Smart Grids

Smart Grids or the ability to monitor electric power using tech is gathering speed, something drastically needed as the electricity network of the nation continues to age while power requirements continue to rise. To that end, electric companies and governments are beginning to implement this technology with promising results.

Over the next year Naperville, outside Chicago, will become the first large town in the Midwest to have smart meters in all 57,000 homes and commercial buildings.

Those meters will transmit data to the city’s municipal power company every 15 minutes and eventually allow for two way communication between residents and their home heating and cooling systems.

“Next year we’ll begin to offer time-of use rates for the customers, and we think that’s going to be good,” says Mark Curran, who leads the city’s smart grid project. “The way it’s set up, customers will have an e-portal online and they’ll be able to see their power usage the past day or over the past three or four years. With programmable thermostats they can use an iPhone app to leave their temperature in summer up a few degrees and then cool it down before they get home.”

This will not be cheap but in the long run, cost savings and the ability to better manage an essential resources becomes reality.

A stronger grid could create 200,000 jobs around the country and make for a much more efficient energy system, according to Massoud Amin, director of the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota. Amin is a highly regarded expert on the topic — he was dubbed the “father of smart grid” by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2011.

Dr. Massoud Amin of the University of Minnesota gives a smart grid presentation in 2009. (Photo by Ed Yourdon via Creative Commons)

A “stronger” and “smarter” grid could save up to $70 billion each year through reduced outages and increased efficiency. Emissions of all particulates, as well as carbon dioxide, would drop 12 to 18 percent a year, predicted Amin, when compared to emissions created by the current grid.

“From every angle – reduction of cost of outages, integration of renewables, by increasing the overall system efficiency, reducing CO2 emissions – smart grid makes sense and we must do it,” said Amin. “We must find ways to push it forward.”

Not that it’s going to be cheap. A smart grid covering the country will cost from $340 billion to $480 billion over 20 years, said Amin.

Everything has a cost but we already knew that, right?