Jared Blumenfeld: Sustainable future requires electrical smart grid

By Jared Blumenfeld - Special to The Bee

Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, April 27, 2008
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E5

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When it comes to global warming, the future is rapidly approaching. Electricity generation and distribution produces 40 percent of all the carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.

Despite a great deal of talk about climate change, the electric power industry's nationwide CO2 emissions have risen 5.9 percent since 2002 and a whopping 11.7 percent since 1997. We need energy solutions – and we need them now.

California has taken the bold step of requiring that 20 percent of all our electricity come from renewable sources by 2010 and is now looking at increasing that target to 33 percent renewable energy mix by 2030. This is excellent news. However, the grid that transports energy is itself part of the problem.

In the last two decades our society has been transformed by the processing power of computers and yet the energy-delivery system that feeds these technologies has not been modernized since its inception a century ago. Instead, more and more demand has been thrust upon an antiquated electrical grid. Today, 10 percent or more of all electricity distributed by utilities is lost from grid inefficiency – never reaching the consumer. It's like trying to run your iTunes software off the Commodore 64 in the garage. At some point you need to upgrade.

Information and communications technologies are becoming an essential driver of productivity improvements and innovation for the 21st century that will enable green innovations in buildings, energy production and use, and transportation.

Potential rewards of investing in real-time communications are significant. For example, a recent study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy demonstrated significant results from new "smart grid" technologies to monitor and adjust home energy consumption, reducing average household consumption by 10 percent. Proactive management of home energy use by consumers using this technology could reduce peak loads on utility grids up to 15 percent annually. In addition, the grid itself can be optimized to reduce overall power consumption by several percent without any change in consumer behavior.

The Electric Power Research Institute has defined a smart grid as "a power system that can incorporate millions of sensors all connected through an advanced communication and data acquisition system." This real-time analysis will enable predictive responses allowing utilities to "manage their load." Thus only electricity that is needed will be generated and distributed.

As more of us put solar panels on our homes and businesses, a smart grid is needed so the utility can integrate these renewable resources into the electric grid. Customers could be rewarded for producing renewable energy when it is most needed, or encouraged to reduce consumption at times when renewable energy supply is low, saving both costs and environmental impact. These types of integrated solutions can reduce CO2 emissions from the electricity grid by up to 25 percent. If precise, real-time management of the electricity load were in place, it could even eliminate the need for the controversial practice of utilities firing up costly, dirty peaker plants.

In a similar manner, as plug-in hybrid vehicles become more available (San Francisco just received its first three) a smart grid will help drivers charge their cars when energy is cheap and then be able to transfer excess energy back onto the electricity grid at peak hours (at a profit).

During the 2006 heat wave in California, hundreds of transformers failed. The outage affected about 80,000 customers over six days. Smart-grid technology would help utilities monitor key pieces of equipment such as transformers and provide the capability to take proactive action such as reducing load to prevent failures. It would also speed restoration of service by detecting outages and their underlying causes. This system of constant monitoring would allow proactive action to reduce the likelihood and impact of blackouts.

By making the electric grid just 5 percent more efficient nationwide, we would prevent emission of more than 275 million tons of CO2. This equates to taking 42 large coal-fired power plants off line, or 53 million cars off the road – forever.

Not surprisingly, the Energy Independence and Security Act, signed into law five months ago sets the implementation of a smart grid as the policy of the United States. And yet, California's three largest utilities – PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric – are about to spend $4.2 billion to install meters with limited communications capabilities that are not compatible with the requirements of a smart grid.

California urgently needs to adopt a policy that requires any new meter and communications network installed to be capable of the two-way, real-time communications necessary for the smart grid. Otherwise, we will be wasting money on old technologies and foreclosing the possibility of a smart grid in California for the next decade.

Texas, Ohio, Maryland, Spain, Italy and Brazil were not cradles of the Internet or renewable energy, but they are all deploying smart- grid networks today. Combating climate change will require investing in infrastructure. A smart grid platform is a critical next step in getting to a more sustainable future. California cannot afford to be left in the dark.