Actually smart grid technology can be a dumb choice for many consumers. Here are two real world scenarios and a discussion of what's to come.

1) During peak demand the power company can turn off your appliances.

So when does peak demand occur? It occurs when the weather is the hottest or the coldest. So the power company can turn off your furnace or air conditioner during the worst imaginable weather. But why do they do this? One reason is because of an outdated overloaded power grid the other is the power company often buys power and during peak demand they pay the most. So they reduce peak demand and pocket an enormous profit. Meanwhile, your 90 year old granny can go up to 4 hours without A/C on a 100+ degree day. (yes it happens).

"After a sweltering day in which 72,000 BGE customers had their air conditioning turned off for multiple hours thanks to their participation in BGE's "Peak Rewards" program, BGE seems to have decided that the energy-saving program at its most intense was not a good idea. On a day when the temperature at BWI was 104 degrees, everybody who signed up for the "100 percent cycling" option in Peak Rewards had their AC shut off at 11:30 a.m. and didn't have it turned on again, BGE says, until "approximately 5:40 p.m."" Link (Link)

Additionally the switch boxes used to turn the power on and off fail after being turned off and won't switch back on, often leaving the consumer with no hot water, heat or A/C during the worst weather until a repairman can come to your home. My 80 year old father's hot water heater stopped working for over 24 hours and after a few minutes of trouble shooting I discovered the power company switch box failed. I simply bypassed it. Then a few months later during a snow storm he lost his heat in the middle of the night and woke up to a freezing house I drove to his house stood out in the snow working on his heat pump until I again discovered the power company switch box had failed, I bypassed it.

2) During periods of power usage the power company pays a different wholesale rate for the power it buys. During the times of peak usage, the rate is highest. With the smart gird technology, the power company can dynamically change the cost of your electricity through out the day and bill you a higher rate during the coldest and warmest days. So not only will you pay more for stabilizing the temperature of your home during the worst hot and cold weather, you'll pay a substantially higher rate for that power. It will be a double whammy that will put a smile on the faces of that power company executives.

3) More and more Americans are using and considering electric vehicles. It's projected that an increasing percentage of Americans will own electric cars or fuel cell cars (use fuel but generate electricity). The smart gird techology guidelines which already exist will entitle the power to take energy from the battery or fuel cell of your car during periods of peak use. HOWEVER, they do not have to pay you the prevailing rate and instead pay a fractional rate. In other words, they sell you power at price 10 cents per kilowatt hour but force you to sell it back at a price of X/10 or 1 cent per kilowatt hour.

In a nutshell the power companies have setup "Smart Grid Technology" to be yet another method to fleece the consumer and increase profits.

Want to save energy? Use florescent or LED lighting, buy a high efficiency air conditioner, insulate your home, but a hybrid hot water heater and cut the cost heating your water in half.

Smart grid technology is looking pretty dumb to anyone smart enough to understand what it actually does.

There was a report last year about emissions from electric cars. The study assumed a smart grid where the cars would be charged from hydro power at 2 AM. I think reality is plug in the car when you get home and charge it up from fossil fuel plants during peak demand.

Yeah but...

I can think of several huge sources of the concern over peak power and the need for the "smart grid". First, consumer demand isn't going to get any less voluntarily. The few who will do their part are hardly significant. Second, the power grid and power plants are aging and inadequate to meet future demands, in large part due to the NIMBY factor, and also due to the enormous cost and red tape that comes with new construction. Third, electricity produced by "peaking" plants such as gas turbines and coal plants is more polluting than power produced by "base load" plants such as hydro and nuclear. Fourth, energy purchased by, say, California from some other region such as Arizona is far more expensive than power produced in the home territory. So what can be done? Cut down the peak. This can happen voluntarily, or it can happen with a reasonable amount of inconvenience by opting-in to the smart grid, or it can happen with rolling blackouts, but it is going to happen. What's your choice?

This About That: Yeah but...

There is no doubt we need to improve both the efficiency of every power device we use AND our power infrastructure. Unfortunately the power industry is using the valid need for a smart grid and designing a system made to fleece the customer.

The power grid is becoming increasingly unstable because of neglect has little or nothing to do with the 'not in my backyard' mindset. In the most simple terms it costs a lot of money to maintain the grid and it's very, very easy to not complete needed maintenance and make extra money in a given quarter. In Maryland the power company lobbied local counties to take over maintenance of the power lines on most streets. Then the power company doubled the monthly delivery charger. The delivery charge is there to cover maintenance, meter reading and general upkeep of the power grid. Then the counties have had to raise taxes to cover tree cutting and use tax dollars to pay the power company to maintain the power lines a second time. The cash strapped counties have let the tree cutting go and as a result every time we have a tropical or ice storm there are wide spread power outages last upwards of a week. People are even dying as a result.

People need to do a better job using efficient products and the first step is to make them affordable and within reach of the customer.

Oh, that's my power company. I had no idea about the CEO. That's pretty sweet.

The smart grid has been one of the most talked-about issues in energy policy. Experts - and manufacturers of equipment and software - have promoted the idea that "smart meters" could enable utilities to flip household appliances on and off to ease the load of summertime electricity demand and that the devices would help homeowners manage their refrigerators, lights and air conditioning, even controlling them remotely with cellphones, laptops or tablets. Smart grid technology is also seen as critical for integrating renewable energy sources onto grids designed to carry power one way only, from big clunky generating stations to the home.

My hubby grew up in Switzerland and he told me they did this all the time there, though it was through community-level mutual decision-making, not through remote technology. Of course, there's more of a sense of social cohesion there and care for the environment so who knows what Americans would say if we tried to implement something like that here. Probably lots of whargarrbl and derp.

1) The simplest benefit to even a rudimentary smart grid: The power company will instantly know which customers are without power, and where the breaks occurred. Link that to some basic software that communicates with the trucks in the field, and you're adding a lot of uptime. This is good for customers (shorter outages) and power companies (customer satisfaction, plus you use 0 billable kW-hr during an outage).

My cable and phone company (non-critical infrastructure) has this ability, and can even remotely reboot my cable box, run tests without coming to my home, etc. In the meantime, after a storm, I routinely see guys from the power company (critical infrastructure) driving around in trucks and visually inspecting the lines, hoping to see what the problem is.

2) The CEO in the article is also probably right that America can save more electricity with insulation, caulking guns, outlet gaskets, expanding foam, etc. (There's still about seven weeks left in the year if you've been procrastinating on this but would want the limited tax credit on purchasing materials for this.) Still, it's not like you can't try to do both.

And then there's this guy. (Video, new window)

/facepalm

Minimally Hairy Beer-Powered Simian: ...like I said, paranoia and conspiracy theories

The power companies were granted a monopoly because it was feasible for municipalities to have one set of lines run to homes. In turn people were supposed to get better reliability. I think the power's been out at my place more in the past 3 months than it had been in the 30 years prior.

YouPeopleAreCrazy: there their theyre: Want to save some money? Get a programable thermostat. There is no reason to cool your house to 68 at 2 in the afternoon when no one is home and everyone is at work.

Depends on the house and the inhabitants. A house with mediocre insulation may well be worse going up and down all the time.
Similarly, a house with little kids in and out all the time is not good either.

The real thing is - 68 in the afternoon. Try 72 or so.

You're always better off letting the temp swing. Thermal transfer is not linear, but instead squares with the difference in temp, iirc.

/don't think it cubes.

When fully implemented means is that you and your neighbor's A/Cs alternate being on, or your A/C and refrigerator don't come on at the same time.

Adjusting timing of individual house loads should not matter because they even out over a town of 10,000 people. Adjusting duty cycle is more important.

stevarooni: david_gaithersburg: What was that about conspiracies? (crickets)

Look, the police never abuse this kind of thing. And if they're investigating you, you're not innocent. It might be what they're specifically looking for, but you've doubtless done something bad, or they wouldn't suspect you at all! Warrantless search and seizure is just good police procedure.

My sarcasm meter it pegged all the way up and then broke.
/I think you owe me a new one ; )