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A Smarter Energy Grid
AP photo
George Tsapoitis displays an online usage and utility screen connected to an electric smart meter in his Milton home. Tsapoitis uses his computer to visit an online control panel that configures his home's energy consumption.
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Published: May 12, 2008
Updated: 05/12/2008 12:01 am
MILTON, Ontario - The glowing amber dot on a light switch in the entryway of George Tsapoitis' house offers a clue about the future of electricity.
A few times this summer, when millions of air conditioners strain the Toronto region's power grid, that pencil tip-sized amber dot will blink. It will be asking Tsapoitis to turn the switch off - unless he already has programmed his house to make that move for him.
This is the beginning of a new way of thinking about electricity - and the biggest change in how we get power since wires began veining the landscape a century ago.
For all the engineering genius behind the electric grid, that vast network ferrying energy from power plants through transmission lines isn't particularly smart when it meets our homes. We flip a switch or plug something in and generally get as much power as we're willing to pay for.
But these days the environmental consequences and unfriendly economics of energy appear unsustainable. As a result, power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter.
It will stop being merely a passive supplier of juice. Instead, power companies will be able to cue us, like those amber lights in Tsapoitis' house, to make choices about when and how we consume power. And most likely, we will have our computers and appliances carry out those decisions for us.
Tampa residents will also soon have a way to control energy costs when TECO Energy begins rolling out its "Energy Planner" program in June. Special thermostats will display cost of electricity, which will fluctuate, during the day and allow customers who participate in the program to shut off appliances and curb their usage during times of highest energy demand.
Done right, the smarter grid should save consumers money in the long run by reducing the need for new power plants, which we pay for in our monthly electric bills. However, if people fail to react properly to conservation signals, their bills could spike.
A smart grid that can encourage us to conserve will feel different. Envision your kitchen appliances in silent communication with their power source: The fridge bumps its temperature up a degree on one day, and the dishwasher kicks on a bit later on another.
In Milton, an exurb where dense subdivisions encroach on farm fields, a test with the Tsapoitis family and 200 other households reveals what will be possible - and how much more work needs to happen.
Tsapoitis uses his computer to go to an online control panel that configures his home's energy consumption. He chooses its temperature and which lights should be on or off at certain times of the day. He can set rules for different kinds of days, so the house might be warmer and darker on summer weekdays when his family is out.
The family can override those changes manually, whether it's by turning on the porch light or raising the thermostat to ward off a Canadian chill. But the system guards against waste. If midnight comes and no one has remembered to lower the thermostat and turn off the porch light, those steps just happen.
He has saved at least $300 on utility bills since the program began in September. Tsapoitis and his wife, Lisa, aren't certain of their savings but say their 2,400-square-foot home has lower energy bills than a friend's 1,800-square-footer.
That alone is not revolutionary because programmable thermostats and other "smart home" controls let people craft similar resource-saving plans. The big change here is the combination of those controls with that blinking amber light on the switch - where the grid talks back.
Milton's local gas and electricity retailer, Direct Energy, will set those amber dots blinking in an emergency. It might happen a few times in a summer month.
Whatever the cause, at that moment, that section of the grid needs a reduction in demand, fast, or else outages loom.
Electricity use per home rose 23 percent from 1981 to 2001, according to the Department of Energy. Blame increases in electronics and appliances and our decreasing tolerance for sweating through the summers. The Census Bureau says 46 percent of single-family homes completed in the United States in 1975 had air conditioning. In 2006, that was 89 percent.
Meanwhile, meeting that demand is getting trickier. Raw materials that fuel power plants are soaring in price and being eyed more skeptically by regulators concerned about air quality and greenhouse gases.
The effects of well-chosen reductions in usage, an idea known as "demand response," can be huge. A 5 percent improvement in U.S. electric efficiency would prevent 90 coal-fired power plants from having to be built over the next 20 years, said Jon Wellinghoff, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who advocates demand response.
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