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Why Smart Thermostats Should Be Part of the Smart Grid By Terry Mohn Mar 13, 2006 - 1:00:00 PM
On a hot summer day, your comfortable home is air conditioned at a cool 72 degrees. But when millions of other air conditioners collectively do the same thing, they can increase electricity demand beyond the power delivery system’s ability to provide, causing rolling brown-outs. Beyond the annoyance of blinking VCR clocks, those brown-outs cause traffic to snarl and businesses to close, creating an enormous, negative economic impact.
Choosing the right side The “traditional” view of the power delivery system includes generation, transmission, distribution, metering and consumption. Utilities search for ways to balance supply and demand on this enormous network to ensure all customers reliable energy supply. From the supply side, insufficient generation or congested transmission causes shortage. From the demand side, excessive consumption causes shortage.
Sure, we can work on the supply side. We can build more generation and more transmission... as long as it’s not in your backyard. Or your neighbor’s. Or anybody else’s.
And that brings us to the demand side. Many states plan to implement critical peak pricing rates that increase prices when supply is low and demand is high. Regulators believe time of use rates will encourage customers to use less electricity at times of peak demand. If utilities provided consumers tools to lower demand, maybe they can defer building new generation and transmission and perhaps electric bills can remain stable.
Communicating thermostats should be one of those tools, especially in regions with summer peaking due to air conditioning loads. Is it possible to automatically send a signal to thermostats increasing the air conditioning setting from 72 degrees to 76 degrees? Knowing we can easily listen to satellite radio, download ring-tones and GPS navigate through unfamiliar country, the technical challenges seem pretty low to send signals to thermostats.
As a result, communicating thermostats could be a relatively low-cost solution to a disruptive problem. They will be particularly attractive if the thermostat follows customer programming rules along with standard override signals. That is, if the thermostats allows customers to program conditions and exceptions to the standard rules, even if they are not home when the signal is given to raise the temperature.
Who pushes the button? But how do we send signals to millions of thermostats? Building codes may drive technology adoption and make it affordable to do just that. Manufacturers, regulators, utilities and consumer groups are working together to define how smart thermostats can communicate with utilities in the Smart Grid.
We are, however, facing an interesting dilemma. · Should the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission send a regional signal? The Energy Policy Act of 2005 has very plain language advising all states to begin building business cases for demand response technologies. · Should the state grid system operator send a state-wide signal to all thermostats in all counties? Preliminary suggestions from the California Energy Commission direct building standards to require a common AM/FM radio receiver built into thermostats for new construction. · Should the local utility send a signal within their service territory? The utility regularly develops demand response programs with customer satisfaction and grid stability in mind. Let’s not forget the utility is responsible for answering the customer telephone calls.
I don’t know the best answer to the question of who pushes the button. But regardless where that signal originates, electric bills can remain flat and the power delivery system can work more efficiently if peak electric usage is shaved on those hot summer days. Rolling brown-outs can become a thing of our past if smart thermostats communicating to a smart grid become part of our future.
Terry Mohn is Technology Strategist and Enterprise Architect at San Diego Gas & Electric. He is an active participant in the Intelligrid, GridWise, Modern Grid and Demand Response collaboratives. Prior to joining Sempra, Terry co-founded three Internet and broadband communications companies. Subscribe to our FREE eMail News Alert!
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