just trying to "be a good citizen" - making sure our laundry was all done off peak, bathing was off peak, anything where we could change a behavior was done off peak. So what did we save? Less than a buck a month! Thing is, the way they configured it was totally in their favor - they'd get all the benefits of having people change their demand patterns, but the difference in rates was so miniscule as to make it not worth my while.
I know, I know, I was young and naive. But having aged a bit, I now realize these "smart appliances" aren't really designed to benefit ME in any way - they're made to benefit large corporations and utilities. That means I have absolutely no interest in them. If they (government, utilities, corporations; pick one) want me to use smart appliances, they need to sell them to me at a cost that's less than the dumb appliance being replaced - it's the only way I'll use them. But right now, in the US anyway, I guarantee they'll attempt to sell them for a premium to chumps who'll be lied to about the benefits these supposedly provide to the consumer.
#DeleteChrome
Whether you like or not.. Check this "Crash Course" for a dose of reality: http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse . We will have to deal with a lot worse than the fearsome "Smart Grid" sooner than later...
Your logic violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics if you think 28% reduction in power draw is equal to 33% reduction in operation time.
I love the entirely ignorant and self-absorbed "I'm alright Jack" and "Keep the Gubmint Outta My Fridge" and "I want the right to burn dioxins on my own lawn" comments.
Goodness.
For a start there's at least two sorts of appliance smartness that are useful.
1) For example, load-shifting use until there is low demand on the gird. Sometimes that electricity can be practically free (or even negative price) and reduces infrastructure costs (hardware built to cope with a smaller peak) and reduces use of often dirty and expensive 'peaking' plant. You don't have to subscribe to Climate Change to see this as a good idea. And yes, for the average family home the main candidates are the dishwasher and the washing machine. Just avoiding running your dishwasher right after dinner (until you go to bed or optimally ~3am) in the UK right now saves circa 100g CO2 emissions each time for no inconvenience at all usually:
http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-UK-grid-CO2-intensity-variations.html
http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html
And indeed right now since the highs and the lows are at fairly fixed times then a simple timer will do a good job: not much Big Brother smartness there.
But as more intermittent power such as wind comes on line, those 'excess power available' moments will be less predictable. A really smart dishwasher lets you run it just when you want to, but if you're not in a hurry you could set it for "make sure it's done by the morning, but try to pick the time for minimum costs/emissions". I already do this in my house.
2) Balancing the grid cycle by cycle is a separate issue. In the UK fridge/freezers alone correspond to a base load of ~2GW. If a 'smart' fridge notes that the power frequency has dropped because the grid is struggling then it can postpone restarting the compressor so as to stay within normal temperature limits but coast a little while on its store of 'cool'. It might also suspend any auto-defrost for example. That helps keep the house lights on (yours and everybody else's) without spoiling your butter or denying you any rights at all. Last year we had a major nuke trip out in the UK and 500,000 people across the UK were 'load shed' and lost supply entirely. If all the fridges had been smart they may well have stayed on line without anyone noticing.
http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-dynamic-demand-value.html
Hyperventilating about "communists" turning off the lights and freezer is so childish I find again /. posts failing to meet the IQ levels that I assumed were necessary to type. %-P
This is not to deny that such a mechanism can be royally f**ked up by individual governments and utilities, but going purple in the face while ignoring that the alternatives may well include more blackouts or higher prices, even ignoring climate-change issues, doesn't help.
Note: I already do some of this at home. I still haven't voted communist (though they may have had a local candidate here for the last elections).
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
A lot of the things you mention can be powered differently. Depending on where you live, natural gas may be a substitute for cooking, heating and hot water purposes. For heating, you can use the waste heat of power plants in some areas (I actually heat my place with the heat of a waste burning plant). Our government offers tax cuts when you buy less wasteful means of cooling, heating and lighting (think of it as subsidized new fridge and LED bulbs).
Time shifting is old news here. In a country with a lot of water power plants, you get the idea of selling night power cheaply early because it's there and goes to waste if nobody uses it. We had cheap "night power" since the 70s IIRC, and a lot of people used it for water heating. It was actually so big a success that the price for night power kept rising and rising 'til today you won't get a lot of the deal and a lot of people returned to burning wood or coal to heat their house, or use waste heat from power plants where available. IMO not the worst development. Using electrical power to generate heat is the maybe most wasteful way to use it, only surpassed by simply letting it go to waste altogether.
Today, they use most of the excessive power to pump water of reservoir power stations uphill again. They managed to turn the turbines around from generating power by having water running past them to using power to pump water back upstream. IMO a better use for the power. When you need it, turn the plant on and generate power, when you have excess, turn it around and store the water for later use to generate power. Yes, the waste is insane, but still one of the better solutions.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Being from a country that had such a smart idea already, although with water instead of power, I can tell you what happens: The consumption will go up, not down.
We had our water supply "regulated". There were times when we had water and there were times when we didn't. The government idea was that we would buy water in bottles for the times when they cut off our supply, thus reducing the consumption of publically available tapwater (which was, and so far still is, on par in quality with bottled water, btw).
What did people do? They turned on every faucet when the water was there and filled everything that could hold a drop of water, from bathtubs to vases. "Just in case", because of course we were not told how long we'd have to be without water. And even if we were, wouldn't you want to make sure you have enough water "just in case"?
The water came back, everyone flushed and scrubbed their tubs to get it cleaned out of germs, then refilled.
In the end, the consumption tripled. And the experiment was shut down no 6 months after its start.
The same will happen with power, although people will have to be more ingenious. You'll see sales of batteries skyrocket, and people will find out ways how to convert their appliances to live on 12V car batteries. The waste will be enormous, and people will tap into the public grid, they will siphon power from work, they will find ways to get their batteries charged. And not just what they would have needed if they simply had power from the outlet, they will charge their batteries to the brim, and then some. "Just in case".
Consumption will go up. Not down.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can build a power plant in your country? In mine, getting the permission to build something like that is near impossible for a private person.
Sorry, but if there has ever been a bad example for "don't like it? Make your own!", it's that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
lol. Where I'm from you're only allowed to water the garden two days a week. On those days, you can only water your garden at certain times of the day. You can only spot-clean the glass on your car or to remove corrosive substances (with a bucket filled from a tap); if you want to clean anything else, you need to go to an approved car wash. Its worse in many other cities in the country. And yet, civilisation, democracy and freedom still continues.
Look out!
What choice do you have?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Has anyone that thinks the magical wonder of "smart" power use timing is great for the future, also thought about the possible implications of having more and more appliances
use off-peak timing? Wouldn't that eventually make that a peak time as well? This seems like a plus for the power company - they get a more level daily usage curve, while lowering
the "off-peak" times due to many appliances doing their thing late at night or early in the morning. By definition wouldn't that create a larger peak usage curve? (While yes, I
understand that some appliances will be taken off the daytime usage, and put on night usage, the supposed benifits of saving money on utility bills would likely push people to buy
at least a bit more in the way of off-peak usage appliances, evening out the disparity a bit..
It may just be me, but this sounds like a bit of an "Oops.." moment for a few people, while the utilities are smiling..
Disclaimer: I know nothing, about anything, ever.
The smart meter more closely follows actual cost of energy production than a flat rate. Arguably this is actually more market driven. It does not tell when you have to run your appliances but makes you pay closer to the actual cost of using them. A 24 hour single rate is actually more "socialist" since the low cost users are subsidizing the high cost users.
If the government didn't regulate the production, supply and cost of electricity, the pricing structure would be a jungle of different prices for different times and amounts. This would be a nightmare that would end up costing far more.
"They've almost certainly had [insert convenient predicate here]..."
Ah, the I'm-sure-they've-done-their-homework-and-thought-of-everything-for-my-safety-and-convenience argument. After all, they wouldn't do it if it was not safe and The Right Thing to do, would they?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Of course, because, you know, it's not at all hotter from 8AM to 4PM than it is during the rest of the day or anything...or is it?
"ignoring that the alternatives may well include more blackouts or higher prices, even ignoring climate-change issues, doesn't help."
Because people like you refuse to consider just building more power plants.
Instead, you cook up a scheme which gives government and large corporations more control over my behavior. Oh right. You're saving the environment.
Let me give you a big clue-stick: Cap and Trade is a mechanism to pay for "free" health care, it has nothing to do with reduction of pollution and saving the environment as it will do neither of those things.
With all the people saying "Oh, but they won't *FORCE* you to connect yoru applicances to the smart grid", I would only point out that they are boiling the frog slowly. We get how that goes. We get that people like you simply want to punish us because we don't live the way you'd like us to. My answer is "Thanks, but no. We'll live in a way that goes counter to what people like you approve of".
if all the smart appliances "go off" when the grid is being used less, wont that put more demand on the grid, and thus cause the price to go up?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The way i understand the smart grid, is that the utility send the consumer the price per kw continuously during the day, and it is up the the consumer and his appliances to decide what they would like to do with the information.
The same will happen with power, although people will have to be more ingenious. You'll see sales of batteries skyrocket, and people will find out ways how to convert their appliances to live on 12V car batteries. The waste will be enormous, and people will tap into the public grid, they will siphon power from work, they will find ways to get their batteries charged. And not just what they would have needed if they simply had power from the outlet, they will charge their batteries to the brim, and then some. "Just in case".
Yeah, and then when the power comes back on, everyone is going to turn on their batteries and empty them to get rid of all that dirty power, right? You can't possibly be so dumb as to explain why it happened with water, which won't happen with electricity, and then claim that precisely the same thing will happen with electricity, can you? An ordinary car battery will hold most of its charge for months if it's clean* and not installed in a vehicle. A tiny trickle charge can keep the voltage floated - just the act of applying a tiny voltage keeps the charge from leaking across, and causing the battery to undergo its chemical reaction.
* Sometime take a meter and read the voltage drop from a battery terminal to various locations on the case of a dirty battery. You'll be amazed. Then you'll go looking for the baking soda and a plastic brush, which is how you clean 'em. Try not to get baking soda water in the vents.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Running longer also extends the life of the motor. It's the constant on-off cycles that damage the components, so turning off the A/C (or heat) during the day and then letting it run constantly for 1-2 solid hours after you get home, will actually extend the life of your unit.
Eliminating the on-off cycles also improves overall efficiency.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
a smart fridge can co-ordinate its duty cycle with neighbours to manage the peak load and reactive loads on the supply. Who cares if your fridge motor/pump delays a few minutes beofre switching on (as it waits for the fridge down the hall to finish), it won't make much difference to the temperature.
I don't want the power company, or the government, controlling when and how I use appliances in my house. MY house, MY appliances. STAY OUT. Smart-meter my ass.
Oh, you're a Libertarian with far too much money? The only way in which government is getting involved is to get variable rate electrical power charging exposed to consumers. Big industrial users have had this sort of thing for many decades (in fact, I don't think they've ever had flat-rate charging). Given that there will be differential rates available, do you want to take advantage of them to run some of your appliances at cheaper times of the day, or do you feel that you love your power company so much that you want to give them all your money (and have their love children too, it sounds like)? All this smart metering stuff (apart from the parts owned by the electricity company, like the meter itself) does is make it easier for you to find out the current rate, and for suitably-adapted appliances to take advantage if told to.
All that government has done is change the basic rules to ones that are more free-market oriented. It's up to you to make that work in your favor. (The alternative is that they ratchet up the flat-rate electricity price hard, which I can guarantee you'll hate.)
Bah. Sometimes reading here I think we've got a situation like this. There's a guy standing naked on a rail line and there's a freight train approaching at full speed. A cop on the sidelines is shouting at them to get the fuck off the rail line because the train is coming, but the guy is refusing because that would mean that the government is telling him what to do. The fact that he's going to get turned into mincemeat in a few seconds is of absolutely no importance to him by comparison with showing that he's not one of the sheeple, despite the fact that the governmental action is just common sense and clearly in his best interests by any objective measure. Such is the sheer power of anti-governmental stupidity.
Still, maybe your idiotic attitudes will at least mean that you subsidize everyone else's electricity. I like the idea of taxing utter foolishness like that.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
"You're full of shit up to your eyeballs. Explain the frequent rolling blackouts in California a few years back."
ENRON.... http://elsmar.com/pdf_files/Enron_California_Fraud_Audios/
Once upon a time use of "conservation" (aka "low-flow") water appliances was also a matter of personal choice.
Now it's a matter of legislation.
I'm looking at this from the point of view of a normal electrical (or other utility) end user looking to save energy (saving money will of course depend on your rates, alternatives, usage level, etc)
What this whole discussion is missing is a number of simple, common sense design issues (solutions to many of which are already here). The smart grid is excessively complex, inelegant, and subject to all sorts of failures (including security issues). It is also in danger of leaving you in a place where if you have to revert to 'dumb' grid, you don't have enough capacity for the electrical end-users.
For some more elegant solutions that solve many parts of the same problem:
For air conditioning (and heating), we have a newer system (SEER 15) with a two-speed compressor and a variable speed air handler. This means that during the really hot and cold days where demand is up, the system behaves more like baseload (on a larger percentage of the time, but a lower power level) than peakload. More systems of this design would substantially smooth out the peaks. While there are no mandates, this system did get us a $1500 tax credit. (from Bush era legislation, no less). Also, a programmable thermostat really helps, particularly if it's smart enough to gradually bring temperatures up or down to your target (again, not having to run the system at full blast).
For refrigeration, at least in parts of Europe, vacuum bottle insulation is becoming quite standard for refrigerators and freezers. This is the same incredibly exotic, unusual technology that makes a Thermos keep your coffee/tea/soup hot for many hours without heat input. This saves a huge amount of energy via very simple efficiency, without any kind of smart grids or smart controls needed. Even better, give the refrigerator and freezer each their own compressor and 'try' not to run both at once unless you have to.
For lighting, there are already excellent solutions - CFLs, LEDs on the way, and motion sensors can automatically turn lights on and off if you want to go that route (not a bad way to go for something like hallways, though we haven't bothered). You don't need a smart grid for this, you just need a smart switch - localized means easier to implement, easier to fix, and no central control needed.
For water heating, the easiest and cheapest answer is efficiency. Wash your clothes in cold or warm water (they still get clean!), get a lower flow showerhead (The Delta H2OKinetic 1.6gpm ones are surprisingly nice, and this is from somebody who would drill out or remove the restrictor plates in the early low-flow designs), use a dishwasher instead of hand-washing dishes (uses much less hot water), etc. Insulated hot water pipes don't hurt either. But if you use a lot less hot water, it barely matters how you heat it. (though if you use electricity, the GE Hybrid coming out 4Q09 is worth watching - a heat pump water heater, with a normal resistive backup. Should be particularly nice and efficient if your water heater is in a warm place.) Besides, it's hard to beat the ROI of $30 or $40 for a new showerhead.
Finally, leaky electronics (i.e. DVRs are TVs that use almost as much energy as 'on' most of the time) would be easy to solve if you just made manufacturers DISCLOSE all relevant information about energy usage. You don't have to mandate minimums, standards, etc; you can solve most of this problem by giving people the information and letting them make a smart choice. For once, the usual consumer advocate nincompoops (think Consumer Reports) might even nudge people into the right direction with this.
We really need to get out of the "brute force global solution" mindset and look for local, elegant, cost effective ones.
ERROR: Null
People here are thinking binary. On off. That's not how a lot of these things work!
The fridge: YES: during peak times it can turn your fridge down 1/2 a degree and not spoil your food because you probably have the think cranked too high anyways
Oven: Not Applicable. How often do you use your over during the middle of the day? Almost never, you're at work!
HVAC: Again, 1/2 degree you won't feel.
Dishwasher: Sure, but you usually run the dishwasher in the evening/weekend anyways.
Dryer: Yeah, totally doable, delay it a few hours and you can have dry clothes without mold.
Lighting: Lights can detect if your idiot ass forgot to turn off the garage light.
Entertainment system: Nope - but again your system probably isn't on much before 6pm. Networks have figured this out and call it "prime time"
There. Suddenly smart appliances become useful to regulate peak usage and prevent ridiculously expensive backup generators from kicking in, lowering your overall bill, reducing rolling brownouts (california) and improving utility profitability.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
>>>Our two year old Westinghouse moderately high end oven with just a fancy clock and glass top has had two failures.
This is why I buy the cheaper or second-cheapest name-brand items. Keeping it simple means there are fewer possibilities for mistakes, and also if it does die it's not great loss and cheap to replace (~$300). In most cases though these items last a long time. I'm still using a TV from the 1970s - it's got a simple on/off button with no fancy features but I think it's that simplicity that kept it working all this time.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Exactly. I don't want the power company, or the government, controlling when and how I use appliances in my house. MY house, MY appliances. STAY OUT. Smart-meter my ass.
If you don't want anyone controlling how you use power, maybe you should be generating your own.
I don't know about you, but my local utility will even pay me [poorly] for power. They'll even put in the necessary meter for free.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not to mention death by electrocution when people try to bypass the smart grid controls.
No, but I'm sure that people will stockpile batteries. You can't run a lot of appliances for a long time on a few batteries, so people will charge whatever they can while they have power. The problem is not even so much that more power will be used (though I'm pretty sure it will, for various reasons, constant transformation of power wasting quite a bit being one of them, people charging as many batteries as they can, no matter what they'd really need, just in case, is another). The problem is mostly that storing that power will require a lot more problematic means than bathtubs because those batteries don't last forever either, and then you're sitting on a pile of dead batteries you have to get rid of somehow.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Hydro" means water. This article is about electricity.
If everyone played rate arbitrage, then we'd have effectively flat rates anyway.
I'm not sure if this is still the case, but several years ago Detroit Edison installed shut-off boxes on A/C units in southeastern Michigan and possibly elsewhere. There were several instances where our air conditioning was turned off by the company during the day.
Hydro means electricity in Canada. And we call water, water. And water meters, water meters. See how that works? It's kind of like coke, pop, and soda.
Om, nomnomnom...
dryers are mostly a U.S. institution.
No dryers, huh? Not a day goes by that I do not thank God in heaven for having been born in the United States.
It's times like this where I wish I was registered and anyone would see these comments, because this is a case where a company (GE) is pushing shit that has been around forever (meters with communications) down everyone's throats as "Smart Grid" technology. How are the fucking end points making shit a lot smarted.
GE produces mostly terrible devices that either don't include Syncrophasors or required astronomical amounts of money for them. Why is this important?
Most households will have one (maybe two) meters in their home and in the next 30 years will have 2-3 devices taking advantage of the metering information. A "small" utility may have 2-3 THOUSAND devices across it's "Grid". Using existing technology, a little bit of training, and a whole fucking lot less marketing bullshit, these utilities can drastically improve their efficiency just by looking at what is going on inside their systems.
Here's a starting place to look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasor_measurement_unit
Fuck me, even wikipedia has a better idea about the difference between smart grid and smart meter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid
I hate working in an industry that has political focus.
It depends a great deal on how big the swing is. Detroit Edison and Consumers power built a 1.8 gigawatt battery to make dealing with it cheaper, so perhaps it is fairly big:
http://www.consumersenergy.com/welcome.htm?./ocompany/index.asp?ASID=17
Their websites utterly sucks, just do a search for 'pumped storage' if it doesn't come up; they appear to be redirecting incoming visitors. Wikipedia also has a page about it, with less hassle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The problem is mostly that storing that power will require a lot more problematic means than bathtubs because those batteries don't last forever either, and then you're sitting on a pile of dead batteries you have to get rid of somehow.
This is a fair assessment, but batteries are expensive. Things that hold water aren't.
Getting rid of dead batteries is usually really easy. In fact, if you have the old-school car battery sort of batteries, people will pay you five bucks a piece for them. That's not much of a financial incentive, but it does defray your disposal costs at the very least. Then the only tragedy is the energy (and toxic) cost of production and recycling. I save my old AAs and whatnot in mayo jars, I hear they've got some special can for them at the dump. (I wonder if they bury it in a special part of the landfill) :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That idea of electric cars buffering peak demand from household appliances is fine and dandy, but how many electric cars are there right now? And in 10 years? How many households will be able to "mask" their peak demand because the car battery is supplying up the current? And besides, that car will need to stay at home *plugged in* for the duration of the peak demand. And it will need to be recharged *before* you can drive it. So: my guess is that you won't be able to use it to damp out the morning peak demand anyway.
The long and the short of it is that I believe that peak demand for electricity will be around for a long time to come. And with it peak prices.
- (a) meters that let information flow *into* our house from the electricity company (like "supply is currently tight, minimize your usage"). To which we can either instruct our own appliances to respond like "Ok, if it's really tight now I'll wait 20 minutes", or empower the "smart" meter to tell an appliance "Appliance XXX, switch to standby until I tell you to restart".
- (b) meters that let information flow *out* of our house to the electricity company "this household is now drawing XXX watts and has the following list of appliances on with their current power consumption {list}". (E.g. [Appliance_name, nominal power rating, maximum power rating, current power rating]).
I think we can all agree that type "a" meters aren't objectional and may be worth serious consideration. They just allow us to optimize our domestic electricity use, which is especially useful if we have double-tariff meters.
I think we can also agree that we do not want type "b" meters. This type of meter lets the electricity company monitor what amount of power each household consumes at what times and then lets it (a) influence those appliances directly or (b) allow them to model our individual power consumption pattern - at micro-level.
I'm not the only one's weary of the huge privacy concern. Burglars for example will make sure they quickly get access to such "confidential" and "protected" information. It's just great to be able to monitor the whole city for patterns of absence, let alone have full-scale real-time checks of owner absence, don't you think?
Of course if they reduce the population, they have less people that need electricity and water. Sad as that sounds, it might be included as part of the solution to kill off energy and water hogs?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
If the will of the consumer dictates evolution of society, we will remain in the stone age forever.
When the first horseless carriage was introduced, most consumers stayed with their reliable horse drawn models.
But the auto mobile paved the way for flying machines, space craft, computers, and all current technologies we enjoy today.
And it all started with the horseless carriage.
With global organic energy resources declining, the world now needs development of next generation smart grid technology in addition to solar based energy. Solar based energy doesn't specifically equate to just solar panels, we need to harness all aspects the sun's energy induces on the planet. Solar radiation, wind & wave. Our sun provides all the energy our society will ever need. We just have to pull our heads out of our asses, ignore the politician assholes bank rolled by the fossil and nuclear fuel industries and "Keep moving forward".
Private industry entrepreneurs will most likely cash in on the way to the future, just like Henry Ford did.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
There is another issue to consider: today electricity is cheaper in the evening, because businesses are using less energy so the grid has more spare capacity. But in a decade, when a significant portion of homes will have solar roofs, and there will be solar farms in the southern states, the timing of cost of energy will flip again: cheaper during the day (and summer) and more expensive during the night.
Will consumers want to readjust again?
m
I also don't want it done in a way, like cap and trade, that makes energy use so expensive that it costs jobs and forces poor people to go without electricity.
That depends what we're defining as "poor." People living in section 8 housing don't pay for their electricity. As a part of my job, I end up inside of section 8 housing frequently. I believe that some people do need a leg up or a helping hand, and that is what those resources are there for. I also know from seeing it firsthand that a significant portion take advantage of the system, living in section 8, refusing to look for work, involving themselves with drugs heavily, selling food stamps to buy liquor, etc. They crank up the a/c in the summer and the heat in the winter. While I keep my heat low in the winter, and turn it down or off when I leave for work or sleep at night, I have seen these same folks with open windows in the winter because it is too hot in their apartment! Why should they care? They're not paying!
My point is this: Truly poor people aren't affected by cap and trade. This hurts people scraping by above the poverty line and most of the middle class. I feel that this is yet another step in the systematic path to eliminate the middle class.
Sorry for the whole big rant, but I can't stand government support given to people who make absolutely no attempt to help themselves.
... certainly does, and in those exact words.
Where in Quebec do they have mandated smart meters? From what I could find, there is a pilot project in 4 cities, but it is voluntary. http://www.hydroquebec.com/heurejuste/en/index.html
Solar panels? Wind turbines? A small-ish generator? They're not illegal in most places.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Smart energy grids are not meant to turn things off during peak hours, but rather to coordinate use across a larger population.
First, if all the appliances in a home able able to share information and coordinate their use, the clothes dryer can shift down to a power save mode when the A/C needs to ramp up. Likewise, the refrigerator can schedule some time to keep the food cold knowing that the drying cycle is almost up. By coordinating these events you consume the same amount of power overall but your peak consumption is greatly reduced.
The energy providers can achieve even greater peak reduction by having houses coordinate amongst themselves. Ultimately devices can either delay consumption by short amounts of time to avoid pushing the peak higher or opportunistically consume power immediately avoiding their contribution to a pending peak in demand.
Personally I think that the biggest changes to create energy savings would be for refrigerators and ovens/stoves to vent all their hot exhaust outside during the summer.
-rd
I'm not sure if this is still the case, but several years ago Detroit Edison installed shut-off boxes on A/C units in southeastern Michigan and possibly elsewhere. There were several instances where our air conditioning was turned off by the company during the day.
I have one of those shut-off boxes on my AC system by my choise. The utility (We Energies) can turn off the AC compressor when electrical demand is very high. My furnace fan, ceiling fans and dehumidifer will continue to run when the AC compressor is remotely disabled. I don't remember the length of the outage but I know I signed up for the "worst" plan (the plan that comes with the longest outage). In return for installing this box, I get $50 off my electric bill every summer - whether We Energies activates the box or not! It's a pretty sweet deal for me. If the temps are so high outside that I am worried about We Energies turning off my AC compressor (my furnace fan will still run to circulate air in the house), then I will have all of the windows closed and all of the blinds down. My house stays medium cool during the day even when the AC does not run. I'm not home during the day so I wouldn't know if the utility disabled my compressor or not. The plan only allows the AC compressor to be cut-off during the day. At night, the compressor will run to cool the house down.
>But after they wash the clothes they just hang them up to dry. That's what I do at home, not even on an outdoor clothesline, but just on a drying rack in my apartment.
Hanging up a load of damp laundry in a "tight" house in the middle of winter would result in window sweating as well as mold. Adding a lot of indoor moisture in the winter here in the snowbelt is not a good idea.
I agree that more people should hang laundry outside when the weather is appropriate. I have a small clotheslines in my backyard even though it is expressly forbidden in the subdivision bylaws. The only people who can see my little clothesline are my immediate neighbors. You can't see my laundry from the street. With the growing focus on saving energy, I don't know why the "no clotheslines!" edict couldn't be repealed in my subdivision. As long as you keep your undies in the back yard and I can see 'em from the street, go ahead and hang things outside.
"Hydro" means water. This article is about electricity.
You're quite correct. Unfortunately, in Ontario, it has become the norm to use the term "hydro" to refer to hydroelectricity, since most of our electricity is generated at Niagara Falls. I find this terminology confusing, and I don't use it myself, but it is so deeply ingrained here that people use the term even when speaking to non-Ontarians, and assume they know what it means.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Seems strange to me that more people don't use natural gas for their water heaters. I've lived in 15 different cities across the USA and **every** home/apartment I was used natural gas for heating and hot water. Some used it for driers too, but most don't.
On demand hot water systems seemed interesting until I found you need it in every room with hot water requirements. Unacceptable cost for a 4 bathroom home with a wet bar and kitchen.
MOLD? For waiting a couple of hours? You've read too many crazy articles out there "MOLD IS COMING TO KILL US ALL!". :-)
Maybe the humidity is lower where you live, but in many places, wet clothes will develop a strong mildew smell if not put out to dry immediately.
No, it won't kill you, or even make you sick, but your clothes stink, and your skin stinks if you dry off with a mildew-infested towel.
There are much more viable options to fix this issue. You can read other readers opinions to see them. What GM is excited to do is leverage a benefit that will force people to replace appliances that normal they wouldn't. This "big ticket" items are the bread and butter for the company and this is just a way to push more then they normal would to consumers.
Same here in BC. so much of our energy comes from dams that the power company is actually called BC Hydro.
404: sig not found.
If the smart is limited, it is very dangerous
Sir (or ma'am, as the case may be), this comment is the most incredible summation of my view on the Internet that I have ever read. For that, you are now my friend on Slashdot.
Although it doesn't reduce my cynicism w.r.t. humanity in general...
None of which are cost efficient or "green" in small applications. To be cost effective and actually create less waste by running it (and producing "clean" power) than for the production of the plant altogether, you have to make the plant big enough.
Not every time "roll your own" is the better choice.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Good luck fixing a 6 year old machine when the company only stocks three years worth of parts.
Depends where you buy. I could still get parts for my Sears Kenmore washer and dryer 35 years after purchase. Damned near every part of the machines, too.
We're going to increase efficiency by, instead of innovating a way to store energy for long periods of time, putting a bunch of electronics in people's houses that monitor and manage their electricity usage; these devices won't be setup by a standards body but rather, by government edict. The government having, originally setup the power companies, then sold them to private groups who turned a quick profit, gouged everyone, got regulated then ran them into the ground; even saying "charge a premium for a peak usage time" gets everyone riled. And when they tried to modernize using nuclear power, everyone freaked out because they didn't trust these companies to do it right; 3 mile island and Chernobyl are examples. Illinois and France are basically the only two regions on the planet that get most of their power from nuclear fission, and we haven't had documented cases of 3-eyed frogs or two-headed cats.
This is utter stupidity.
So your electric car puts power back into the grid. Then you go hop in your car and find out you can't go anywhere because instead of being all charged up, the damned thing is nearly dead.
A properly designed electric instant water heater is almost perfectly efficient. However that doesn't address the issue of peak electrical loading since they suck electricity through a fire hose when the water is running to keep up with the demand. When the are not operating they use virtually no electricity, compared to a standby electric water heater that has to occasionally turn on as heat leaks from the tank insulation. Gas instant water heaters are a little less efficient when operating, but they use virtually no gas and electricity when not operating. Energy factors in the 0.8 range are common. There aren't a lot of standby gas water heaters that can beat that.
"Finally, whether you leave it on all day or turn it on in the evening, it doesn't change the net amount of heat entering your home"
According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics heat moves from an area of high concentration to low concentration, and the rate it does so is relational to the size of the temperature difference. So if your house is cool during the day due to running the air conditioner, more heat from the outside will migrate into it.
I used to have an old clothes dryer, but it broke. I got it fixed, it worked for a short time, then broke again. I've hung my clothes up in my basement ever since with no problems.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
For appliances which perform a batched task - dishwasher, dryer, washing machine, all that's needed is:
- a machine which can consume broadcast future pricing info
- users to specify when the task must be completed by
The machine can then work out how to get the task done as cheaply as possible, without leaving the task undone.
For continuous machines, so long as the user's requested conditions (usually temperature) are met, the machine has freedom to achieve this in the cheapest way possible, based on broadcast pricing changes
No government interference, no external direct control of your appliances (you can always say "do it now, regardless"), just cheaper power infrastructure*
* I make no promise consumers will see this benefit.
If you want your hot water to reach your shower more quickly, remove the flow restrictor from the shower head. Seriously. I did this in the hopes of just getting a more satisfying-feeling shower and an unexpected side effect was that the hot water reached the shower in about 1/4 - 1/5 the time it used to take.
Some of you may be worried about what such a move would cost. I live alone and only pay about $7 - $8 a month for water, so I really wasn't worried about the effect on my water bill. I did look for an effect, though, and if it was there, it was only a matter of a few cents.
For those of you who shout, "OMG teh envir0nm3nt!!1!" - I have a septic system, so all that gray water is just going back into the ground anyway. And besides, if the People's Republic of Canada doesn't feel the need to regulate people's water flow rates, why should we here in the good ol' US of A?
Flow restrictors are usually separate, easily-removable components of shower heads and faucets. Do yourself a favor and take them out. You'll be amazed at how much better a shower feels when the volume of water hitting your skin increases dramatically.
All I know is that in a (very unscientific) poling of family and friends, my power bill (with instant flow-through electric hot water) was about four times their combined gas+electricity (tank gas hot water) per month. Yes, gas is much cheaper, but since I don't know of anyone with gas flow-through I assumed that a gas-heated tank is ever better (we don't have variable electricity rates).
Like to move into the 21st century? I've lived in Ontario all my life, and while Niagara Falls does generate a lot of power, for many years, over 50% - that's more than half of Ontario's power has come from nuclear generation. You could look it up at the Ontario Power Generation (OPG) site. But, since much of our power did come from the Falls for many years, the firm was called "Ontario Hydro", and "hydro" has become a synonym for "electricity" here.
What was once true, is no longer so
Electric water heaters aren't just much more expensive than gas water heaters, they are MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more expensive. Look at the energy guides on a new standby gas vs. electric water heater of the same size. You will see they estimate electricity will cost you 2-3 times as much for the same amount of hot water. This doesn't change with tankless water heaters, so there is a lot of your difference right there.
People who had undersized electric standby water heaters that frequently ran out of hot water find the electric tankless water heaters cost them more as they luxuriate in long hot showers and baths. If you have a big family that uses hot washing machine water and frequent dishwasher runs, or your family and friends have smaller families with a more navy shower, cold washing machine, dishwasher only when full mentality, that could be the entire difference right there.
If you still are concerned about your power use, you should have an electrician come out. My brother noticed his electric bill was up significantly for 2 months, then his AC tripped the circuit breaker twice. The electrician came out and discovered the wire from his house to the outside AC unit had chaffed and was arcing enough to not start a fire, but was DOUBLING the energy draw of the AC unit. The electrician changed the pigtail and his electricity bill is significantly down.
But I do know for a fact if you had a properly sized electric standby water heater and didn't change your behavior, your electric bill would probably be 10% higher. And if your friends had either an electric standby or tankless water heater, their electric bill would be in the same range as yours.
First, you failed to deal with the actual running time of the AC. During the summer, my AC would run non-stop from around 1pm to 6pm. But it runs only intermittently the rest of the day. If you calculate out the actual running time, the reduction with the setback thermostat would probably be 40%. But then again I said it sets back to 99dF. You may think that means it doesn't run, but that would be incorrect. It occasionally runs during setback because my house would get to 110dF without it.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics only deals with energy flows, not with how they relate to AC run time and energy usage in a complex system. My point was ACs reject heat at a fairly constant rate. If it had to run longer in toto just because you let the house heat up rather than keep it cool at the same outdoor temp, then heat energy appeared out of nowhere. And that is impossible.