Imagine driving your carpool to work in your solar-powered plug-in hybrid-electric car (seats six!) and parking in your usual spot in the ramp. After locking up, you plug your car into the standard outlet you use every day. Normally, it trickles a recharge into your battery allowing you to drive 75 miles without using gasoline. But today is the hottest day of August, and electricity is too precious to sell to you. So instead, you sell it to the utility at premium peak-demand prices that pays for your week’s commute.

That’s part of a smart grid, and it’s the future.

Electricity revolution
The electric grid gets smarter

Today’s electric grid is already pretty smart. The grid operator’s job is to balance the supply and consumption of electricity exactly, second by second. If she doesn’t, the grid collapses, and blackouts roll across the landscape. That requires a high degree of precision, computer control, and close attention to who’s using energy and who’s producing it. Historically, emphasis has been on controlling the big power plant output, but utilities are discovering it’s increasingly important to be able to control demand as well. In the future, the level of control will be increasingly refined so that every solar panel, every battery, every appliance is optimally managed for performance, price, and reliability. Sunshine coming through your skylight? The utility turns off your lamp.

Smart grid technology provides utilities with an intelligent network of distributed resources such as advanced electricity control devices, batteries, solar systems, and microgenerators that are located at the place of energy use—the home or business. This new high-tech electrical system allows utilities to take advantage of advanced clean energy generation technologies as well as energy management technologies on the customer’s side of the meter.

A simplistic example of this technology is Xcel Energy’s “Saver’s Switch” program. Currently 380,000 customers receive a 15 percent reduction in their electricity bill June through September, because the utility is allowed to cycle their air conditioner on and off. This saves the utility big money because it can buy less power at peak prices on the hottest summer days.

Most utilities have similar “demand management” programs that allow them to regulate a variety of appliances and heating and cooling units. Great River Energy has one of the highest percentage of customer air conditioners under their control of any utility in America.

Power to the people
Volunteers help manage regional electric grid

In the Pacific Northwest, this revolution has already begun. About 300 customers on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula have volunteered to take part in the GridWise Demonstration project. Customers will have advanced analytical tools, software, and other devices installed in their homes that will provide them with energy use and cost data. Researchers seek to know: will energy customers use less when it costs more?

In addition, computerized equipment will adjust non-essential energy use. For example, customers will have computer chips embedded in their dryers and electric water heaters that can sense when the power grid is under strain and briefly turn off the devices until the system can be steadied. If customers absolutely need to use power at peak-price times, they’ll pay more.

In this year-long study, homeowners who reduce their consumption during peak-price times can earn as much as $150.

Xcel takes a smart step
Utility makes early move on vehicle-to-grid technology

Xcel Energy is partnering with venture capitalists, industry analysts, elected officials, and technologists to potentially bring smart grid technology to their customers.

For starters, the company is currently converting six Ford Escape Hybrids into plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles. The cars are equipped with vehicle-to-grid power technology, so their high-tech batteries and the power system can easily exchange energy as needed. It’s one of the first demonstrations of its kind in the nation.

Smart grid technology will be one of the many tools needed to solve global warming and increase energy security. It has the potential to provide us with an intelligent energy system that will allow each of us to reduce our energy use as well as sell electricity to others. The potential impact of the smart grid is significant. By implementing the best available technologies, customers could potentially lower national electricity usage by 22.9 percent, according to a 2007 Brattle Group paper (pdf).

Fresh Energy is a nonprofit organization leading the transition to a clean energy system. One that supports the health of our economies, our people, and our environment while moving us toward energy independence. www.fresh-energy.org