Power Generation and the "Smart Grid"

[gabester]

I've been reading a lot lately about how utilities want to implement "smart grids" to make their operations more efficient. That's all well-and-good, but to achieve success it sounds like they're going to basically charge consumers more to produce less energy WHILE TAKING CONTROL OF CONSUMER EQUIPMENT.

I see a huge problem with this - namely that I know when I want to run a certain appliance and the electric company doesn't. Moreover, it sounds like some fairly invasive residential wiring (and/or wireless, which would cause interference) would have to be done to achieve this goal...

My solution to this is to try to get off the grid - my household regularly consumes under half a megawatt a month, which doesn't seem that extraordinary or power hungry. I'd like to develop a power plan to get off the grid and meet that generation capacity but I don't know if it's possible via solar, wind, or generator, and I don't have any idea what it would cost. But I'd like to find out.
g=

[mattkime]

"smart grid" refers to nearly any upgrade to our current lackluster power grid.

what specifically are talking about?

[Doc]

When people overproduce energy from solar panels and windmills and sell the surplus to the local power company, they call that smart grid technology.

I don't think that's what you're talking about.

Care to be more specific?

[fromish]

I think what Gabester is referring to is what the PGE (Calif) foreman explained to me about the utility's long term plan to 'upgrade' meters so that in times of extremely high demand the utility can cause rolling brownouts controlled from the administrative hq through the meters. The idea would be to enforce demand cutbacks during of high usage/insufficient production and 'spread the pain', (his words.)

The smart grid concept incorporates these upgraded meters as well as buybacks from consumer produced power from solar, water, wind and, in the future, electric vehicles with onboard power. The utility also is very interested in Time of Use (TOU) metering where electricity prices vary throughout the day with demand/usage. Peak demand periods on weekday afternoons (hot weather, air conditioning or heatin on in afternoon, businesses using most power. etc) rates are highest. Nights, early on weekend days with minimal demand, rates are lowest. The utility wants to use market forces to control when we use discretionary power-doing washes, dishwasher, recharging the EV, etc.

[Mac1337]

fromish wrote:
The utility also is very interested in Time of Use (TOU) metering where electricity prices vary throughout the day with demand/usage.

And when Coke or Pepsi came out, or wanted to, with machines that would change their price based on outside temperature( I am not kidding), the whole country went ballistic. Is this really that different?

[GGD]

Dakota wrote:
[quote=fromish]
The utility also is very interested in Time of Use (TOU) metering where electricity prices vary throughout the day with demand/usage.

And when Coke or Pepsi came out, or wanted to, with machines that would change their price based on outside temperature( I am not kidding), the whole country went ballistic. Is this really that different?
If they're willing to buy back electricity at those high daytime rates, it might be profitable for consumers to charge large battery banks at night with the lower rates and sell it back during the day at the higher rate. Perhaps even using the battery in a hybrid or electric car for that purpose when the car will not be driven.

[gabester]

Fromish hit the nail on the head in terms of what I'm worried about:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...to-be.html

It all sounds very benign until you think about it and realize that, at its essential core, the plans for actually implementing this involve surcharges to you on your electric bill as well as the double inconvenience of:

When they come to "hook up" your home to their new smart grid (will they tear into wall wiring or do other work?)
When they turn off your power because your electrical needs are deemed non-essential and there is a shortage.

So the research I did into getting off the grid tonight revealed that a 1kW solar panel array or wind turbine would cost well above $5,000, have an expected lifespan of 20 years (of which half of that time would just be the equipment paying for itself) and you would still face issues of storing energy and/or buying from the grid when your alternative sources are low.

On the other hand it looked like I could hook up a really fancy generator that would more than meet my needs for around $1500 and cost approximately $500 a month to operate with an expected lifespan of around half a year.

So it looks like I'll still be dependent on the power utility for a while.
g=

[Jack D.]

.