The 'Radio Network of Things' Can Cut Electric Bills (Video) 172
We all love 'The Internet of Things.' Now imagine appliances, such as your refrigerator and hot water heater, getting radio messages from the power grid telling them when they should turn on and off to get the best electricity prices. Now kick that up to the electric company level, and give them a radio network that tells them which electric provider to get electricity from at what time to get the best (wholesale) price. This is what e-Radio is doing. They make this claim: "Using pre-existing and near ubiquitous radio signals can save billions of dollars, reduce environmental impact, add remote addressability and reap additional significant societal benefits."
Timothy noticed these people at CES. They were one of the least flashy and least "consumer-y" exhibitors. But saving electricity by using it efficiently, while not glamorous, is at least as important as a $6000 Android phone. Note that the guy e-Radio had at CES speaking to Timothy was Scott Cuthbertson, their Chief Financial Officer. It's a technology-driven company, from Founder and CEO Jackson Wang on down, but in the end, saving money is what they sell. (Alternate Video Link)
Timothy noticed these people at CES. They were one of the least flashy and least "consumer-y" exhibitors. But saving electricity by using it efficiently, while not glamorous, is at least as important as a $6000 Android phone. Note that the guy e-Radio had at CES speaking to Timothy was Scott Cuthbertson, their Chief Financial Officer. It's a technology-driven company, from Founder and CEO Jackson Wang on down, but in the end, saving money is what they sell. (Alternate Video Link)
Some town already did this (Score:2)
I recall an article a month or so ago about a town that had already done this, using high-bandwidth internet to determine energy use across the town. Unfortunately I can't remember the town or the company....
Illogical (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want my furnace to turn itself off at 2 am while I'm sleeping and it's 20 below outside. If everyone is using electricity at the same time, it's for a reason.
Re:Illogical (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want my furnace to turn itself off at 2 am while I'm sleeping and it's 20 below outside. If everyone is using electricity at the same time, it's for a reason.
But maybe you'd be willing to let the temperature in the house dip down to 65 degrees at 2am if it turned out there was a spike in pricing then... but it knows you want the temperature back up to 70 degrees by the time you wake up at 7am. The furnace is one appliance that has a lot of flexibility in exactly when it runs - most of the time you can shift its runtime by 15 minutes (or longer) without a noticeable difference in comfort, so you can take advantage of short-term power price fluctuations.
A naive setback thermostat might turn the heat on full-blast at 6:30am to warm the house by 7am, but a smarter thermostat that can look at power prices might warm the house back up to 70 degrees at 5:30am before the 6am peak pricing kicks in, saving you money.
Re: (Score:2)
The old thermostat arbitrage. I can imagine hackers remotely turning on and off mass numbers of air conditioners so that they can manipulate energy trading markets for profit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The way energy markets are organized makes sure that you will not 'save money' no matter what.
Those monopolies will want their money. Even if you burn no fuel - investment has been made. And less you use - longer they can be charging you.
Take 'smart meters' as example. At no point people getting smart meters were paying less. They were using less, and using at 'cheaper' time. But energy markets 'suddenly' rose to accommodate for that and make sure energy magnates get their bonuses.
Re: (Score:2)
The way energy markets are organized makes sure that you will not 'save money' no matter what.
Those monopolies will want their money. Even if you burn no fuel - investment has been made. And less you use - longer they can be charging you.
Take 'smart meters' as example. At no point people getting smart meters were paying less. They were using less, and using at 'cheaper' time. But energy markets 'suddenly' rose to accommodate for that and make sure energy magnates get their bonuses.
Whether or not you really save money over not having such a system in place is open to debate, but once utilities move to time-of-day pricing models, then consumers that don't reduce usage during peak pricing periods *will* pay more. So you can't just ignore the pricing and expect that you won't end up paying more.
Re: (Score:2)
No.
The point is that peak usage has fallen dramatically because of time of day pricing - majority doesn't ignore price that is 3x large.
But people still pay more year after year. Moreover, 'cheap' time is getting more expensive quicker than 'expensive' time. Probably because too many people started doing their laundry at night and energy companies want to recover their losses.
So all that 'smart' crap does is allows companies save on infrastructure (generating stations, pipes, wires, etc) - which is just bonus for the management in a short term. Like: key, we do not need to build this new power plant but still get same money from users - let's give ourselves huge bonuses.
At the same time average utilization of infrastructure grows. And this means that possibility 'statistical fluke' when too many people turn on their heating increases. And this means more outages. But with that smart crap that may say 'we are experiencing higher than normal load, so you'd better find another blanket'. And continue crank up prices.
Isn't that what I just said? Consumers may not be paying less overall with time of day pricing models, but regardless, they can't ignore time of day pricing or they will pay much more overall.
This article is about a technological solution to work within time-of-day pricing models, if your problem is that time-of-day pricing is just a way for utilities to charge more while reducing their costs, that's a political problem and you should bring it up with your regulators. (assuming that you're in a regulated el
Re:Illogical (Score:5, Informative)
It's not about turning it off when it's needed, it's about flattening the peak of the load curve by synchronizing run cycles. For example if your furnace needs to run 30 minutes out of every hour to maintain the set temperature (and so do all your neighbors), then the smart grid can synchronize the furnaces to run every other house for 15 minutes, then run the other houses, etc. This will smooth the load the power company has to deal with without anyone having a decrease in service. It removes some of the spiky demand associated with the random effect of appliances cycling on-and-off at will. Excess capacity can be scheduled to improve service for everyone and reduce the peak design requirements.
Re: (Score:1)
Law of large numbers pretty much makes sure of 'flattening' peak out for 'furnace on/off' cycles. There is no need for additional electronics for that.
Re: (Score:3)
On a very large scale (like an entire city) the random distribution does take over and level itself. However on a smaller scale, like a subdivision or a neighborhood the spiky effects are quite evident -- approximately one-third higher than in a similar area with controlled demand. Why does this matter? One reason is that it allows the utility to spend less on hardware like transformers and wires, which keeps the billing rate low. It also reduces the chance of peak load failure of transformers and break
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't want my fridge to turn off and all my food to go bad. How would that save me money?
I'm always impressed that so many professional engineers hate ACs so much that they would create a system just to upset them.
Re: (Score:2)
1984 (Score:1)
The government has shut off my frig because I do not agree with the president!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That was your first mistake (Score:5, Insightful)
No, we don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought that was sarcasm. Was I wrong?
To me, an FM broadcast of information that can be acted on or not, as I decide, is far superior to a ThingNet. Let the information be free and the action local.
Bonus points to the appliance manufacturers that implement standby, energy-saving and regular modes that take multiple factors into consideration, such as price, usage patterns, and performance optimization. This is stuff we should be able to do right now without always-on bidirectional communication between
Re: (Score:2)
I thought it was sarcasm, too.
no thanks (Score:1)
My appliances all work just fine without being connected to the interwebs. Seriously this is a stupid idea.
Re: (Score:3)
My appliances all work just fine without being connected to the interwebs.
If by "work just fine" you mean wasting energy and costing you more, then you are right.
I live in San Jose, California, and we already have (optional) peak pricing. I signed up for the "SmartRate" program, and it saves me about 20% on my electric bill. It is only in effect from June-Oct, and only from 2pm to 7pm. Anytime the price spikes, my AC shuts down automatically. I can turn it back on, but I don't, because I know what it will cost me.
Re: (Score:2)
If by "work just fine" you mean wasting energy and costing you more, then you are right.
You mean "smart meter" programs and all that jazz don't cost you money? Damn why has mine gone up 8% in the last 3 years since they brought this boondoggle into being here in Ontario. Well if it's on track(according to the forecasters), then by 2018 the electricity price here will have gone up by 20% oh joy!
Re: (Score:3)
Do you think that energy prices are NOT going up anyway?
Managing the grid well should help keep those price rises in check.
I could point you to the figures that the GB grid spends on balancing, and cutting that would be nice. A smarter grid with smarter appliances does that.
But wholesale fuel (eg natural gas) prices have had a far bigger effect over recent years.
So, was that a straw man argument?
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think that energy prices are NOT going up anyway?
That's the great thing about smart meters ... if you are a power company.
You get to work around the PUC tariffed rates by showing that *on average* electricity price haven't actually gone up, while increasing revenue by 20% without having to go back to the PUC and make any concessions to get the tariff changed.
Well, that and you can charge differential rates from what you pay for solar power generated when no one is home during the day to use it. That's a lot harder to do, if you used an electromechanical
Re: (Score:2)
Crude net metering is very crude economically for all sides as it does not allow microgenerators to charge a premium when their power is most valuable and it forces the 'grid' to buy it at retail rates all the time even when it is not valuable. You're solving the wrong problem. There are examples of how to fix the politics and the economics.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:1)
If by "work just fine" you mean wasting energy and costing you more, then you are right.
I like my water-wasting toilet, thanks. These no-flow toilets are absolute garbage. If I have to route wires to tell my utility company how many times I have to flush, that starts encroaching on "personal information".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My appliances all work just fine without being connected to the interwebs.
If by "work just fine" you mean wasting energy and costing you more, then you are right.
I see these things (energy use / cost) as disjoint, but then I am pro nuclear power, and think that we should build as many plants as 150% of what we need for peak demand, and when it's a time where there isn't peak demand, use the extra power to desalinate water for Los Angeles so that the people who live in that fricking desert don't have to steal it from Northern California and Colorado.
I also am amazingly pissed off when the PG&E commercial comes on the radio:
PG&E: "Hello, PG&E, can I help y
Re: (Score:2)
That's an illogical reaction. Gas stations won't charge you less for using the same amount of gas. Your cable bill won't go down when you have the same channel package. (Yes, many of us want a la carte, but that's the moral equivalent of "use less electricity".)
Re: (Score:2)
That's an illogical reaction. Gas stations won't charge you less for using the same amount of gas. Your cable bill won't go down when you have the same channel package. (Yes, many of us want a la carte, but that's the moral equivalent of "use less electricity".)
It's an artificial scarcity used to inflate value. Generating "just enough" electricity, rather than "more than enough", when you are using a nuclear plant, is more about what you do with the heat (do you turn it into electricity, or do you shunt it to the cooling towers, because you can't throw it on the grid), rather than whether or not the heat is going to be relatively constant, unless you are in a changeout cycle.
Thankfully your ala carte cable is coming to pass (i.e. the unbundled ability to get some
Re: (Score:2)
That's an illogical reaction. Gas stations won't charge you less for using the same amount of gas.
Unused gas can be stored and sold later. Many things cannot be stored. The price of tomatoes can vary greatly depending on when you buy them. Cheap in the summer, expensive in the winter. Electricity is more like tomatoes than gas. It is cheap in the middle of the night, and more expensive in the early afternoon. So if you want to pay less for electricity, sign up for peak pricing, and shift your usage patterns.
Re: (Score:2)
"That's an illogical reaction. Gas stations won't charge you less for using the same amount of gas. "
My gas usage is roughly unchanged from week to week. The price of gas goes up - max was about $3.97/gallon.. The price of gas goes down- currently $2.17/gallon. So you are VERY wrong about energy price fluctuations. The amount of gas required to move me and my vehicle to work and back is very much the same. So it is not an illogical reaction. Demand for oil dropped, but not in proportion to the drop i
Re: (Score:2)
So you live in San Jose, and don't use air conditioning between 2:00 and 7:00 during the summer? I'm sorry, but a simple programmable thermostat could do the same thing.
No, I don't run the AC on particular days at particular times, that are AT MOST 2 to 7. Also, the programmable thermostat doesn't provide me with a rebate for participating in the program. Instead it would cost me money, since I would have to buy it.
Re: (Score:2)
They have this thing called a switch. You can plug your appliances into the switch and when you leave for work you can turn all the switches off - except of course for the refrigerator and the freezer. I don't know about San Jose, but everywhere I've lived the AC/Heater unit has a switch that turns it off. So you can drastically remove your electric usage without giving control and access to some company. If they are paying you on top of that for participating in a program, then they are using that info
Actually makes sense (Score:1)
This actually makes sense; no big brother, one way transmission of pricing information. However, this does assume that you have a smart meter and an electricity provider who has dynamic pricing.
Silly assumptions. (Score:3)
My refrigerator needs to maintain a consistent temperature to prevent spoilage. Turning it off to save electricity is a daft idea. Same goes for my furnace -- where I live, it can hit -35C in the winter and frozen pipes are a real risk if the furnace is shut off for a few hours in the middle of the night. Automatically dimming the living room lights and turning off computers and TVs wouldn't really work, either. ;)
Re:Silly assumptions. (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither your house nor your fridge maintain an absolutely constant temperature; they cycle in a "deadband" about a set-point.
Neither your house nor your fridge instantly go to pieces thermally if you cut the power; they both have (valuable) thermal mass.
Simply widening the deadband a little, too little for there to be any functional difference, and probably for you to never notice, can make a significant difference to the grid and to your bills. The point is to slightly adjust an automatic cycle that you pay no attention to anyway to better share a scare resource.
People who are prepared to let these things happen are likely to have bills significantly, even 3x in some predictions, lower than those that don't, in a matter of a few years in some cases.
Rgds
Damon
PS. I have skin in the game. The OpenTRV project that I lead (http://opentrv.org.uk/ and http://www.earth.org.uk/open-s... [earth.org.uk] for a more geeky page) aims to as much as halve space heating costs and footprint by this sort of trick while aiming to *improve* comfort by delivering heat when it is actually needed/wanted. There will also be a simple tie-in with the grid that could save up to ~2GW of peak electricity demand from UK domestic *gas* space-heating systems without most people ever noticing. That's bigger than our biggest nuke.
Re: (Score:3)
Is there really that much room in the deadband on a refrigerator that we can save significant amounts of electricity? We're talking about food spoilage here; letting the food get above 40F can be potentially lethal.
I'm not an engineer, but I am a cook, and we are extremely careful about the amount of time food spends in the danger zones. We're cautious, to be sure, but we have to consider the case of the most-susceptible people. I don't know how much room there is to slacken the parameters, and I'm sure the
Re: (Score:2)
So, think of the converse; when the grid has capacity to spare and/or power is cheap pull the set-point *down* a little and let your fridge's thermal mass ("coolth") help it stay off a little longer without worry during the next peak. There is a market in being able to respond within a couple of seconds of grid wobbled and for reducing demand for as little as 30s; all well within the normal operations of your fridge compressor (ie delaying running it 30s from usual may be necessary for other reasons anyway
Re: (Score:2)
A fridge really does not have that much of a thermal "band" where the temps can safely change.
If it gets above 40 or so then some nasty bacteria can grow, below about 31 or so then your lettuce will freeze. The temp sensors in fridges are not that great, so they usually swing up and down by about 5 degrees or so even when you don't open the door.
No, the fridge is not a good idea of an appliance to change based on electric costs.
Re: (Score:2)
1) It is already being done.
2) A better engineered device is capable of doing a better job. It costs me pennies to get a low-power sensor with precision of 1/16 C. That's bags of headroom.
3) I don't necessarily accept the narrowness of the band you claim, but that's by-the-by.
4) Don't forget the freezer.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Could you point me to one? Last time I was looking for them, they all seemed terribly inaccurate (errors of 1 - 2 degrees Celsius IIRC).
Re: (Score:2)
TMP112
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you!
Re: (Score:2)
So, I'm all in favour of efficiency, but it's invariably seen as some kind of left wing conspiracy at least in the US and UK in certain sections of the population and politics.
Thanks to that improved efficiency my (somewhat larger and nicer) fridge/freezer uses half the energy of my previous one and I don't call being gouged on price, for example, though I remain cross with some misrepresentation by the manufacturer.
Our government has been rather cynically watering down building efficiency standards for ver
Re:Silly assumptions. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Simple experiment:
Take an empty refrigerator, cool it down for, say 24 hours. Watch the temp stabilize. For bonus points, put a recorder on the temp probe and watch it go up and down (the deadband that DamonHD is talking about).
Now, turn the power off for 5minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, several hours.
You will notice that at short time frames there will be very little temperature excursion, basically within the deadband. Certainly, longer times of no power are going to affect the temperature but no one
Re: (Score:3)
It may be cheaper to drop the setpoint down when power is comparatively cheaper (and how much cheaper are we talking -- a couple of cents per kWh?) but it is it more energy efficient to drop the setpoint down so that it can cycle less and gain temperature above optimal when the power is more expensive? Eg, if optimal is 36F and I drop it to 34 when power is cheap but let it rise to 38 when its expensive only to need to drop it back to 34 when its cheap.
In my experience, doing something similar with my cent
Re: (Score:2)
The physics is very simple here: not heating/cooling your house takes less energy than doing so constantly, and many heating/cooling systems will work more efficiently somewhere near their maximum output.
If you let temperature drift too far from the set-point that you want then your system may struggle to get back there in time, but it is possible to work back from the set point and time and have the system work out when to come on to get you there ("optimum on" in trade jargon), and also thus the furthest
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds as if the real win would be to build functionality into the device. Many refrigerators use the freezer as a cold store. The objects inside are frozen, and there's more latitude to lower the temperature still more without further damage as long as it remains frozen.
So you could lower the setpoint when electricity is cheap, then use that to drive the refrigerator when electricity is expensive.
I don't know if this is feasible or cost-effective; it would require more electronics (my fridge is dumb) an
Re: (Score:1)
Think about how opening the door on an oven or refrigerator affects temperature. This is a spike/drop that you want to recover from immediately to get back in the deadband, and professional appliances are optimized for this.
Now think about a refrigerator where you know the door won't be opened between certain hours. You can widen the deadband a bit as you won't be recovering from temp spikes, and so can handle a wider range without spoilage. Think of it as the compressor running more slowly during off-ho
Re: (Score:2)
You are wrong.
The change from selling more energy to selling services which happen to involve energy is called "decoupling", eg selling streetlighting rather than the energy to run street lights. The market is already changing and demand falling and utilities are up sh*t creek if they don't change to avoid a "death spiral".
Eg http://uk.reuters.com/article/... [reuters.com]
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Have you looked at the credit ratings of, for example, the big EU utilities?
The tone of your text is unnecessarily harsh and I think that you are also completely wrong factually.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
It needs to be between 32F and 40F (0C and 4.4C). The ideal temperature is 35F (1.7C). So the idea is that you would set it for 35 and if there's an electricity price spike, the setpoint would temporarily change to 40 to save you money.
Re: (Score:2)
Something's wrong if your pipes will freeze with the furnace off for a couple of hours.
I also live where it can hit -35C (although -30C is more common) and I have my thermostat automatically setback to 60F at night and unless it really is -30C, the inside temperature never hits the setpoint, usually sinking to the low 60s from a normal setpoint of 69.
In my experience in order to freeze pipes, your furnace would have to be completely off for many hours, in extremely cold temperatures (-30 or colder), your ho
Not so silly assumptions. (Score:2)
Refrigerator: You actually have a range of acceptable temperatures. Generally speaking 15 minutes is only going to make a degree or so difference in a quality unit.
Furnace: Again, your furnace should actually be off more than it's on, even at -35C, and 15 minutes to an hour shouldn't make much difference.
You don't mention your water heater, which I don't know if it's electric or gas, powered by your furnace or not. But many are electric, and it's not something that needs to be kept at the exact same temp
No thanks. (Score:2)
Now imagine appliances, such as your refrigerator and hot water heater, getting radio messages from the power grid telling them when they should turn on and off to get the best electricity prices.
No, I think I'd rather maintain control over my own appliances and climate control. Even people in crappy motels get to choose when their own heating and cooling runs in their room.
Re: (Score:2)
Not within the deadband/hysteresis of the thermostat they don't.
Rgds
Damon
Re:No thanks. (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, but that's just straw-man paranoia.
Almost all of these schemes (a) adjust within a preference (b) allow you to override and (c) don't allow anything to be broken remotely. And you can stay out of them entirely. In fact these schemes don't need everyone to participate nor in the same way. But if you play passive-aggressive you're going to get some oversized bills for no gain in effective control or comfort.
Conversely there are plenty of dumb pure-commercial solutions out there. Including the one with fixed user name and password "admin" and "1234" exposed to the Internet. No "government" nor "utility" involvement in that one.
In our case you set a desired base temperature and any adjustments are relative to that, so you can be as warm or cool as you like relative to the next person.
We also take security seriously and will not allow any remote access however much the bling might sell it until we've had enough scrutiny to get it right.
A well engineered system should actually improve comfort and control while being deft enough to slip in savings.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Slippery-slope arguments are rather weak by themselves: what happened if we were to accept any old slippery slope argument, what would happen next?
However, it is true that the energy system is changing, since for all sorts of reasons we can't carry on as we were; one element of the new system will be trying to get people to use preferentially energy when it is abundant and defer use when it is not. ToD pricing and dynamic demand are two likely elements of that.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to claim absolute rights to kill or maim others in order not to bother putting a sweater on, then I'd go along with that.
The world is not binary and we don't have absolute rights to do unnecessary things that hurt others.
72F is warmer than I would like a house, and might be foolish if you haven't bothered insulating and/or are expecting others to subsidise you, eg with external effects of burning coal on their health, but I can't really see 72F as being a felony on its own.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, what we're working should give extra savings on top of district heating (where it makes sense, which is not everywhere). An early installation was in a flat on a district heating system in Denmark...
Rgds
Damon
Lowest prices? (Score:2, Informative)
My utility charges me the same rate day or night. The time of day that my equipment turns on has no bearing on my final bill.
Re: (Score:3)
As it does currently for most of the UK retail market, but that is hardly universal and is not true already for many non-domestic customers.
Time-of-use charging will become increasingly important and widespread, and people who roll with it will save serious cash (and help the grid).
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Silly consumer.
You thought this was about saving you money?
Re: (Score:2)
Been like this for decades.
Benefits are Overstated (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, the government has acted irresponsibly with the powers it already has. Giving them the ability to remotely control our appliances is a terrible idea. We have to fix the problem with the unaccountable government and lack of societal trust before we start even thinking about these sorts of pie-in-the-sky, cooperative efforts which require a VERY high amount of accountability by those in control.
Second of all, even if the government can be trusted, the companies that will build these things will not take security seriously. I won't say maybe; I won't say possibly. Definitely. These things will definitely not be secure. Most companies still think they can just take a half-hearted crack at security, let marketing make it sound impermeable to the masses and act surprised when it comes out that the security was crap in the first place. It's pretty much the industry model at this point.
Finally, and most importantly, it's not even clear that smart meters will have the intended effect [theconversation.com], that people adjust usage. As another commenter pointed out, when everyone is using electricity at the same time, there is usually a reason for that.
My fear is that these devices will be forced upon the public (they already are forcing the "smart" meters on us), and when the evidence is gathered that consumers don't adjust usage voluntarily, it will be done by force. And, the government does absolutely nothing to make me think this won't happen. Why should we, the public, accept this?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I never said that the technology itself is evil. In a world with a trustworthy government and corporations which care about security, this could be an amazing technology. I am a security professional. It's not enough to merely evaluate what the product does. We have to evaluate what other things it COULD do once installed. Western governments are famous for scope creep with their technological endeavors. And, western corporations are famous for their sleaziness.
No radios needed. (Score:3)
The Summary says "Now kick that up to the electric company level, and give them a radio network that tells them which electric provider to get electricity from at what time to get the best (wholesale) price"
That's crazy. There are already organizations called Independent Systemm Operators (ISO) that run real time auctions to do thst function. They have been operating since the 1990s. No radios are needed. They have had high reliability communications methods for many decades.
There are certain appliances that this works for (Score:2)
But to be honest, 90% of the time, a simple mechanical clock works better than the crap they suggest.
Yes, you can save a small percentage by setting certain equipment, including your heater and refrigerator to switch to low power mode when power is expensive. Basically this expands the range by a couple of degrees. But the amount of money saved is not worth the HUGE invasion of privacy.
Especially not when simply improving your insulation will sa
Re: (Score:3)
1) There are respectable predictions that those who ignore peak-based savings will have bills 3x higher than necessary. We only recently got rid of peak-time phone charges 3x off-peak, so hardly impossible. And wholesale prices can certainly vary by more than 3:1.
2) There is no invasion of privacy necessary at all. Listening to mains frequency is a decent clue as to when to widen a temperature deadband for example.
3) Why wouldn't you do insulation AND other measures? I have taken several and have energy
Re: (Score:2)
As I'm pointing out in the (real) situation that I am describing there is NO network connection nor data flow to or from the appliance. There's a multi-million mount market out there already working on that basis. Possibly multi-billion.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
You can only adjust the frequency of the whole grid by adding or removing gigawatts of load (or generation)! Or have the same effect by cutting into someone's mains supply and mucking around with it directly, in which case they might as well blow up all the target's stuff outright!
So the point is is possible to do some stuff with *NO* additional comms or security hazards, and some with some highly secure comms and very constrained changes in behaviour with those comms across the Internet or not. All are u
Glamor for Nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
But saving electricity by using it efficiently, while not glamorous, is at least as important as a $6000 Android phone.
Especially if you're trying to pay off a $6000 Android phone.
Assumptions (Score:3)
Most people are commenting about Demand Response - appliances delaying to lowering usage at peak prices. That is not what this is about.
This is about having multiple power companies, and switching between them based on price. Interesting idea, but that assumes that a person even has the option of a second power utility. The vast, vast majority of places in the US have a single, monopoly power utility.State government controls such things, and they are not easily changed.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't even have to be about lowering 'total' usage at peak times, it may simply be about moving usage away from times of grid distress. That's worth very roughly £100k/MW in the GB market, for a few hours per year of displaced (not reduced) consumption.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Goodness, that's rather offhand and completely wrong at lots of levels.
Clearly there a peaks at national and supra-national level. Have a look at some of these for just one example:
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/b... [bmreports.com]
Flattening demand would reduce costs of infrastructure that otherwise has to cope with unrestrained peaks; we already do this so it is only a matter of degree and where exactly we do it. Further, allowing demand to follow non-dispatchable load will also help make better use of renewables as well
Radio communications from electric company? (Score:2)
Now kick that up to the electric company level, and give them a radio network that tells them which electric provider to get electricity from at what time to get the best (wholesale) price.
Why would the electric company need a radio network to communicate with household appliances? They already have a hardwired connection!
Re: (Score:2)
Over which attempts to transfer data have not been an unalloyed success (ask radio amateurs, for example)...
Rgds
Damon
PS. There are clues available to appliances just listening to grid frequency on that hardwired connection, I agree, but that is not the entire story.
Re: (Score:2)
I've done signalling over A/C wiring with my own homemade devices, although not outside a single building. From my experience with home Ethernet-over-Power devices, it sometimes doesn't work where more than one electrical panel is traversed.
Nevertheless, there is an entire industry devoted to Broadband over powerline (BPL) [wikipedia.org], and it reportedly works for smart meters.
Re: (Score:2)
And as I say, it has very mixed results. Not all good, not all bad. But also a lot of RF pollution.
Rgds
Damon
Missed opportunity (Score:1)
Where do you get that "We" stuff? (Score:1)
No, We do not all love it. I hate the concept of internet of things...
distributed storage would be better (Score:2)
Been down this road. Used to live in MN, the power company there came up with this idea of the "Savor Switch" they'd discount your electric bill if they could shut off your AC for short periods.
It gets F'ing hot on prairie sometimes, if you let the inside temp rise the AC could never catch up because on hot days it would rarely cycle off (yes probably should have had a higher tonnage unit). Long story short the switch came off! It sucked, when the power company could it always shut the thing down when y
Re: (Score:2)
Storage is still expensive, but is competing against demand response in that market.
I have been pricing up MW-scale batteries for an electricity company for precisely that role.
Rgds
Damon
No Cheap Power (Score:2)
A fundamental problem with this is that there is no "Off-Peak" cheap power in a lot of places. We just have one utility rate, which is higher than anywhere else in the country based on what I hear from other people. Many people don't have an off-peak rate so this becomes just one more costly gadgeting of the appliances that makes them more expensive and use just a little bit more power to run, multiplied by millions.
Re: (Score:2)
Your utility rate still implicitly contains a cost for providing peaking power and frequency support amongst other things.
If your appliances do some of the work silently then some of those costs go away for your supplier / ISO.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry but you missed the point. There is no peak power and no off power benefit. I've discussed this with our utility energy efficiency guy. He said they just don't see that around here. However adding this circuitry to the equipment is going to cause it to consume just a little more power. Multiply that little more times millions of devices and pretty soon that is a lot more power being consumed. The result is that the savings won't be as great as they think.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know your situation and location of course but it it highly likely that your utility guy is simply wrong. I'd be most surprised if any significant grid does not need "balancing" services of some sort. Some of those can be provided centrally or distributed over appliances. Both have some costs in terms of energy, and both have other cons and pros.
Tell me more about your service district; I'm intrigued.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Small coop utility.
Northern climate so no high summer or day demand from air conditioners.
Day and night demand for them is about equal.
He, the guy at the utility, is their expert on this topic and has been there for decades. Very knowledgeable.
I'm more incline to believe him than a random person on the net who doesn't know the local scene.
In any case, I'm still wary of adding one more 'smart feature' to appliances that is going to increase their energy consumption a little for that, increase their failure r
Re: (Score:2)
We don't have peak demand from aircon in the UK (GB grid) either. Ours comes on (winter) evenings when, for example, meals are being cooked for kids home from school.
Do you have a link to your utility's site?
Yes, of course you shouldn't take my word on spec over your local guy's, but I'm stubbornly continuing to assert that your local load profile can't be completely flat and with rock-steady frequency even if not as tortured as elsewhere.
For reference here's my 'local' grid (GB) live balancing stats:
http: [bmreports.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it isn't completely flat but not worth doing peak vs off-peak. They are able to vary the output of the generators. They have their own generators for most of the power we use in our local utility. It comes off of solar, wind and largely methane from landfills which would otherwise be burned off or gas off to the atmosphere.
I'm just wary of the over complications. When devices become more complicated they use more power and break down more often having shorter lifespans. That's a big cost both in t
Potential for innovation! (Score:2)
Now we can get new patents for all those things "on the Internet" by using "over a radio"!
Thanks for caring, but... (Score:2)
I want my fridge to remain at the temperature to which I set it, I want to be warm when I am active (or cooled in the summer), and I want my water to be hot when I need it, not when you think it's good for you.
IoT is a solution looking for a problem (Score:2)
where the fuck do these idiot boosters get their moronic examples of how wonderful IoT would be? nobody would want their fridge to turn off if the electricity price went up.
my fridge needs to keep things cold even if the price of electricity goes up for a few hours.....ruining hundreds of dollars worth of food to save 10 cents on electricty is not a good idea. food poisoning's no fun, either.
Pre-existing signals. (Score:2)
Yes. if they told me that t oconnect the fridge you build a new network, i would have declared them mad.
OTOH: I worked in a related topic and we figured that the biggest part of the potential savings could be implemented by a timed switch, and a little thought. It's not like the the time of the peak consumption in a country changes day by day, usually you should think about decades.
(The 80-20 rule also applied here: do the simple measures first, and get the biggest part of the saving)
Flawed logic (Score:2)
First of all, devices in the private house don't suppose to be turned off and on at random. My refrigerator needs to be run 24/7, my heater needs to be run at day, my lamps need to be on by night, my computer, TV, radio, etc. needs to be on when I need it. There is no point in turning them on and off base on the price of the power. It would make sense if I could store the energy at a cheaper point in time and use it later.
Second, if everybody have that then the price will just average out and nobody will ge
Re: (Score:1)
...and now my beer is warm :(
Maybe the location sensor thought you were in the UK?