NPR’s Morning Edition has been looking at the future of the grid recently in a new 10-part series called “Power Hungry: Reinventing the US Electric Grid.” They also developed some cool web-specific content on the topic, like this interactive map of the US that shows existing and planned transmission lines, power plants, and renewable capacity. While the whole series is worth checking out, here are the must-listen “episodes” if you’re interested in the smart grid:
Despite the historical correlation between economic downturns and reduced energy consumption, interest in demand response (DR) does not appear to be in decline. Recent regulatory developments in New York and Maryland, for example, highlight that policymakers are increasingly aware of demand response’s ability to cost-effectively meet capacity needs and provide value in ways that typical supply-side resources cannot.
The industrial sector has been among the hardest hit in this economy. These important businesses can represent a significant amount of load within a utility’s service territory - one plant closure can mean tens of megawatts (MW) of demand destruction overnight. So why, with auto and manufacturing plants closing across the country, is the demand for demand response growing among utilities and end-use customers alike? Doesn’t the “naturally occurring” demand reduction in these turbulent times lessen the value of demand response to the system? The answer is no.
As the concept of a smart grid builds momentum, a disconnect in its public persona slowly emerges: while the most prominent challenge associated with our existing grid centers on transmission and distribution (T&D - the system that physically connects supply resources to customers), the highest profile solutions focus instead on supply (integration of renewables, vehicle-to-grid) and end-user (smart meters communicating with smart appliances) technologies. How will the smart grid impact the T&D system?
I attended last week’s EUCI conference, Implementation of the Smart Grid for Electric Utilities, and two presentations helped answer this question by detailing utility initiatives to leverage technology as a means of controlling voltage on the T&D system.
The wires were buzzing this morning with news that the South Carolina Public Service Commission had officially rejected Duke Energy’s energy efficiency program and cost recovery plan, known broadly as Save-A-Watt. While Duke must no doubt be disappointed with this decision on their widely-publicized plan, they can take encouragement from the fact that the topic of utility incentives for demand-side investments is only going to get more and more attention going forward. What may have initially seemed like a radical approach may find itself with more company as states begin taking bolder steps to incent utilities to do more with the demand side of the equation.
One of the common misconceptions about the “smart grid” is that advanced metering infrastructure is inherently “smart.” But the truth is that AMI only becomes “smart” when applications leverage the technological capabilities of this new infrastructure, like two-way communication, to create new solutions like next-generation energy-efficiency and demand response. Proprietary communication protocols and closed systems will make the development of such applications difficult, if not impossible. This is why standards like OpenADR have emerged and why smart meter companies like Silver Spring Networks and are building standards-based networks. Now residential energy management firm Tendril has joined the fray, not just signing on to the OpenADR bandwagon, but also opening up their application programming interface (API) to partners so that third-parties can interface with its software and devices. So far, partners include major meter vendors like Silver Spring Networks, Itron, Landis+Gyr, and in-home device companies like Energate and Onzo.
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