Arizona Trialing System That Lets Utility System Control Home A/Cs 393
AzTechGuy writes "Arizona Public Service Co., Arizona's largest power company, is implementing a test program that would put customers' thermostats under their control to help balance power needs during critical peak usage times. APS will be able to remote control the customers' thermostats to control power draw from their A/C when there is a critical power transmission issue on the grid. Customers will be able to override these settings if they desire."
Since customers can override the system.... (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like a convenient method of limiting brown-outs. The privacy implications may be enormous for some but for others it will appear to be a good idea particularly since folks can override the system.
Re:Since customers can override the system.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Since customers can override the system.... (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't about AGW. It's about it being cheaper to make customers uncomfortably hot than to provide adequate power.
Idaho has done this for years (Score:2, Interesting)
Power 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
Roughly, the first 90% of the load cost is X, the next 9 to 10% cost is 10X. If you need to buy a remaining 1% on the spot market during a squeeze, the remaining 1% will cost 100X.
Being able to shed that top 1% can make a big difference.
Re:Only one problem I can see.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm guessing you've never owned a poorly designed, older home.
My old house had to be kept at 72F at all times, or the AC simply could not keep up. Once the inside temp was allowed to creep up even a few degrees, the AC would just run non-stop until it froze solid. Then you had to turn it off, open the windows, and live with 90+ degree inside temps until you could crank up the AC again the next morning.
I'm sure there are all sorts of expensive, technical solutions to this problem, but at the time, it was far cheaper to just keep the AC on all the time in the summer. I repeatedly told Xcel Energy to f*ck off when they tried to get to enroll in the AC switch off program.
Necron69
Re:Maryland already has this (Score:1, Interesting)
It is a 'great' idea 'economically' to the providers of electricity. They can get away with NOT building more power plants. Charge more for the same service. THEN turn around and turn it off and still charge you for it. Big deal I get 2-10 bucks off my monthly bill while I am roasting in the middle of the day. Then taking that same power they would have sold to you and selling it to that new shiney data center in your area for 2x the cost.
It is a monopoly. They are going to do monopolistic things to maximize profit. This is one of them. It is a simple money grab (do not let the small 'discount' fool you). They are not doing it because it is 'good for the environment.' Good for the environment would be building more nuke plants/solar/thermal and not wringing every last dollar out of the 1930's tech 40-60 year old coal/natural gas plants.
Re:Maryland already has this (Score:3, Interesting)
The credit on your bill is just a incentive to get the thermostat. The real saving is when you program you stat so your ac isn't cooling the house all day when your not around instead of having your old manual stat set to 15 deg C all day long.
Re:Since customers can override the system.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just thinking about this briefly, I can think of at least one concern (though not directly related to privacy). Power companies (at least in the US) have shown that they are unable to secure their infrastructure. So allowing them to 'control' your settings *might* be allowing an attacker to do the same (or worse).
Re:Maryland already has this (Score:5, Interesting)
While I can't quite tell if you're trolling or simply greedy, there's a certain logic behind your argument.
Right now, electricity cannot be economically stored, so generation capacity has to equal peak demand, or else someone gets browned out. Utilities go to elaborate lengths to estimate future demand, based on housing construction, industrial zoning, winter temperatures, summer temperatures, etc. They build right to the edge of what their predicted demand will be, and rely on peak plants to supplant their generation capacity during those times when they've guessed wrong. But those peak plants charge 30X or more than the average generating rate, so there's strong incentive to not use them.
What they're doing by all this penny pinching and building right to the edge of demand is they are thinning the tolerances. In the past, many things worked well or lasted long simply because they were massively overbuilt. For example, rather than fully study and understand the material strength of an aluminum engine block with steel cylinder sleeves, they cast the engine block out of iron. Rather than measure and predict the load to within 1% of future demand, they built a plant with double or triple the planned capacity. Those systems lasted a long time as a result, and people got very used to the high availability of their services.
And in case you were serious, the correct economic answer is yes, they should offer you the extra capacity, as long as you're personally willing to pay the price. My electric company offers demand pricing. Normal pricing is $0.11/kWH for household use, regardless of what you're using the power for. But if you willing to let them control your air conditioner, you pay only $0.055/kWH for all the electricity your A/C consumes throughout the year, plus they discount your bill by $10/month for June, July and August. Control consists of a rolling 15-minutes-on/15-minutes-off duty cycle during peak demand. My heat pump was controlled for a total of 90 hours last summer, and the difference was hardly noticeable. When my heat pump was cut in the winter, the gas furnace kicked in as needed. I save several hundred dollars per year on this program.
Re:Don't cry monopoly. (Score:1, Interesting)
In my province the power company has a government appointed monopoly. Generating your own power is subject to paying royalties to the company assigned to provide said power. If I generate solar energy I have to pay the equivalent to an energy tax to use it else be subject to fines. Explain how I can live off the grid, legally, in this system.
Re:Maryland already has this (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can override it, essentially all they're doing is informing you of power demand, not monitoring you without your consent or forcing you to do anything. Explain what oppressive totalitarian privacy-violating government regimes (i.e "Big Brother") have to do with any of this.
Perhaps they should just send me an SMS then - "We'd like to turn off your A/C for the next 90 minutes. Our bid is a $5 credit. Accept?"
Can bigger systems get advance notice? (Score:5, Interesting)
Residential systems usually don't have heat storage, but larger systems, with chilled water, often do. Some even make ice at night when power is cheap, to be melted during the day. It would be helpful to have a few hours advance notice of a hot period, so that the system could chill down an insulated water tank for use later.
Power companies generally have a load curve planned a day ahead. That info is available; here's PJM's dashboard [pjm.com], which tells you far more than you ever wanted to know about the power grid for the northeastern United States. (Load right now: 55,292 megawatts. 1,896 megawatts of that is wind power. Spinning reserves are 2,274 MW. Current trouble report: "As of 09:30 hours, a Non-Market Post Contingency Local Load Relief Warning of 11 MW in the Rachel Hill area of FE (PN) has been issued for Transmission Contingency Control. Post Contingency Switching: Open Roxbury at Shadegap, Close Threesprings at Shadegap, open Curryville at Claysburg, open Snakespring at Bedford North." Tomorrow's estimated peak is around 71 gigawatts, expected at 17:30 hours.) The estimation system uses historical data and weather reports, plus bid info from really big users. So one can plan a day ahead if your HVAC system has heat storage.
Routine control is exercised by financial means - all the players submit bids, which have a time range, a low output and price, a high output and price, and a ramp value. The control center crunches on these and decides who generates how much power. Large power buyers can bid, too; they have the option of saying how much they'll cut their load as the price rises. A big data center might choose to be a market player. When there are troubles, the control center can take "non-market actions", like the one above, but most of the time, the outstanding bids determine who does what.
California went too far in deregulation, and had electricity auctions every half hour at one point. There were brokers and dealers who were pure speculators, and this affected live power operations in real time. That caused so much churn that there were blackouts. So now, bids are for a day ahead, and the matching of supply and demand is algorithmic. All this data is public, to keep the markets honest. That's why PJM offers such detailed data about their power grid.
Re:Only one problem I can see.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Grandma's house has the exact same problem when the outside temp gets over 100F, since it can't maintain the 35+ degree deltaT without freezing up the A-coil.
We need variable-displacement AC units so they run efficiently when it is 85F outside, but also have the capacity to cool when it is 110F outside.
I'm in the same boat. Single-pane windows with aluminum frames. Limited insulation in the walls. Once the concrete slab gets heat-soaked, there is little hope of cooling off the house. At least it is only an issue for about 4~6 weeks of the year for my locale.
To fix it:
* double-pane windows with vinyl frames
* radiant barrier in the attic, and if really ambitious in the exterior walls
* install a dual AC system (i.e. 1-ton for efficiency and a 2-ton for heatwaves) or a compressor with a variable-speed DC motor
* wait 20 years for shade trees to grow
I don't relish the thought of spending $60k+ to do the upgrades right now, so there is an inexpensive window-AC installed to ride out the hot days.
Re:Can bigger systems get advance notice? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's funny. The last emergency message given, that you quoted, is for the area I'm posting from. Considering the general lack of life and/or economic activity in the area, I would like to know where the hell 11 megawatts is ending up.
Re:Can bigger systems get advance notice? (Score:4, Interesting)
That message just means that, due to some problem, the power grid as currently configured was one failure away from having to drop 11MW of load. This occurs when a line in the transmission system is out of service, and the remaining lines are carrying the load, but there's no redundancy. So orders are issued to close certain switches and open others, or to start up additional generators, so that the system is reconfigured to again allow for any single failure. PJM's control center is announcing, as a warning, who potentially gets dumped if they lose another resource. The area mentioned is not necessarily the cause of the problem. Actual load dumps are very rare; I think the last one in the PJM control areas was in 1997.
For Slashdot readers, it's like bringing a replacement disk on line when a RAID disk system loses a disk. The RAID system is still working, but there's now a single point of failure until a new drive is switched in.
Re:Maryland already has this (Score:4, Interesting)
They got this on my hot water....and I can't opt out or over ride. They report only using it for about an hour at a time, and only 2 or 3 days a year for the last few years though. Yes, peak demand during summer afternoons.
Phil
Just out of curiosity, how does that work? You can't override a system that sits in your house?
What do you get out of this deal? Can you just not pay your bill during your peak expense season? Quid pro quo, you know?
Re:Don't cry monopoly. (Score:0, Interesting)
Current prices put it at about $10k per adult for 100% solar power but that is if you are all electric.
A solar water heater makes more sense. One sized for a family of 4 costs under $4k and will knock 30-40% off of your utlities. (Again if you are all electric).
I plan on doing the solar H20 heater this year, and enough PV solar electric next year (to replace enough for 1 adult) to take advantage of all the rebates, before the government goes bankrupt.
They'll find it hard to tax my electric useage once it drops to zero.
Re:Don't cry monopoly. (Score:3, Interesting)
Most states, in addition to rebates and grants ( and federal ones) will give you extremely low interest loans.
So that 30k system ends up costing you about $15k over 7-10 years, or $150 - $200 a month. Then, you have basically no more utility bill, ever. (and still have 18 years of warranty on your solar panels...)
Re:Don't cry monopoly. (Score:3, Interesting)
After all the tax credits and such, our 7kW system was about $8k in Arizona. It makes about $1300/year in power at present electric rates, and has a 25-year warranty. If you can afford it, it's beats the living crap out of putting your money in a CD, even assuming we could get something more like historical CD rates these days.