Gridweek 2011: Should We Send Utility Customers To Smartgrid School?

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Posted September 21, 2011 with 280 reads

Keywords: Clasma, consumer education, Gridweek 2011, smart meters, Smart Grid

This is the first of three posts from my trip to Gridweek, a key US smart grid conference by Clasma, whose own Anto Budiardjo is a TEC blogger.

As you will hear more about in my upcoming posts, the mettle of the smart grid community is being tested by the expiration of the stimulus act; by setbacks in the utility roll out process and –to a surprising degree- by customer opposition. I am dealing with that last point here.

Many utilities’ customers don’t like the idea of a utility having so much data about their power usage patterns. They fear their utility will control, monitor or interfere with their lifestyle, a la "Big Brother". Polls show customers are also uncomfortable with the fact utilities will be able to exercise remote control of their power supply. However, ironically smart grid will be an absolute boon for consumers and utilities alike.

Consumers will be able to save money through the dynamic pricing that is likely to become default. They’ll finally get a price signal, and be able to monitor/control their utility ‘spending’. Currently, we all play flat bills for electricity, without knowing the actual cost of the dryer, for example, or the refrigerator. A common analogy in the smart grid community (credit Christine Hertzog, I think) is that if grocery stores billed like utilities, we would only pay a big bill at the end without the itemized list of what we bought. Smartgrid can help flesh out the itemized costs; $5 in August for hairdryer; $2 on Wed for dryer. These additional data points give frugal consumers the tools to use electricity in a calculated manner. This kind of itemization is also the missing driver for efficient appliance innovation and sales.

Utilities will be able to control services remotely, so that if a shutoff occurs, quick reconnection is possible. When transmission also gets 'smart' or paired with computer technology, utilities will also be able to see specific problems (example- pole down in a car accident) remotely and send a crew out to address it, rather than sending a crew out to check what is going on in a certain region, then address it, which is the current procedure.

Reliability will increase; catastrophic blackouts will be less likely and devastating. With the smart grid, damage to the grid can be rapidly detected, diagnosed, and contained. This is critical. There are 8 regional transmission operators (RTOs) controlling all US power supply in realtime. The deployment of electricity is so precise that any transmission overload causes a "failure cascade" of blackouts that overwhelms states and can infect the entire RTO. If you remember, the 2003 blackout of the Northeast was caused by branches that fell onto power lines in Ohio. When one transmission line is down, the power "backs up" on functional adjacent lines, which normally operate at near maximum capacity. Just picture a clogged pipe for an apt anaglogy. As this excess electricity attempts to find an outlet, it overloads the entire network of powerlines in a domino effect. Humans in a utility control room can't tell why this is happening, perhaps for hours. But an electricity system that is computerized can be programmed to recognize, address and contain an issue like this before, for example, the Northeast lacks air conditioning in the hottest months of the year. The 2003 blackout cost $6 billion and eleven people died; the stakes for getting smart grid online are significant.

Until energy storage advances, smart grid is necessary for renewables to be incorporated onto the grid. Renewables suffer from a frustrating problem of immediacy; for wind to be used in the grid, the grid must need power at the same time wind is blowing. For solar, the sun must (similarly) be shining. A smart grid, on the other hand, can be programmed to juggle multiple intermittent and non-intermittent power sources such that the load appears smooth and reliable to customer though it is made up of a mosaic of power supplies.

The smart grid can help us save energy systemwide. Through it threatens to validate the fears of paranoid consumers, smart grid will give utilities the ability to 'microcycle' their customers' appliances. For example, theoretically, the smart grid will get to a point of sophistication where the utility can identify your refrigerator and turn off its power for for a minute or so without you knowing. However, doing so on a system wide scale can save megawatts, reduce societal energy needs overall, and provide a more palatable management alternative to rolling blackouts.

Smartgrid not only monitors consumers, it monitors entire utility transmission networks. This should yield increased utility operational efficiency that will make it more difficult to justify rate hikes.

Based on conference chatter, it sounds like utilities have realized they have to explain all this to consumers. Much of what I heard has been a repeated emphasis on the need to communicate the value proposition of smartgrid to consumers. A panelist at a press session pointed out that in order to appreciate the value of smartgrid, one has to know something about energy and the electricity system. The key for utilities is figuring out how much is too much for consumers.

I can’t help but think utilities may get farther using Nike’s “just do it” slogan as a business strategy. One reporter asked as much in the press session- why not just mandate smart meters and smart grid, and bring the consumer along willing or not? The wrench in such a plan is democracy. The massive capital layout required for smart grid projects comes via rate increases that are approved in highly political state Public Utility Commission processes. So, we’re going to be talking about it, consumers will be aware of it, and moving ahead without consumer buy-in is insufficient.

However, I am hopeful. During this conference, I have also learned about the interesting things utilities are doing to educate their consumers. Tendril is working with a organization that focuses on the ‘mommy’ community (mothers are the primary utility bill payers). Another utility (name escaping me) created curriculum and is targeting kids in school as the place to start on power and energy education. I'm looking forward to seeing which company hits the 'sweet spot' educating their customers and provides the first successful, scalable model the smart grid community can work from.

Photo by user smokedsalmon.

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Muir Woods said:

I live in Smart Grid City, aka Boulder, Colorado, and I was a big proponent and early adopter of the technology. Now I'm not so sure. The more you know about Smart Grid, the less you like it, which is a real challenge for the utilities who think that resistance can be overcome with education.

The first big problem is the realization that my Smart Meter is connected to a dumb utility, raised in the days and ways of monoplies, and steeped in Russian tradition of Command and Control. They want to use the Smart Meter to observe and control me, but it never even occurs to them to let me use it to control them. When I parse all the slick marketing pitch, all I hear is how it makes things work for them, even the stuff that I'm suppossedly going to be doing with it.

And then there's the data privacy thing. OK, it's invasive and insulting on the front end, but they've completely ignored the question of who owns this information and failed to recognize that it can't possilby even work. Nobody has that much bandwidth. It's as if the Russians decided that if they could just put a spy in every closet , they could figure out how many shoes and dresses to manufacture.

Having lived with it for a couple of years, I have absolutley zero faith that the Smart Grid will lower my energy bills. It's possible that they might be lower than would have otherwise been, but sure hard to prove a counterfactual. I do have infinite faith in the ability of my utility to game the system to their benefit. It reminds me of the arguments for Tax Reform: We want a system that lowers rates, but also deductions for everyone, in such a way that the government gets more revenue, but not one person pays any more tax. Right.

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Fri, 2011-09-23 16:39 — Muir Woods

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Chris Jefferies said:

I'd like to offer an alternative to your perspective on the Smart Grid, Amelia. I've been researching the field of home energy management from the consumer's perspective for about 2 years now; developed some hardware/software to track energy usage in my own home and understand what's possible. But to your points...

"smartgrid will be an absolute boon for consumers" - what exactly is the "absolute boon" for the consumer? Perhaps it would be a much lower bill than we are paying today witht the same usage pattern. Doubtful.

"Consumers will be able to save money by the default dynamic pricing that is likely to become default. They’ll finally get a price signal to be able to control their power and utility ‘spending’."

I'm not convinced that my electric bill will ever go down. I do expect to be charged more for peak usage (I assume that's what you mean by "price signal") so I will want to reduce my usage during that time frame to maintain my current monthly bill. It will be a stick, not a carrot approach.

"control services remotely, so that if a shutoff occurs, there’s no waiting to be reconnected; damage to the grid will be more rapidly detected and diagnosed. Blackouts will be less likely." These are the headaches for the utilities, inconveniences for us. We have smart meters in our city, yet we still have outages, usually because of some kind of damage.

"Renewables will be better able to be integrated onto the grid." - Yay.

My overview of the smart meters and whatever else the smart grid is comprised of, is that it should provide DR analysis that allows the utilities to run tighter margins on generation thereby saving million$ in generation charges and translates to fewer peaker plants to fire up. Great for shareholders.

Sadly (and cynically), I doubt consumers will see any significant reduction in usage other than by turning everything off. Which I do already.

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Wed, 2011-09-21 19:43 — Chris Jefferies

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