Can Smart Grid Outsmart all the Obstacles?

Yesterday, we attended a sold-out Smart Grid event that was sponsored by CommNexus-San Diego, a non profit network of communication and defense industry companies. While the event itself lasted 90 minutes, you had the feeling that everyone in attendance would have stayed a couple more hours to have all their questions answered. The fascinating thing is that the development of the Smart Grid is essential, while at the same time being confronted with maddening obstacles. Logic-be-damned politics is at the center of many of these obstacles, posing the question: Will we have the political will to overcome them all?

There is so much that can be said about the Smart Grid. It has so many components and aspects. For now, I’ll try to keep it simple. First off, from a very high point-of-view, the Smart Grid is simply about consumer empowerment. The more a consumer knows about his or her own consumption, the more likely he or she will be willing to alter behavior to save money. More importantly, without a Smart Grid the power distribution system will be unable to sustain the projected growth in energy demand. Using a Smart Grid, consumers will be charged premium rates for energy usage during peak-demand time periods and lower, discounted rates during low-usage periods. Existing energy grids are old and antiquated.They must be built to accommodate the highest required volumes for peak-usage periods. Put in other words, the capacity of the existing energy grid is largely unused because consumer usage varies widely throughout a day and in different seasons of the year.

The introduction and wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles (EV) will further challenge the capacity of existing energy grids. A single EV requires more than 6 kW over a 3 hour period to re-charge. This is more energy consumption than than the average-sized home. Imagine what effect a mass migration from gas service stations to plug-in electric re-chargers could have on an already maxed-out grid.

As has been the case in the wireless industry, there are no Smart Grid industry standards. We heard that San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) uses Zigbee and Z-Wave for their in-house wireless network, but the panel of experts agreed that there likely will ever be any such industry standards. Will this slow down the Smart Grid development?

Incorporating renewable energy that is generated withing the grid itself seems to be the biggest no-brainer of all in the discussion about Smart Grid development. When I think of in-grid renewable energy, I see photovoltiac panels on the roofs of an entire community. I see these solar panels funded by PACE programs (California AB811), companies like SunRun or by the utilities themselves. If we increase the capacity of energy generation closest to the point of usage, we significantly reduce the cost of building infrastructure – a major savings to consumers. But I was shocked and amazed to hear that in the state of California the renewable energy program DOES NOT INCLUDE residential roof-top or ground-mount solar when calculating how much of a utility’s energy is green and how much is fossil-based. In other words, there is no incentive for the utilities in California to vigorously pursue the development distributive solar energy generation.

While there seems to be strong legislative consensus that renewable energy is the way to go, there are other similar legislative obstacles to getting there. I’ve written about some already at this blog site: a solar bill of rights, innovative financing, national net metering, grassroots advocacy and, probably most importantly, general consumer ignorance and apathy. If you add to this list feed-in-tariffs and shifting government subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, we’re really talking about a uniform national energy program that would be essential for national security. Such an ambitious concept brings up the age-old debate of states rights (and autonomy) versus Federal rights.

At the event yesterday, this point was driven home clearly. Tom Blialek, Chief Smart Grid Engineer for SDG&E, stated that the California PUC program to create more green energy would result in 150MW of wind power being created in the Imperial Valley of California. Since wind energy is generally created at night and energy storage technology is still being developed, it will be necessary to order these windmills to be shut down, as is the current practice in Europe. This raised the question: why not sell excess energy across state lines rather than shut the windmills down? The answer was symbolic of the whole area of Smart Grid and renewable energy development: while the question makes a lot of logical and practical sense, from a political stand-point, there are too many issues to get sorted out before a national or world-wide smart grid will be able to happen.

This is why we must build the solar tribe. This is why we must have meetups in our areas. This why we need to do what we can to get our communities involved. This why we need to blog, tweet and use social media to inform and involve others. The power to outsmart the obstacles is in our hands. It’s an exciting time to be alive.