Smart Grid Seminar at MIT

Readers should know that the Obama Stimulus package has allocated $11 Billion for the development of a Smart Grid. For those unfamiliar with the concept, in a nutshell, scientists hope to be able to maximize energy efficiency by helping consumers to squeeze every bit of extra energy out of their household appliances, heating and cooling, etc, and to eventually be able to sell energy back to the grid as well. More information on the government's vision of, and research into, the smart grid can be found at http://www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm

Last Friday, March 3rd, M.I.T. sponsored a conference on the Smart Grid: Challenges and Opportunities.Presenters at the seminar were Massoud Amin of the University of Minnesota, David Cohen of Infotility, Inc., Peter Kelly-Detwiller of Constellation NewEnergy, and Howard Shrobe of MIT CSAIL.

Similar to what I was referring to in my last post, Dr. Amin confirmed that the U.S. electric system has only 43% efficiency, and that the biggest source of inefficiency in the system is the transportation of energy. Part of the reason our system has not been improved is that out of all our industries, we invest the 3rd smallest amount of R&D money in electricity! Purina Dog chow invests more in R&D than our electric system. And yet, engineers still voted that the greatest engineering accomplishment of the 20th century was the creation of networks of electrification!

However crucial, Dr. Amin's main point was not that we need to invest more in electricity R&D. Rather, that the grid must be not only more efficient, but more secure. That is, a grid that will be self-healing in small cases like blackouts, as well as large cases like terrorism. While each of us having a little black box or computer program where we can plan our entire energy consumption and production is the wave of the future, it opens many avenues for IT energy terrorism. Dr. Amin has been working on this issue since 2001. Those interested in his research and ideas can check them out at http://cdtlnet.cdtl.umn.edu/amin.html.

Mr. Cohen and Infotility, Inc are currently working with ConEdison and PGE in Manhattan and elsewhere to develop a GridAgents, devices that will enable the entire grid to become semi-autonomous and semi-intelligent.

Mr. Kelly-Detwiler had less of a technical and more of a behavioral management perspective on the smart grid. Aside from the years ahead of us to develop this technology to it's maximum benefit, he posited it will take years just to get companies to fully adopt it and utilities and their partners to make a profit from it. His hypothesis was that any building manager will be reluctant to adopt any new technology that will disrupt the system he has put in place for his building. It will take utilities up to a year to convince the manager that this is a good idea, a year to help him sort out all the kinks of initial installation, and a year for the person to really become convinced of the benefits of the new technology. These kind of behavioral questions are essential in changing thought patterns and behaviors regarding energy use across the board. We are already seeing organizations such as the Consortium for Energy Efficiency hiring researchers to look into factors to motivate behavioral change.

I was not able to stay for Dr. Shrobe's presentation, but you can find more about his research at http://people.csail.mit.edu/hes/