Boulder CO is an example of a smart grid- yet is it working?
The electric power grid is a miracle of engineering. It supplies our homes with electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week and rarely breaks down. But it has been around a long time – over a century – and is starting to creak at the seams. Much of it still relies on mechanical switching systems for example. As the demand for energy keeps growing, the grid will have to evolve if it’s to carry on supplying us with energy for the next 100 years.
The current electricity supply grid is a centralized machine that delivers energy to our home. But it’s a one-way street – it doesn’t know how much energy we want, when we want it or how we use it. And as our energy demands become ever more complex, the existing grid is failing to keep up with our requirements. For example, five massive blackouts have hit the US in the past 40 years.[1]
Smart grids are the next stage of evolution. But rather than a wholesale upgrade of the mechanical infrastructure, they use sophisticated computer programs and digital communications technologies to kick the grid into the 21st century. Think of it as being like the Internet, but instead of delivering information to our homes it delivers electricity. The Internet is resilient; it’s not centralized and can reroute information if a server fails; it can combine information from a multitude of sources so if one fails there is immediate backup. And it responds to our input, delivering the information we ask of it. This is how the smart grid will work.
Consumers will benefit in a number of ways. Smart grids allow real time pricing so you can see how much money you’re spending on electricity at that precise moment, and switch off unnecessary appliances. Battery-powered vehicles are slowly creeping into the consumer mainstream and smart grids are essential for managing this. They will identify the most frequent charging times, the popular locations, and show real time charge costs to encourage drivers to recharge at cheaper periods when less energy is needed as a whole.
Smart grids will also communicate with homes through smart meters and understand how each household uses electricity. They can dynamically manage power production by monitoring power plants and telling them when to produce more or less energy. And smart grids will make it easier to integrate renewable energy supplies into the grid, and balance supply against demand.
All this is in theory, and a positive one at that. Boulder Colorado is a city that has implemented a smart grid and yet only 42% of its residents have a smart electricity meter. Is this a sign of success or is the smart grid idea going to fall short of public acceptance?
[1] US Department of Energy