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I have heard a lot of talk against the Smart Grid on the basis that it is merely a way for our government to keep tabs on how much energy we are using. I believe these people are missing the main point of a Smart Grid, whose primary goal is to use energy efficiently, not to monitor and throttle usage based on a function of their consumption, how much the wind is blowing, etc.
"Improved energy efficiency could cut the rapidly growing rate of energy consumption by more than half over the next 15 years, according to the McKinsey Global Institute." From: [1] Ionate (talk) 21:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me Smart Grid is mainly about this, "Modernization is necessary for energy consumption efficiency, real time management of power flows and to provide the bi-directional metering needed to compensate local producers of power." NOT about smart metering and monitoring of individual appliances in a consumers home so the government knows when they are using their computers. I thought I had heard that most power grids are not capable of receiving power from localized smaller power sources, which could be really cool.
As far as smart metering is concerned, if peak-hour power consumption is a significant problem, and it is possible to charge more during peak hours, I wonder why more consumers wouldn't just use something like a UPS or home battery-storage appliance that could charge during off-peak hours.
--Golden Eternity (talk) 18:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
I think it is about efficiency, but also about flexibility, which requires monitoring. A main driver for Smart Grid is the building consensus about man made global warming. Take for example the European Union’s 20/20/20 commitment, where the target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, improve energy efficiency by 20%, and ensure 20% share of renewable energy production by 2020.
Smart Grid technology can contribute towards achieving such targets. Renewable energy sources are intermittent in nature, and this poses some challenges. The power grid needs assistance in compensating for this intermittency when a very large portion of our energy consumption comes from such sources. This requires increased flexibility on the consumption side, and this is where both monitoring and automation technology comes in.
For example, there might be times when all consumers in a municipality cannot be served simultaneously. A common way to deal with such situation is to deploy rolling blackouts until enough energy sources are available. One of the Smart Grid visions is that monitoring and automation technology can enable homes and businesses with low priority / cheap electricity contracts to disconnect just enough power to avoid such rolling blackouts. Hot water and electricity heating can be shut off momentarily without causing damage. AlbLeir (talk) 22:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Current power grids are capable of receiving power from localized smaller power sources such as solar, wind, natural gas engines, etc. Specialized electronics are required, to properly add power back into a power grid, but entirely possible and not particularly complex.
In a situation where say, a building with many solar panels creates more power than it uses, is able to sell excess power back into the system for credit. The building then uses power from the power grid at night when the solar panels are inoperable and uses the credits earned during the day. Power companies seem to be fine with attaching these remote power generating buildings to their grid, and are happy with the additional power, however they are not willing to pay the owners for these buildings should they contribute more power than they use.
From experience, demanding money for excess power contributed to a power grid will lead to power companies threatening to have this theoretical building listed as a power company like themselves and requiring the regulations and additional processes involved with being a power producer. --Mkodama (talk) 12:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
"Smart grids received further support with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which set aside $11 billion for the creation of a smart grid."
Curiously, the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 has no specific mention of $11 billion for smart grid development. While there are several other figures relate to utilities, the only explicit allocation of money for "electricity delivery and energy reliability activities to modernize the electric grid" is for $4.5 billion--not $11 billion as claimed. This information is located on page 24 of the document here: [2]
Can this copy of the investment act be used as for citation? Ricojonah (talk) 19:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
In the US a concept called Gridwise is known, it looks like Smart Grid. Ref.1: Main Gridwise pages: [3] Ref.2: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: [4] Ref.3: Architecture Council: [5] Bouwhuise (talk) 21:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
GridWise is a specific research initiative being led by the Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory (PNNL) promoting research and development of smart grid technologies. The PNNL led much of the early research and founding studies on the benefits of a smart grid.Mhellin (talk) 02:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
This needs a complete rewrite to turn it into encyclopædic content. If it were not for the fact that it meets WP:V, it would almost be a speedy candidate. Adrian M. H. 21:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Mahoneychar 14:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed; this article reads like corporate white paper skewed blatantly in favor of a single smart grid philosophy. It barely offers lip service to issues of security, privacy, consumer rights and the established role of public utilities, especially in the U.S. Jbl74 4-21-09
Shouldn't this page be rename to Smart Power Grid? User:ChardonnayNimeque 22:49, 10 December 2007 (GMT)
Just as a reminder to myself, but also to collect data for improvement of the article. Some features of the smart grid are already present in the dumb grid.
Now with picture.
ChardonnayNimeque (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
The purpose section should contain a shortdescription of the driving forces:
ChardonnayNimeque (talk) 22:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was support for move and in keeping with WP:UCN.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure why it's been named "Smart power grid" when the term "Smart grid" is becoming the standard terminology being used by industry. There's no other "smart grid" that I am aware of that might cause ambiguity. In any event, I would suggest that the top section be trimmed down to make it more of an abstract. As well, it's also probably worth mentioning that the meaning of the concept itself is somewhat contested and a definition is only slowly beginning to take hold. My view is that it's really sort of an industry catch-all to describe an end state, ie: a grid that is smarter (more responsive, reliable, integrated and efficient) than the traditional grid. The smart grid is made possible by applying telecommunications devices to points throughout the dx and tx system that communicate information about grid condition to system users, operators and automated devices, making it possible for them to dynamically respond to changes in grid condition.Mhellin (talk) 00:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I have such a problem with this section that it motivated me to get involved: Smart Grid is an enormous concept, that is frequently oversimplified, perhaps simply to match any one actor's POV, but possibly to highjack the bandwagon for preferred interpretations. Here, this Overview takes a REAL, but excessively narrow, interpretation of Smart Grid and offers it as something "simply and clearly stated". In doing so, it tends to polarize this along some very parochial lines, that is not helpful to understanding the big picture. I also believe that the Overview uses some perjorative language. If of interest, I can start work on some suggestions to correct this, but I am unsure of the protocols. XAmazy (talk) 00:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC) I believe this material was added by this effort:
09:10, 21 February 2009 (hist) (diff) Smart grid (→Consumer participation: Added a bit of balance to decrease hype level.)
This REALLY does need to be modified or simply reverted. It is VERY bad. Amazy (talk) 01:14, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
This section, in its current state, attempts to whittle down the smart grid concept to demand response, which the editor is evidently strongly against. In truth, demand response is only one aspect of most smart grid proposals. In any case, an encyclopedia article shouldn't carry such a negative tone.
I added a few words on intermittent generation sources. Overall, this article lacks structure and significant work is needed to improve it.AlbLeir (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Europe's SuperSmart Grid and Gore's continental Unified Smart Grid have the architecture that implies a semantic distinction between a local smart grid and the national interconnection layer which also has intelligence but should not be confused with local smart grids. This seems to conflict with some passages in the current smart grid article.
The Supersmart grid paper[6] by Battaglini et al associates the term "smart grid" with local clusters (page 6), whereas the intelligent interconnecting backbone provides an additional layer of coordination above the local smart grids.
There is not just semantic but physical separations. Decentralization means the national interconnection backbone could go down but the local smart grids would be able to function independently.
However, in some passages of the article as of the date of this post, "smart grid" is used to refer to a national grid, for example in the context of the mention of the 2007 energy bill.
It seems to me, if smart grid is used in an unmodified form, the dominant sense should be of a local network that has implemented smart grid features.
Does everyone go along with that way of looking at it, or is the national/ transcontinental interconnect layer simply another feature of a smart grid? If so, there would have to be some authorities on the architecture/ robustness questions that naturally arise when discussing the relation of local nodes to the global structure. Since the Supersmart grid and Unified smart grid proposals are at best sketchy at this time, attempting to fold the interconnection layer into the description would be impractical. -Mak (talk) 08:22, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
As a note to watchers for articles in other languages to make interwiki links to, I am listing here equivalent terms in other languages:
-Mak (talk) 20:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Apart from bragging rights controversy from various cities regarding who is on top with smart grids, there is significant information regarding the practical details of how these various smart grid technologies are integrated. I cleaned out a lot of the self promotion statements and links to vacuous press releases. Practical illustration of real smart grids probably are necessary for good coverage of a catch all technology term like "Smart grid" that can mean many things to many people. However, the volume probably requires a separate article. Without looking at actual implementations, we may have a "beautiful woman on the radio" problem- where everyone has a significantly different picture from everyone else. -J JMesserly (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, I also found the "Deployments and attempted deployments" section lacking, and I'd be happy to contribute many more examples of deployed smart grids. Would this help address the "beautiful woman on the radio" problem? I think it would. Bdamm (talk) 23:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
In a speech today[1/8], Obama linked the smart grid to his plans for a stimulus/innfrastructure package. Great idea as this a way to spend large money with a high likelihood of ROI.
back when he was still vieing with Hilary for the Dem nomination, his energy plan read in part:
"... our energy grid is outdated and inefficient, resulting in $50-$100 billion losses to the U.S. economy each year. The 2003 East Coast blackout alone resulted in a $10 billion economic loss ... Obama will invest federal money to leverage additional state and private sector funds to help create a digitally connected power grid. Creating a smart grid will also help insulate against terrorism concerns because our grid today is virtually unprotected from terrorists. Installing a smart grid will help consumers produce electricity at home through solar panels or wind turbines, and be able to sell electricity back through the grid for other consumers, and help consumers reduce their energy use during peak hours when electricity is more expensive."
A US national smart grid seems headed for the fast-track, perhaps this merits a mention?Bustter (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
With all the news about smart grids being vulnerable (starting with the front page of the Wall Street Journal last week), should the section on how they are 'resistant to attack" be modified to say that there are very serious concerns over the security of smart grids, and that most smart grids constructed to date are inadequately secured? Gaintes (talk) 14:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
In 2012 it is said Earth is likely to move into a period of increased solar flares. Ofcourse these can inflict havoc on electrical grids, space satelites, and other electronic devices. Can Smart grids mitigate or better recover from issues like this? CaribDigita (talk) 04:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes and no but mostly yes.
No, a smart grid wouldn't help space satellites or any devices it breaks.
Yes, a smart grids would help recovery if we had a disaster on our electric grid. Implementing smart meter in ones home can be connected to device that generates electricity as well as store electricity, making a new electric grid easier to create. If our electric grid completely failed a smart grid would be cheaper, faster and easier to do.
Yes, a smart grid may also help mitigate its effect on our electrical grid. Solar flares effect on transformers is damaging where as a smart grid can shut down all utilities in ones home to avert most damaging effects. Masaki83 (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
The section on functions of a smart grid states it must:
The wording of the overview assumes a smart grid's purpose is primarily #2. That is a myopic summary of this topic. The transmission grids of Europe and the US require much more intelligence to be able to handle #1 and #2, and these have nothing to do with conservation.
It is exceptionally difficult to give a good overview of a nebulous topic as this, but the current treatment ignores the 7 other functions of the smart grid. -J JMesserly (talk) 01:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The treatment of #4 in the articel is abyssmal to say the least. In its current form it is just a polemic statement about following standards for dumbgrids and has nothing to do with smartgrids whatsoever. I can't fix this since I don't know enough about smartgrids, but someone should.
The self-healing section now has material on 'autonomous reinforcement learning controllers'. What are these? This sounds like gibberish. - Crosbiesmith (talk) 16:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
The article is presently biased towards commercial entities looking to promote their existing products of customer curtailment as being the smart grid, when in fact much scientific research is needed for a truly intelligent smart grid. Start reading how science will actually transform the grid and you will bump up against NSF's Cyber-physical system and the use of learning algorithms such as reinforcement learning. Read about discoveries at Columbia University's Center for Computation Learning Systems.~ Chebuske (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC).
What about disadvantages of these systems? Risks from hacking ect.? Or about how ( for some meters ) the signals are encrpyted for remote turnoff and reporting? Smithsoni0201 (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Public information is likely to be scant at this point, since the smart grid companies, customers, and vendors will all be working under NDA. It seems likely that there will be public information as a result of government audits and standardization processes. As for the risk of hacking, it seems that while hacking does occur on the Internet, the overall benefit from the technology is so compelling that the detraction due to hacking is not enough to prevent its use. It could be argued that without robust technology such as widespread use of SSL some uses of the Internet would not have been compelling, such as online banking. Indeed many banks are moving to further reduce the incidence of electronic fraud. I'd expect smart grid companies would be using technology such as SSL, so I'd argue that this line of thinking applies to the smart grid as well. Bdamm (talk) 22:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
To remove puffery, shameless promotional efforts, newspeak, buzzwords, and hype, I'm proposing the following rewrite of the article, using this text:
The so called "smart grid", hereinafter referred to as the Spy Grid, is simply an effort by free-market fundamentalists, Washington spies, Enron fraudsters, government central-planners, and head-in-the-sand wind-power and massive-ignorance deep greens to import Enron, electricity commodity markets, EMP vulnerability, and computerized mumbo-jumbo into consumers' electric meters, and to use that computerized mumbo-jumbo to export tremendous wads of cash out of consumers' pockets by massive fraud disguised as renewable energy, nothing more, nothing less.
The Spy Grid has the following 5 goals:
The Spy Grid is the biggest scam since the Church of $ci... well, we won't get into that. But it's time this article actually called a spade a spade and stopped using buzzwords, newspeak, and endless commercial hype to put lipstick on the pig that the Spy Grid proponents stand for.
Now how's that for a fresh start? 96.236.121.127 (talk) 23:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
What about net metering and V2G technologies that the Smart Grid can help to promote ?. --Nopetro (talk) 07:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Assuming this is what the neutrality dispute is over, then this is definitely not the rewrite. What you have written is much more loaded.Ninja Auditor (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Many American power companies have applied for massive funds for smart grids from the 700 billion dollar crisis aid package that was approved by Congress last spring. Decisions are still pending as to who will get anything and how much. It would be great if this article could at least mention this fact, and keep information up to date about its further development. --dunnhaupt (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
I can't even find the words to describe how un-encyclopedic this article is. It's not just the lack of NPOV - this whole article reads like it has been transplanted from some poorly-written speculative essay. Adding ((Inappropriate tone))
. Zak (talk) 22:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
OMG:"Over the past 50 years, electricity networks" have been oblivious to cyber attacks! Weren't they following the developments of the Internet, which was hitherto unconnected to anything to do with the "electricity networks" for the greater majority of those 50 years? This article is really a mess.--Jelsova (talk) 01:26, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
All power grids today are not smart grids and most can never be. This article appears to be about something real when it is in fact about an illusion that has never been built and may never be. If it was, it might get hacked but it is not so there is nothing to hack. Something should be added to indicate there are no smart grids in existence today and may never be. This article qualifies for inclusion in Genre Science Fiction. Scottprovost (talk) 00:03, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
There are companies successfully deploying the "Smart Grid". It is not science fiction, it is reality, today! Some of the companies doing this work are cited in the article, although some of the information in the article about these companies is inaccurate. I work for one, so I can't say more due to NDA. It is very much reality, and utilities are moving to the new technology. Bdamm (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Rather than try to summarily rewrite this mess of an article and, perhaps, losing interesting tidbits in the mix, I propose to simply add more organization and formal citations, beginning at the beginning, so to speak, with the actual definition of "Smart Grid" (at least, in the U.S.). I'll wait to see if anyone cares enough to contribute other definitions from other jurisdictions or authorities before I consider any global definition. As there as a many definitions of "Smart Grid" as there are customers who are unhappy with their utility service or salesmen with something to sell, I propose sticking to authoritative sources.Amazy (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps that DNV Kema Energy & Sustainability can be mentioned. Appearantly they developed some devices (ie washing machines) that can be set to start washing at a specific time when the load on the mains electricity grid is low (and thus when the electricity is cheapest). 91.182.178.137 (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
An impartial editor has reviewed the proposed edit(s) and asked the editor with a conflict of interest to go ahead and make the suggested changes. |
I have a financial COI with Honeywell in that they’ve recruited me to help them navigate through Wikipedia and COI Best Practices. I have a few content suggestions for consideration by impartial editors.User:Corporate Minion 16:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
I would like to add OpenADR to the Standards section:
I would also like to suggest adding OpenADR implementations. My intention is to inform Wikipedia's readers on implementations Honeywell was involved in, in particular for those that used public funds. My proposed copy is in the collapsed section below.
Additional Implementations
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OpenADR Implementations[edit]China[edit]The smart grid market in China is estimated to be $22.3 billion with a projected growth to $61.4 billion by 2015. Honeywell is developing a demand response pilot and feasibility study for China with the State Grid Corp. of China using the OpenADR demand response standard. The State Grid Corp., the Chinese Academy of Science, and General Electric will work together to develop standards for China’s smart grid rollout.[2][3] United Kingdom[edit]The OpenADR standard was demonstrated in Bracknell, England, where peak use in commercial buildings was reduced by 45 percent. As a result of the pilot, the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) said it would connect up to 30 commercial and industrial buildings in Thames Valley, west of London, to a demand response program.[4] United States[edit]In 2009, the US Department of Energy awarded an $11 million grant to Southern California Edison and Honeywell for a demand response program that automatically turns down energy use during peak hours for participating industrial customers.[5][6] The Department of Energy awarded an $11.4 million grant to Honeywell to implement the program using the OpenADR standard.[7] Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) is implementing a two-year pilot project to test the ability of an ADR program to respond to the intermittence of wind power. Hawaii has a goal to obtain 70 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. HECO will give customers incentives for reducing power consumption within 10 minutes of a notice.[8] |
The above text seems unbiased and it is well referenced. I therefore approve the editor to make the edits: 1292simon (talk) 08:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Part of an edit requested by an editor with a conflict of interest has been implemented. |
We have a large Obstacles section. Would it be ok to balance it out with a Justification section? User:Corporate Minion 05:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Justification
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The driving forces to modernize current power grids can be divided into four, general categories.[9][10]
A large 2007 survey in the U.S., Germany, Netherlands, England, Japan and Australia found that:[11]
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References
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My apologies if I don't have this comment placed properly here; I wasn't sure where it should go but this seems to be the most logical place. I do have a COI for IEEE, as I am a member of their PR team; please see my COI declarations on my talk page.
For the purpose of this article, I have added a minor reference about the IEEE Smart Grid Initiative to the Guidelines, standards and user groups section, as IEEE P2030 is part of the Initiative. No other information was added and I (hopefully) have it cited properly. If I've made any mistakes, please do feel free to let me know - they are not intentional or malicious in nature.
Mdrozdowski (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The Smart grid article currently includes a short segment on Smart Power Generation, a concept by Wärtsilä Corporation. I work for the company, and have been tasked with looking into getting a separate article for Smart Power Generation. To that end, I already have a draft text I could send to someone to take a look at.
So, the questions: (1) would it be ok to create a separate page just for Smart Power Generation, and (2) if so, who should I send the text proposal to (or do I just copy it here)?
Kind regards, Kimi Arima Wärtsilä Power Plants
Dear Ryan, thanks for the timely reply. I'll get back to you as soon as I get the final kinks sorted. -BR, Kimi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arimmki (talk • contribs) 13:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
The "smart" in "Smart Grids" implies intelligence. Any definition of Smart Grids needs to define them in terms of intelligence. The current definition of smart grid sites U.S. Department of Energy. "Smart Grid / Department of Energy" as an authority for what it says yet that does not define what a smart grid is. It describes uses of them but not what they are. The material here is no where in the cited article. Defining something in terms of how it is used is not a good definition. It is like saying a car is something used to go places such as work and school. By that definition, a motorcycle and even a bicycle is a car.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Assessment of Demand Response & Advanced Metering defines a Smart Grid System as "A system which includes a variety of operational and energy measures including smart meters, smart appliances, renewable energy resources, and energy efficiency resources.". I will update the article appropriately. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
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Main problem is it's too USA centric. Greatder (talk) 11:54, 6 December 2021 (UTC)