Photo Credit
Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan
Utilities are top-down.
Whenever I talk to utilities about Smart Grids and Smart Meters they always trot out the same speech. They want to use Demand Response for peak shaving and they want to implement it by having a mechanism whereby they can come in to their customer’s houses at times of maximum demand and turn down the settings on the aircon, immersion heater, etc.
Unfortunately this kind of traditional top-down, command and control attitude is more likely to turn people off Demand Response programs than to sell it to them.
I know that as a consumer I want to be able to program my appliances myself so that I decide when they turn on/off in response to price signals from the grid. The same is true for fridges/freezers and water immersions - I want them to change thermostat settings to take in electricity at times when energy is cheap and not when it is expensive by MY definitions of cheap and expensive.
I want control of my appliances. I do not want the utility deciding to come in and adjust or turn them on/off for me because it suits them.
Demand Response programs will be hugely beneficial to the utilities and consumers alike but they are complex to explain. If you couple that with the utility having control of your appliances they suddenly become a far harder sell.
Give customers more control of their electricity bill. Allow them reduce costs without reducing usage, by owner controlled, programmatic, time-shifting of consumption and suddenly Demand Response programs becomes an easy sell.
And when you couple that with how Demand Response will stabilise the grid facilitating greater penetration of variable supplies (i.e. weather-based renewables like wind and solar) and you have a win, win, win!
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Google.org is the not-for-profit arm of Internet search company Google.
After hearing about some of their initiatives, I was curious to learn more about Google.org. I contacted my friend Vint Cerf, Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist and asked him if he’d come on the show to talk about Google.org and Google’s sustainability projects.
Vint very graciously agreed to and so we have this video. Thanks Vint.
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The Energy Collective
This coming Wednesday, Nov 5th, sees the second installment in the
Energy Collective’s Fall Webinar Series!
Up next:
Wind and Solar Come of Age: Making Renewables Full Partners in Our Energy Future - Wednesday, November 5 @ 1 PM Eastern / 10 AM Pacific, Featuring Scott Sklar of The Stella Group and Tom Raftery of GreenMonk (that’s me!).
Scale, advances in technology, and the rising cost of fossil fuels mean wind turbines and solar panels are no longer novelties. But getting the most out of solar and wind involves more than new installations. In this Webinar, we’ll examine the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating peak-load, distributed power sources in our base-load-expectant society with an electrical infrastructure built for centralized generation. More info here.
And, don’t forget the final Webinar in the Series:
Decarbonization and Nuclear Power? - Thursday, November 13th @ 11 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Pacific, Featuring Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, Dan Yurman of Fuel Cycle Week and Ashton Poole of Morgan Stanley’s Global Power and Utility Group
This controversial energy source appears to promise massive benefits, but also presents some serious obstacles. Our panelists will explore the possibility of a nuclear future in America, discussing the costs of adding new nuclear plants, the potential impact of carbon pricing, and whether NIMBY politics and regulatory barriers can be overcome. More info here
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Many people have been asking me if there is a video of the presentation I gave at this year’s O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo available anywhere.
I asked the organisers but they said they hadn’t recorded it.
Then my good friend Andrea Vascellari came to the rescue. I knew he had attended the presentation but I was unaware that he recorded it.
He published the video above this afternoon so for all those who were interested, here you go…
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I spoke today at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin and the title of my talk was:
Electricity 2.0 - Using The Lessons Of the Web To Improve Our Energy Networks
The talk was about demand response, smart grids, renewables etc. and it received extremely positive feedback so I thought I’d share the slide deck here for anyone who may be interested.
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