Electricity Charges in a Smart Grid

Have seen nothing firm, but with sorta-smart grid currently installed in parts of US it is usually a rate decrease based on residential load-shifting to off peak hours.

A long way to say 2.

Just looked and they have 2 plans, each with it's own hours.

Only applies to Arizona, but example is here.

But descriptions I have heard of smart grid imply they want sufficient control to actually do active adjustments continuously with major appliances.

This concept predates computers. Back in the sixties Ontario Hydro had a device consisting of a tuned circuit and using power line carrier transmitted signals they would shut off water heaters during peak demand hours morning and evening meal prep times. I remember salvaging one of these to play with in late sixties. Later when I worked for a company manufacturing systems for power utilities we again explored this concept. This time using UHF radios and a group of appliances on a remote programmable switch. All of this predated the implementation of micro processor based metering. We did have an R&D group actively working on such meters in conjunction with smart billing. Such meters started showing up on consumers homes in the nineties. These days we have wireless meters so the meter reader doesn't even have to get out of his vehicle in rural areas to read meter.

Home owners will have to come up with energy management strategies to complement such metering. The electric plug-in vehicle concept is partly based on the idea of increasing base load in off peak hours to do useful work by storing energy for use in peak demand periods.

In Ontario Professor Scott became an early advocate of hydrogen power for the same reason. He reasoned that the nuclear power stations could deliver a huge amount of power for electrolyzing water into hydrogen and oxygen during nighttime when demand was lowest. The hydrogen would then be used in the daytime for transportation use. Not sure what he planned to do with the oxygen. compress it or just vent it to the atmosphere as a benign by product.

Further to the OP: the utility I worked for had a couple of schemes. Some industrial customers like a rolling mill and a heat treating plant had special metering to detect if their demand exceeded a preset limit. The duration, time of day and amount of this 'oveage" was then billed at a higher rate than the base rate.

Our industrial billing department had a dedicated and computer equipped vehicle that went round to read these specially equipped metering points.

Each power utility can control the basis for their own metering. With smart meters, this is even easier. If penalty metering is not effective enough, programmable switches can be installed. It is customary to give those subscribers who accept such switch control a preferential rate since they lose control of their appliance loads. They only know they may be deprived of its use during peak demand. If peak demand is cyclical and regular that is not a problem. You adjust household routine to accomodate lack of hot water during hours of X- Z or no Air conditioning during noon to mid afternoon or some such thing.

Thank you for your time . In the discussions today on Smart Grid - Energy Internet, we get an impression that the price changes are going to be frequent and not at designated time zones. New meters are capable of handling it Hence this query whether there will be more time zones in future Once gain thank you N T Nair

Thank you for your time and comments. In the discussions today on Smart Grid - Energy Internet, we get an impression that the price changes are going to be frequent and not at designated time zones. New meters are capable of handling it Hence this query whether there will be more time zones in future Once gain thank you N T Nair

I can tell you that there are years of data collected that represent 2 or 3 time periods during a 24 hr interval. On peak/Off peak and On peak/Mid peak/Off peak or On peak/Off peak/Super Off peak.

The start times for each period are determined by the normal load curve of the overall utility and the aggregate load curve for usage types or categories, usually not by an individual installation, mainly due to fairness related regulations. This can be a benefit or a drawback depending on the ability to shift load into other time periods.

With the advent of reliable automatic remote controll of aggregated smaller loads, this has opened up a world of possibilities, including considering these as biddable 'generation equivalent' in the day-ahead energy supply markets.

Thank you I am enriched by the wisdom of the respondents like you to my querry NT Nair

Look here:

http://www.pjm.com/markets-and-operations/energy.aspx

Edmund

Interesting site. It shows the prices for the wholesale power markets. These will likely be reflected in the retail prices we are charged at home. However, I doubt that our retail prices will track the wholesale hourly prices, but retail will vary perhaps just several times a day. That is, at peak times like before work, after work, etc when most of the power is used in a household. Ray

PJM is used by many utilities to decide if it is more profitable to buy this power wholesale off the grid or to generate it themselves. The small power producer now finds himself competing with the big boys when he wants to export his excess. Much of the power for sale comes from somewhat cleaner sources (mostly Hydro) and a lot of that is from Canada (in the US market)

Check out these guys:

http://www.icetec.biz/public/clientModel.htm

They partner with power producers for a "piece of the action" they have saved a lot of their clients a lot of cash.

Edmund

In India, at the wholesale (inter state & inter utility level) the power trade is done based on 15 minute interval. So, it must be prudent to fix the rates downstream also based on the same time interval (as and when such billing starts).

Saji P Varghese

In principle I agree with you- that retail prices should be reflective of wholesale prices so as to send the corrrect price signals to consumers. But perhaps an averaging of these 15 min. spot prices within the day would be more appropriate for retail consumers; that is, peak and off-peak. I just don't think that consumers would be inclined or would be able to respond to price changes every 15 mins. Although maybe in the future, with an appropriate home computer program and consumer-chosen power curtailment preferences, a household may be able to automatically respond to these short term spot prices.

Guest, you have stated this important concept quite clearly, and I will point out that each individual market place will have unique load curves, quite dependent on the end users.

However, even in the large industrial areas, such as southern California, the homes represent the largest portion of the customers and load usage. Factories must have workers, therefore homes, and not everyone works in the factory. Each individual home by itself is insignificant, but when taken as a group or in groups, they become quite significant.

The programs that have seen any appreciable benefit from controlling load at the home level have targeted the largest appliance, air conditioning, in aggregate and automatically remote controlled.

Most households have people who work, and therefore are not available at all times to make decisions about the electrical usage as the wholesale price fluctuates during the day. Pre-set cost limits or usage choices and automatic controls can be effective to some degree, but most average users are not experts at making these choices. It would be very challenging to offer a program based on individual choices, especially for many small intervals of time, that would evidence an individual savings in cost great enough to induce people to spend money to invest in the system, and then invest the time required to make choices and monitor the effects of their choices.

The simplest programs have the greatest participation and effect. Programs that have an intelligent design with simple choice parameters work best.

Being on the family members to always turn out lights is less effective than turning down the thermostat simply because the air conditioner represents a significant load compared to a light or two. Electric heating is also another major consumer that can make a difference when controlled differently or made more efficient.

It is much more cost effective to control the major items than spend large effort on many small items. With trees and other vegetation in the right places, air conditioning load is reduced greatly. Insulation and window design make a greater difference than turning down the thermostat. One of the greatest benefits of roof-top solar panels is that they block the direct sun from hitting the roof, which saves more energy than they make in electricity by reducing the heat energy that the air conditioner must handle, especially in the hotter climate zones.

Any appliance controlling equipment, Utility program or personal home control equipment will have to prove itself more cost effective than trees, insulation and window glass design. Making it complex and time consuming will not work in that direction in my opinion.

Regards, CJM

We use a computer program from Icetec. When we receive a "dispatch" we either start up or shut down a turbine(s). When we are increasing our power import the price is good for 2 hours. It would make little sense to be on a 15 minute price. The CT's would take a real pounding and since we use an electric motor to crank them we may get hit with demand charges. My plant is in the NE USA.

Edmund