Carl Imhoff: We expect by 2050, in about 40 years, for the demand for electricity to double.
That’s Carl Imhoff, an electrical engineer with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, located in Washington State. Imhoff’s research is part of a multi-billion dollar effort, paid for with both public and private dollars. The goal is to modernize the electric grid in the U.S. into what’s being called a ‘smart grid.’
Carl Imhoff: The smart grid refers to taking advantage of the new digital age and bringing it to the electric infrastructure. The grid that you look at today hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years.
Imhoff said homes and businesses on the smart grid will have new meters that constantly communicate electrical use via the internet with utility companies. On a website, consumers can see how much energy they use at any given moment, even at night, and turn things off if they want to save on their bills.
Carl Imhoff: For every unit of electricity that we get, we have to use three units of energy to get it, just because of the inefficiencies in combustion at the power plant and then getting it over the wires to where you can actually use it. So the quickest way for us to reduce energy use and to reduce energy imports is to improve the efficiency of our overall end-use activities.
In other words, use of refrigerators, lights, laptops — anything that, somehow, plugs into the grid.
Carl Imhoff: Historically, people’s meters were read by someone who drove up in a truck once a month to see how much electricity they used. And the people inside the home had no ability to know what was going on in terms of the price of power, the availability of power, etcetera. So that was really what I would call the ‘dumb’ side of the grid. And today there’s new digital equipment, whether it’s smart meters, or smart thermostats, linked with broadband communications, that provide two-way communication to the meters such that the company will know in real time if the meter is out, if there’s an outage. Out at the home, the consumer will know what maybe the price signals are, what incentives they might have to adjust some of their use patterns, etcetera. That’s really the transformation, of getting that two-way communication to the home.
Our thanks to Carl Imhoff
Carl Imhoff is the director of the Electric Infrastructure Market Sector at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. He directs the R&D portfolio for a wide range of power systems research in support of the US Department of Energy as well as other government and commercial clients. He also serves on steering committees for the North American Synchrophasor Initiative and the USDOE Transmission Reliability Program.
This seems to be truly a case of the King having no clothes. I see no plans to repeal Ohm’s Law, and since the inefficiencies in transporting electricity over transmission lines are the primary inefficiencies, and derive from Ohm’s Law, I can only conclude that this is some kind of techno-con to convince the U.S. government to give billions of dollars to people who will do essentially nothing to improve our energy situation.
This money would be much better spent on something where it could be applied to a problem which could actually be solved, and which would have a useful effect on our energy problems.
What kind of idiocy is this, and how can we prosecute those who are promising that this will have any useful effect???
Thank you.
—A Concerned Electrical Engineer
This seems to be truly a case of the King having no clothes. I see no plans to repeal Ohm’s Law, and since the inefficiencies in transporting electricity over transmission lines are the primary inefficiencies, and derive from Ohm’s Law, I can only conclude that this is some kind of techno-con to convince the U.S. government to give billions of dollars to people who will do essentially nothing to improve our energy situation.
This money would be much better spent on something where it could be applied to a problem which could actually be solved, and which would have a useful effect on our energy problems.
What kind of idiocy is this, and how can we prosecute those who are promising that this will have any useful effect???
Thank you.
—A Concerned Electrical Engineer
This seems to be truly a case of the King having no clothes. I see no plans to repeal Ohm’s Law, and since the inefficiencies in transporting electricity over transmission lines are the primary inefficiencies, and derive from Ohm’s Law, I can only conclude that this is some kind of techno-con to convince the U.S. government to give billions of dollars to people who will do essentially nothing to improve our energy situation.
This money would be much better spent on something where it could be applied to a problem which could actually be solved, and which would have a useful effect on our energy problems.
What kind of idiocy is this, and how can we prosecute those who are promising that this will have any useful effect???
Thank you.
—A Concerned Electrical Engineer
fred,
come down, don’t blow a fuse. having spent 30 yrs in the metering business, this type of device only makes sense.
Electrical rates will fluxuate with the time of day.
Use electricity during off hours and save money and the
environment. you will be able to log on to your electrical
bill and see in real time what you can save.
fred,
calm down, don’t blow a fuse. having spent 30 yrs in the metering business, this type of device only makes sense.
electrical rates will fluxuate with the time of day.
use electricity during off hours and save money and the
environment. you will be able to log on to your electrical
bill and see in real time what you can save.
Great idea, which when run by bureaucrats will result in a disaster. An expensive disaster. With this technology the government will know exactly what you are running in your house and will either attempt to control your electrical use or come in and confiscate equipment they don’t like. More centralized control, palmed off as an energy saving, environment saving good deed. Be very afraid.
fred,
you are just right on that. what is the point of having meters that could relay to you on your usage?. yes there is an effect but the outcome is very insignificant since the method used in getting that power hasnt changed. what we need essentially is a change of method in which minimal enrgy would be used and ability to recycle the same. the govt. should take incentives on such projects in the future. those cons should also be stopped from bringing up such ideas that would cost the taxpayer and yet not give a significant out come.
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If we are really concerned about our energy future, we would start building nuclear power plants right now. We would also build fossil fuel plants right now. We would encourage folks to get off the grid to some extent as well. However, that is not what the problems really are. We have the technology to do many things. We, also have runaway government spending that has removed capital from the private sector where it could be used to build useful assets. There is only so much money around at a given time. It represents the value of goods and services in existence. When the government first, steals the money and takes it out of the private sector, the money is not exchanged for items of value. It is simply gone. Second, when government makes it possible for a central bank to creat fiat money out of thin air, the money that does exist becomes increasinly more worthless.
Again, our problems are political and economic. We have the technology and the environment is fine.