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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!
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.
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 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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
No slippery slope.
We were always at war with Eastasia.
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...
You're ruining the conspiracy theories by actually reading the article.
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/
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 an exception to the rule if you've precisely calibrated your fridge temperature. Most people turn it up to the point just before their milk freezes in the container. With fridges that have 7 cooling settings, setting up a more accurate thermostat in newer fridges which then can be controlled through smart systems isn't that hard. In fact my newer fridge (Samsung) actually has a digital temperature readout in it accurate to 1/2 a degree. 1/2 degree adjustments are completely doable.
As for the dryer: who said middle of the night? I have no problems with that since my dryer is in the basement, but even for people who keep their dryer next to their bed delaying the drying to non-prime hours isn't that big of a deal. Example, running it during dinner time? 7-9pm?
Ultimately the end result will be systems that don't impact lifestyle but when aggregated across communities will have significant impact on the usage of power. In the mean time I'm sure you would prefer that the utility company turns off your neighbor's dryer to prevent a rolling blackout from striking during your football game.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
- (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?