With all the discussion of energy this week I thought I'd sidestep the gasoline/oil brouhaha today and sketch out a positive vision of our sustainable future. Some of these ideas have been brewing in my head for years and they're starting to come together now. Perhaps the
Energize America contingent would like to consider these ideas, and other groups might be interested.
One of the things many people don't understand is that the power grid is capable of carrying data as well as raw electricity. And it can do so at quite high bandwidth.
A factor holding back sustainable energy production methods such as wind and solar is they are of variable availability. Another problem is the ability to meet peak demand that we often see on hot days when everyone cranks their AC to max.
Let's see if we can't solve those problems by making our power supply "smart"...
With
Smart Power, every appliance would be connected to the
PowerNet simply by virtue of being plugged in. New appliances would be designed with the ability to communicate over the PowerNet directly.
These appliances, so connected, would be enabled for full Home Automation control. For older appliances, simple adapters could offer at least on/off control via the PowerNet.
While the Myth of the Intelligent Toaster has been laughed off for decades, there are a lot of neat things you can do with home automation. Including, perhaps, saving the planet.
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I live in California and experienced first-hand the rolling blackouts that led to the recall of Gray Davis. Since my livelihood depends on electricity (I'm a computer programmer), you should see the collection of Uninterruptible Power Supplies I have assembled since then.
However, the amount of wattage my livelihood depends on is trivial...maybe a quarter of a kilowatt hour while I'm actively working. The rolling blackouts were not caused by too many people surfing eBay.
The blackouts, while they probably ultimately stemmed from energy companies like Enron gaming the system, were required because the grid could not meet peak demand on those warm days. To keep someone in Bakersfield's home air conditioner running (at 5 or 10 kilowatt hours) while they were away all day in an office, my power was cut and I sat and twiddled my thumbs, needing only a quarter of a kilowatt hour.
Hospitals and emergency services, of course, were spared the loss of power. Meaning they didn't have to turn on their generators.
Thus we already have established a priority system for power distribution: those hospitals and 911 centers are more important recipients of power then I am.
I'd like to extend that priority system to my computer and my friend in Bakersfield's AC unit. And even to my computer vs. my refrigerator. And I'd like to make it stick.
How? We use the PowerNet.
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Each appliance is given a priority rating by default...your television, hair dryer, and vacuum cleaner are going to be pretty low on that totem pole. You may also be able to shift priorities around the house, using a limited amount of wattage as a form of "currency". So if you really need to watch a given TV show during a power crisis, OK, but sadly, you won't be able to dry your hair while you watch.
Fully deployed, the Smart Power system will have every significant device using AC power not only online, but verifiable. Thus it will be very costly to defeat and cheat. While there may be some concerns about privacy, it will be possible to run anything offline. However, anything run offline will receive the lowest priority for power.
So rather than having to black out everything at once, we can have selective management of power demand. The computer and telephone, enabling work but drawing little power, stay on. The air conditioner is turned off...automatically, transparently, and safely, as its controller has been designed for this.
Getting fancier, we can even slice up power demand over time, to keep people's refrigerators cold, but make sure they don't all decide to turn on at once. Thus on your block, each person's fridge waits their turn to start cooling, and no one's ice cream melts. This prevents demand spikes and eases pressure on the grid.
Appliances considered essential for medical reasons will get the same protection hospitals do. So, for instance, elderly residents in a heat wave can get their AC kept on.
There is a lot of infrastructure to be rolled out to do something like this, but fortunately, cabling isn't part of that problem. Electricity meters are already widely deployed, and they can be upgraded by the utilities to enable this.
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The biggest technical challenge I see is how to turn off older, non-Smart appliances while keeping PowerNet-aware ones on. The power remains in the lines in the house, and unless all the power outlets themselves are upgraded, all the outlets will still be live. Outlet units are cheap and easy enough to install, and are governed by code already, and it's possible we could require they all be upgraded and the houses inspected. But that would be an opportunity to defeat the system.
It would, however, be easy enough to detect cheating, because the total amount of power delivered to the building would exceed the amount the various smart appliances were reporting. Cheaters would pay a premium on their electric bills (a good reason to run out and buy adapters, smart outlets, and new appliances). Eventually older appliances would be retired in favor of more efficient ones, which is a good thing.
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Now why again are we so willing to do all these machinations in the first place? Because our current electricity system is geared to having the ability to meet peak demand. Thus we have huge fossil-fuel burning plants, often sitting around idling, all contributing to a nationwide grid that throws power around to meet demand. And there is no constraint on that demand: it's either met, or it isn't.
With sustainable power sources like wind and solar, we all know it isn't always windy or sunny. And there's no effective means of storing unused energy from those sources in a big battery. Those sources just let those huge fossil fuel plants idle a little longer. Until someone turns on a vacuum cleaner, and the last straw flutters down on the camel's back.
Smart Power lets us save the camel and shutter those creaky old power plants (the ones "Clear Skies" attempts to save at all costs) in favor of sustainable choices. It will also allow us to ration power effectively in an energy crisis. Thus it is both a national security as well as ecological imperative.
Smart Power also allows the deployment of a local PowerNet: those living off-grid, using their own power sources, will benefit greatly from automatic demand management.
With Smart Power, we trade some degree of guaranteed instant gratification in favor of good citizenship and a healthier future. That's a very hard sale to make to the gratification-driven American public.
However, it will be a very easy sale to make when all-or-nothing rolling blackouts start becoming commonplace nationwide!
And since Smart Power is an initiative that will take 10-25 years to put in place, it will do us all well to start preparing.
(Note that SmartPower and PowerNet are already trademarks in use and this proposal doesn't have anything to do with them. But since they are the most natural names I thought I'd go ahead and use them. Please feel free to make other suggestions...)