Smart Technology Brings Power to the People

TLDR: The GridWise™ Testbed Demonstration as discussed by the authors has been used in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States to test and speed adoption of new smart grid technologies that can make the power grid more resilient and efficient.

Abstract: Imagine you’re at home one Saturday morning on the computer, as your son takes a shower, your daughter is watching TV, and a load of laundry is in your washer and dryer. Meanwhile, the fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee fills the house. You hear a momentary beep from the dryer that tells you that if you were to look, a high-energy price indicator would be displayed on the front panels of some of your favorite appliances. This tells you that you could save money right now by using less energy. (You’ve agreed to this arrangement to help your utility avoid a substation upgrade. In return, you get a lower rate most of the time.) So you turn off some of the unneeded lights in your home and opt to wait until evening to run the dishwasher. Meanwhile, some of your largest appliances have automatically responded to this signal and have already reduced your home’s energy consumption, saving you money. On January 11, 2006, demonstration projects were launched in 200 homes in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States to test and speed adoption of new smart grid technologies that can make the power grid more resilient and efficient. Pacific Northwest more » National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory in Richland, Washington, is managing the yearlong study called the Pacific Northwest GridWise™ Testbed Demonstration, a project funded primarily by DOE. Through the GridWise™ Demonstration projects, researchers are gaining insight into energy consumers’ behavior while testing new technologies designed to bring the electric transmission system into the information age. Northwest utilities, appliance manufacturers and technology companies are also supporting this effort to demonstrate the devices and assess the resulting consumer response. A combination of devices, software and advanced analytical tools will give homeowners more information about their energy use and cost, and we want to know if this will modify their behavior. Approximately 100 homes on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State receive energy price information through a broadband Internet connection and have received automated demand-response thermostats and water heaters that can adjust energy use based on price. Fifty of those homes and an additional 50 homes in Yakima, Washington, and 50 homes in Gresham, Oregon, have computer chips helping control their dryers. These chips sense when the power transmission system is under stress and automatically turn off certain functions briefly until the grid can be stabilized by power operators. « less