Economists have been recommending A Smarter Electrical Grid — one that reacts to changes in supply and demand — for years, and now utilities are considering giving it a try:
But does it really work? Will ordinary homeowners cede control over water heaters and dryers to some Big Brother-like network? In 2005, researchers such as Pratt decided it was time to do an actual experiment to find out. “We said that we need to stop talking and start showing,” he says. “We needed a concrete example.”So with $2 million in funding from the U.S. Energy Dept., an additional $500,000 from Bonneville Power and Portland General Electric, and technology from IBM and Whirlpool, Pratt devised a test. At a cost of about $1,000 per home, his team outfitted 112 homes on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula with smart electric meters, thermostats, water heaters, and dryers. The dryers, for instance, were commercially available Sears/Kenmore units modified to include a circuit board that automatically senses stress on the grid by detecting the telltale tiny decrease in the AC frequency at a regular wall outlet. When a controller sensed stress on the grid, it then automatically turned off the heating element in the dryer.
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Like the other volunteers, Brous and his wife allowed the system to reduce their energy use when prices went up. As a result, the thermostat sometimes got turned down, allowing the house to get colder. Or when they went to dry clothes, the dryer occasionally suggested that they wait until prices declined. But if the house got too cold, or if they really needed to dry some clothes, they could override the system. Brous says, however, that they intervened only about 1% of the time.He could also control the house from anywhere, telling it, for instance, to warm up just before he and his wife returned from camping trips. “If for some reason we came back early or stayed late, we could jump on the Internet and make changes,” he says.
For Brous, the technology was not only convenient and money-saving, it was consciousness-raising. He became more aware of the electricity he was using—and ways to cut use further. Instead of just putting off drying clothes until electricity prices dropped, he and his wife started using a clothesline, “saying that we can save a bit more electricity,” he says. “We found we really liked it.”
Randall Parker (FuturePundit) cites a similar story coming out of California:
Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.The proposed rules are contained in a document circulated by the California Energy Commission, which for more than three decades has set state energy efficiency standards for home appliances, like water heaters, air conditioners and refrigerators. The changes would allow utilities to adjust customers’ preset temperatures when the price of electricity is soaring. Customers could override the utilities’ suggested temperatures. But in emergencies, the utilities could override customers’ wishes.
It doesn’t seem like they’re using a pricing mechanism though. People really don’t “get” markets.