Posted on 08/04/2011 1:29:01 PM PDT by dila813
"Smart power grid monitoring that lets you pick the exact cheapest time to run the dishwasher or recharge your electric car may put too much power (so to speak) in the hands of the consumer, according to a new study by MIT. Researchers say that users receiving minute-by-minute pricing information might cycle off-peak power use more rapidly than utilities can spool up their power plants. In other words, it's OK if you're the only person charging your Chevy Volt at 2am in the morning, but if a whole town does it exactly the same time... there will be issues."
(Excerpt) Read more at hardware.slashdot.org ...
Guess the smart grid isn't going to make people's green dreams become a reality.
In the stimulus bill, there were billions in there for building out the nations smart grid.
Looks like they should have determined if it worked before building it. Not only that, people's utility bills have sky rocketed and people are reporting billing errors.
This came up on the news a few weeks back. I don’t care what the supporters think. If your car is communicating with the grid, it can collect other info and track you.
http://detnews.com/article/20110720/AUTO01/107200331/0/rss29/Energy-smart-grid-to-be-tested
It’s not billing errors. It is “surcharges” for daring to run your air conditioner when the temperature is over 100 degrees.
There has to be a certain percentage of “spinning reserve”, i.e. lightly loaded generators that are running at perhaps 10% capacity, that can take up the demand for power in a very short period. As long as you don’t have to increase the amount of spinning reserve, the rates will stay low in off peak hours.
Al Gore apparently lobbied for, then profited from, “Stimulus” smart grid subsidies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html
The problem is, the green idea is to have everyone on the smart grid so that you can choose to consume power when it is cheaper.
In their theory, that would be when the windmills are at peak capacity and the load is projected to be lower. The problem is, if everyone is on the smart grid, everyone will turn on their air conditioners and car chargers all at the same time.
Having 10% lightly loaded generators will completely destroy any possible cost savings that was going to be generated by having the smart grid in the first place.
In other words, more money down the toilet.
And now we are stuck with a worthless digital grid that just consumes more power than the analog one.
What’s wrong with putting the power in the hands of the consumer. We are paying for it. The government is doing it’s usual bad job. Texas had to buy energy from Mexico; at least that’s what they said. Here we have all this energy and they are buying foreign. How dumb can you get?
You should also add how long it takes to spin up a power plant from a cold start. Some natural gas “peaker” plants can come up quickly, but just about everything else needs time to spin up - hours upon hours of startup time.
It would be great if that were the fact in Texas now. They are talking rolling blackouts here if the demand stays where it has been the past few days.
One of the problems that has popped with Green Energy is the increased amount of Spinning reserve needed for a windless or cloudy day.
You have to keep the biggest generators turning because it takes hours and hours to start up a coal fired or nuclear powered generator.
All three of them? Does the Volt pull that many amps when it charges?
Hopefully the neighbors will charge their cars at a ‘2am’ that’s not in the morning. /s
***hours upon hours of startup time.***
From an absolute cold start it may take three days to come up to full load as there are several “holds” at lower loads to allow for the turbine-generators to heat up. It may take about 12 hours startup just to get to the point where you can put the lowest load on the unit.
“It is “surcharges” for daring to run your air conditioner when the temperature is over 100 degrees.”
That is not the only problem coming up. I saw a program on PBS’ Nova about the smart grid. Once all of our appliances have worn out and been replaced by smart appliances, the grid will be able to control the appliances. On a 100 degree day, the grid may throttle back your A/C regardless what you set the thermostat to. Less control in your life - isn’t it grand?
The reason I bring this up is because if Obama gets his way, there might be some coal-fired capacity that actually does go into seasonal cold shutdown.
I’ve never seen a bigger bunch of idiots in my lifetime than this administration. Not even Jimmy Carter. Jimmy was a piece of work, don’t get me wrong, but Obama is like having Jimmy as POTUS and Jimmy’s brother, Billy, as SecTreas.
Jerry Day Explains What Smart Meters Are And What You Can Do To Stop Your Electric Company From Putting One On Your House:
http://tinyurl.com/3kwa3e3
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