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The Smart Grid Has Arrived
SternisheFan sends this excerpt from MIT's Technology Review:
"The first comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating. The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent, and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it. ... Dozens of utilities are building smart grids — or at least installing some smart grid components, but no one had put together all of the pieces at a large scale. Florida Power & Light's project incorporates a wide variety of devices for monitoring and controlling every aspect of the grid, not just, say, smart meters in people's homes. ... Many utilities are installing smart meters — Pacific Gas & Electric in California has installed twice as many as FPL, for example. But while these are important, the flexibility and resilience that the smart grid promises depends on networking those together with thousands of sensors at key points in the grid — substations, transformers, local distribution lines, and high voltage transmission lines. (A project in Houston is similar in scope, but involves half as many customers, and covers somewhat less of the grid.) In FPL's system, devices at all of these places are networked — data jumps from device to device until it reaches a router that sends it back to the utility — and that makes it possible to sense problems before they cause an outage, and to limit the extent and duration of outages that still occur. The project involved 4.5 million smart meters and over 10,000 other devices on the grid."
"The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent."
Can someone help me, I'm from old Europe, what's a 'power outage'?
I was at a meeting a year or two ago, and I think it was someone from NIST who gave a report on the status of 'smart meters'. I want to say it was a meeting to discuss how a community of practice should self-organize, and we had some reports on how different groups negotiated standards (IETF, W3C, etc.)
If I remember correctly, there were two or more different protocols for smart meters that had been proposed, and in the process of negotiating the differences made some sort of requirement that the meters had to be able to be upgraded by flashing 'em.
So ... in theory, they'll be upgradable, and won't need to be replaced. Unfortunately, odds are, there will be a limited amount of storage to upgrade 'em, so they probably can't be flashed forever. And they never discussed security protocols, so if someone hack their meter (or someone else's).
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
In many cases in the past building a power grid resilient to small power outages, automatically rerouting power around failed components
only leads to it being more susceptible to large power failures caused by cascading failures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_outage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure
My power company installed 'smart meters' and an r.f. control and data acquisition grid over a decade ago.
Several decades ago, I used to work for them. Back then, we began a task to build a database of customers, transformers, distribution lines and substation circuits. All with the idea of eventually implementing such a system. Customers records were linked to a 'grid number' which was tied to their serving transformer, circuit and substation. These grid numbers are actually put on every pole (and other physical asset) in the company.
One of my engineering tasks was to review and correct errors in the database. At times, reports were generated that showed one small transformer feeding 50 or 100 customers (impossible without burning it up). A quick field review showed that many customers had been assigned to a few grid numbers many miles away. My suspicion was that some engineers were completing their paperwork sitting in a bar and these grid numbers were the ones visible out the front window.
Fast forward to a few years ago: My cabin (build recently) lost power when a tree took out my service line during a large storm. After doing repairs, I called the power company (I no longer worked for for the past few decades). I told the service rep that I would be ready to have the transformer re-energized. She said, "Sorry. We have to wait for the other customers on that transformer to have their services inspected." Well, I happen to be down a long, lonely road. And my cabin is the only one feeding from that point. I know this because that used to be my business. I explained this to the c.s.r. She said, "But the computer says ..."
"The computer's data is screwed up. It was screwed up 20 years ago when I worked there. It still is. Send a lineman out to put the fuse back in." She did.
If this little anecdote reflects the current state of even a fraction of our utility infrastructure, its going to take much more than a few smart meters to straighten this mess out.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not really. The article just missed the real reason. Lightning strikes. Florida power reliability is horrible because of the huge number of electrical storms and lightning strikes to the system. This will facilitate "routing around" strikes and bringing up portions of the grid faster. Of course, blaming mother nature isn't as politically popular as blaming piggish customers.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Smart grids store energy in batteries
I don't know that that's a fair statement. Smart would seem to imply the ability to adjust to changing demands. Such as slowing down AC when a brownout might be imminent. It doesn't have to have energy storage to be 'smart'. Wouldn't hurt, but I don't know that that's what the 'smart' is meant to mean.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
As often as hurricanes make the news in Florida, over the last 10 years, they've caused me to lose power twice, each time lasting maybe a day. Lightning takes out the power at least 10 times a year, usually lasting 15 minutes to an hour. The latter is easily handled by a UPS.
(name withheld by request)
Do you even know what FUD is? It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. In other words, your entire post is FUD.
Health problems? Where is real, documented evidence of health problems caused by smart meters?
Inaccurate readings? Happens with analog meters too (and gas meters and water meters). Big difference is, when someone with an old meter has a problem they call the power company, not the local TV station.
'Caught' using 'stealth like tactics'? What does that even mean. I don't know how it is in BC, but in the US part of the deal when signing up for service is that you give permission for the power company to come onto your 'private property' for the purposes of reading meters and maintaining their equipment. They don't need any more permission than that. And the meters are THEIR property, not the homeowners, so it is no surprise that they would just cut off illegally installed locks. What is kind of surprising is that, having cut off the lock, they don't just remove the meter and leave you without service altogether.
The sour cynical answer is always the right one, of course. Except when it isn't.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Um, no. Power in is measured at the substation level and can't possibly catch an individual stealing 10's of kilowatts. Likewise, temperature variations change the efficiency of cables and transformers. Most often power thievery is caught by a jealous neighbor turning someone in.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
As someone who works at a power company, you are correct in your skepticism (mostly). The decrease on your bill will come when you choose to run appliances like your washer/dryer on off-peak hours. This is similar to phone plans advertising free nights and weekends. They are trying to develop the habit in the consumer to use electricity when it's least desired so that electric generation can stay consistent.
If you maintain your typical habits, then yes, you power bill will potentially increase. My company has yet to communicate whether an increase will happen during peak hours, but I think it's safe to assume it will. Some people believe the onus of having a chargeback model like this is a step backwards in technology.
Stealing power takes a certain level of knowledge and attention to detail. Quite a few power thieves manage to send themselves to the emergency room or morgue each year. This is far more common in regions where the theft rate is so high that the power companies install the brains of the meters on the pole transformers. They just put a remote display on the residence.