Smart appliance controller technology one step closer to market

1

Quick Take: From its headquarters in the backwaters of eastern Washington, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory hosts one of the nation's most comprehensive and impressive grid research efforts. (Disclosure: SGN chief analyst Jesse Berst sits on a PNNL advisory council). Just to illustrate how far ahead they think, the chip described below was first developed roughly a decade ago. And just to illustrate how hard it is to get great research from the labs to the marketplace, it has taken that long to find a commercialization partner.

There's another angle to this story. This chip lets appliances react automatically, without any intervention, to disturbances on the grid. If this approach was expanded and extended to other devices, it could lead to a new, more automatic form of demand-side management – one that would greatly reduce the need for complex demand response schemes and companies. – Jesse Berst

Controller technology from DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) should eventually help electric utility operators sleep easier at night. The Grid Friendly Appliance Controller (GFAC) technology is able to independently and automatically shut off smart appliances for a few minutes, or even seconds, which would help reduce stress on the grid during periods of peak demand.

And a Texas start-up tech company, Encryptor, has been granted a non-exclusive license by Battelle, the company that operates PNNL, to further develop the technology. Encryptor plans to incorporate it into an inexpensive electronic chip that can be easily built into appliances. The company estimates it will take two to three years of development before the chip is ready for marketing to appliance manufacturers.

"This technology has tremendous potential as a low-cost way of reducing stress on our nation's electricity system by making our everyday appliances better users of energy," said Cheryl Cejka, PNNL's director of technology commercialization.

PNNL invented the controller with funding from DOE and Battelle patented it in 2008. It senses grid conditions by monitoring the frequency and voltage of the system and gives automatic responses when power is disrupted or during grid emergencies. The chip can respond within fractions of a second, compared to power plants that take minutes to react.

Photo courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

More on this topic ...

Where the big money will be in smart grid (no, it's not meters)

Smart grid trend alert: Smart appliances will soon proliferate