I just keep being blissfully satisfied by this exemplary channel; regardless of the content - which ticks all my boxes in that category. In terms of production: excellent sound balancing, excellent graphics, minimal and intelligent use of stock footage, warm and engaging personality in the presentation, mandatory high definition of sound and video; but the main strength is in the most crucial facet - writing. You are a superb science writer sir, among your many talents - verbal communication being the second most important - which you clearly pay a lot of attention to. Clear, that is, to those who notice how effortless it seems. Bravissimo!
@@pomodorino1766 Yes, thank you. This is my passion along with EVs. I wish all rooftops could have solar panels and work as microgrids. But, there are so many psychological, financial, and epistemological barriers for the retail market of solar modules, that I wonder when this will be a thing. Thank you for your support.
Technicaly, this is not *without* energy storage. The storage happens, just not in the form of electricity. You store heat in the water heater, heat in the air of your house, etc. It just adds a smart distributed management system for this "storage".
It is demand scheduling and shifting to avoid in rush consumption and peak loads. There is no energy stored in your heater or house air the system is forced to go without that energy until the utility company has sufficient capacity to handle the load. For example take the water heater. If the heater is set to come on at 120f and you finish your shower and it needs to heat the water back to 180f to turn off and store energy for your kids shower but the grid saids sorry there is no packet to fill that demand for the next hour the water heater stays at 120f cooling down if your kid take a shower ending in a pissed off cold showered kid. For this system to store energy as you suggest the water heater would have to operate from say 160f to 120f normally but over night when the power company saids I have excess energy the water heater would have to say ok for 1 cent per kW I will heat the water from 160 to 180 so there is more heat in 4 hours when we need 2 hot showers. Or the house would heat up to 80f so it could cool back down to 70 when they demand is high that is not suggested in this packet scheme.
You're not storing it electrically, nor at the grid level. This is demand management, the fact that the consumer *happens* to be using it for heat or in an EV is irrelevant to the concept. It works outside of those situations as well.
@@DanA-nl5uo there will be trivial solutions for cases like that: the water heater will store water at a slightly higher temp and will have some buffer action on demand. A 25L storage water heater can act like a 35L storage water heater. But the worst sufferers will be those instant heaters that use a 5kW heater and heat the passing water. I, as an example, always put on the water heater before bath and turn it off immediately after my bath. I do not use hot water for other purposes and the system will ask me to keep the water heater on 24 hours and hot water will be always available that I do not want.
@@janami-dharmam the solution will be the spot price market control. Meaning people who are not willing to pay more than x for electricity will go without while those who are willing to pay more will get the service. This technology has the advantage of allowing the power grid to size to maximize profitability not to match real demand. Meaning if running the plant at maximum profitability means x percent of the poorest go with cold showers or less heating and cooling so be it the free market can now match limited supply with the demand. In the past the lack of demand side control ment that the entire community had to have their demand met or the wealthy would force the power company to expand capacity to avoid blackout.
@@janami-dharmam I also drop the temp on my HW heater when not needed. I'm recently single now and don't use it much as I usually shower at the gym and only use "warm" water for dishes and laundry. With that said, it just crossed my mind that this could potentially cause some unhealthy water conditions... Thoughts?
Very timely viewing. The UK grid now is showing the lowest ever gas consumption for generating electricity. The wind contribution is high and the sun is shining at a time when grid consumption is low. The gas power stations are used to flex the supply but what happens if the demand from them reaches zero. It is inefficient to have a gang of industrial units reving up and down and not easy to switch them off. Coincidently Octopus Energy is experimenting in the area of your discussion by asking consumers to reduce demand when we are short of supply and hopefully soon will ask us to take free delivery when in surplus!
Please take a look at deep bore geothermal. Technologies like millimeter wave drilling might make drilling that deep much cheaper. That could wind up being the go to clean energy of the near future. Micro-grids would also be less vulnerable.
This is a very interesting idea, somewhat similar to an idea I've had for years. Devices that control themselves based on line frequency. Put very simply, when it dips down below the base frequency of by say, 1/100 of a cycle per second, loads shut off. When it rises above they turn on. Would have it set for batteries to charge or discharge based on frequency as well.
I think this can be solved with a much simpler and much more robust way. Each device could just monitor the grid frequency. When there's too much demand the frequency drops, when there's too much production the frequency increases. No internet connection needed, no big central computer needed, can't fail, and can't be hacked. Another possibility is to monitor the spot price of electricity. If there isn't enough, the price goes up, if there's too much the price goes down. Tesla's batteries are already doing just that. This requires internet connection, but still decentralized and reasonably secure. Plus Tesla is doing the whole thing too, with it's Virtual Power Plant software.
In the Netherlands, we have the option to consume electricity based on a flexible price. This provides an additional incentive for users to shift their energy use. For households, the prices are fixed 8 hours in advance and set per hour. Industrial consumers pay for energy per second which is basically the same as the grid frequency. All you need is a smart phone app which monitors the energy price and tells your car to pause charging for a bit. The simplicity, privacy, control and financial incentive makes it a no-brainer for everyone.
If you had large numbers of devices doing this it could lead to huge overswings depending on how often the devices measure the voltage of the grid. You could end up with very destabilising feedback loops that would swing out of control.
@@mentality-monster be default, the voltage is measured every 10 seconds by every electrical meter in every building. The timing is not synced so there is a natural spread when shifting loads. One can add an additional meter to measure the voltage every second, but this is only interesting for large consumers such as chemical, metal or greenhouse industry.
In Czech Republic, the information about which price tariff is currently active is signalled using the power grid itself, it's modulated on top of the fixed frequency power transmission. We have devices that can automatically switch on and off power based on this.
Hourly prices are not the same as tariffs. We have 2 tariffs (high and low) or we can choose to use an hourly tariff which can vary to a tenth of a cent every hour.
Another excellent presentation Dave and all the technicians at Just Have a Think! We have a program for off peak water heaters, but this is truly a smart grid approach! Aunt Bernice had the off peak water heater setup with the power company, and after insulating the water heater with an added blanket of insulation, it works quite well. I'm using side saddle tanks in the basement next to the wood stove which gives some mighty hot water and helps heat the house at night as that water cools a bit, but since we can't keep burning gas, and carbon neutral firewood is practical for just a small number of people, plus it's messy, so the electric water heater option is the sensible path for most people, and the team in Vermont has a practical answer. 🌲🌲🌲🌞🌄
I've got a van with solar panels, 300Ah of batteries a little-used inverter and lots of 12V stuff. My dump load is to the water heater (got to go somewhere) and I can disconnect the batteries if I need it in a hurry. Everything is connected up with current detectors throughout and combination switching available (eg inverter + coffee maker, - coffee maker, - inverter) etc. I use a similar system to this with the refrigerator unit going right down to the target during excess times and letting it float a little when power is scarcer. I've also got a relay ready to experiment with a brown gas generator only while driving.
I live off grid with solar and batteries in Canada and I love this idea! It could so well to help stabilize my battery situation here to have maximal usage when the sun is shining and minimal when it is not. It would greatly reduce my need for storage. Large industries do help with energy use modulation in some places, where a lumber mill will shut down during a very hot day to reduce injuries and allow for that power to go to AC units instead. They have deals with the local power providers to do this too. But yeah, AC, hot water, and car charging loads could all do this too
I am impressed by your channel. You ask for comment, here's an observation. a) EV's are big batteries on four wheels, b) there are millions of rooftops, c) roof tops are on buildings which are connected to the grid. Ergo; there is already an embryonic collection, storage and distribution system to potentially handle massive amounts of electricity. In order to realise the potential there would need to be a scheme to incentivise roof top solar and EV ownership on a grand scale. Roof owners would need to sign into the scheme, which would have clever algorithms at it's heart. They would be required to agree to sell an negotiable amount of their electricity from their EV batteries to the grid. Problem solved. There is a lot of detail to be worked out, beyond my resources. However, 'I had a think' and I think that on the face of it, what could possibly go wrong?
Thanks for the video and the info on youtube. I didn't know what had happened, at first I though it was my internet company or something. You cleared that up too!
Having read how some energy providers are making eye-watering profits, people who are not on the inside have a right to be sceptical about the amount in monetary gains made by efficiency savings being passed onto the consumer.
Very rarely does this result in cost savings nor emissions savings. It allows produces to sell more power and usually as special long term contracts given a company trying to meet its "renewable energy" targets.
The realities of power loads have little bearing on corporate profits though. Look at how they close coal plants (good) but then also close nuke plants (bad) leaving natural gas as a peaker crutch against intermittent renewables. This drives up costs to the consumer but those costs are downloaded to the consumer, as the shareholder value is still the top concern. Regardless of people getting rich owning the generation facilities, it's still beneficial to the population to have a sane strategy.
Here in sweden we have several start up companies developing technology for moving the energy consumption during the day but also use it to balance the load in the grid. Checkwatt, krafthem, myrspoven, minestorage just to name a few. Smart consumption and better heat storage for Bio-CHP plants is the green balancing future!
Great video, I didn't know about this technology before but it seems relatively easy to implement. I had a similar system provided for by the electric company just for my air conditioner for a reduced rate. It seems like this should get instituted at a national level, phased in at first for large loads, HVAC and EV charging and later for smaller loads.
This system exists in Germany for years. There is a 10 cent lower electricity tariff per kWh for heat pumps and since 2 years also for wall boxes, charging electric cars. Two electricity meters are installed. One for the house with the normal tariff and one that can be switched off for the heat pump and wall box. The electricity supplier uses a low frequency control signal modulated onto the mains voltage to switch off the second meter in order to avoid peak loads.
Very clever idea. One simple drawback from a system prospective is that we are solving a problem of a system A (electric grid), by creating a dependency on a system B (internet connection). But I guess there are solution to that (backup mode when internet connection is broken). Even if, when you scaled down your electrical infrastructure, you will not be able to provide the original energy peaks when internet connection gets unavailable for unknown reasons.
The PEM Coordinator would get DDOS'ed on a cold day if all these devices start screaming for power. It would also be very fulnerable to all kinds of attacks. So while this sounds great, if it get's used on a large scale and we would become denpendend on it, it wil create problems. People will install hacks for faster power, companies will try to make money by harvesting on cheap times and selling on high creating even more data load etc.
I have a smart thermostat and during the summer months, I use pre peak electricity to cool the house down _in advance_ of a hot day, then set it to 28°C to coast for the rest of the day. In a sense, I am using the air in my house as a battery. The city wanted me to give them the ability to shut my system off if they were concerned about power usage and I said no. Partly because I don't think they can manage my electricity better than I do, and partly because I think it's there job to improve the grid's infrastructure, and don't want them to pass the buck to the consumer. They privatised electricity production in my region and I resent a Corporation that pays out dividends instead of reinvesting profits in an essential service.
Thanks for the great new video! I enjoy all of your videos, but this one was particularly fun because it feels so real. This is the way. This is a system that will actually work. It's based on ideas that have transformed many other technologies, and they should work just as well with energy storage. I really think all our grids will have systems like this eventually.
I love this development so much! Distributed networks pop up everywhere. The mycorrhizal networks connecting 95%of the plants on Earth, the Internet, insect colonies, etc!
YES! So many people ignore the demand side of energy needs. At a personal level, I was able to cut my electricity use by ~30% just by micromanaging my thermostat! So there’s a lot of potential on the table here. It would be very interesting to see a town do a pilot run of a program like this and hear what the results are.
My grandmother used to unplug every appliance except the refrigerator when she was not using it. Her electric bill was generally significantly lower than her neighbors. Phantom loads add up.
You can also couse refrigeration, water heaters for pools and such from home to nominalize and off peak energy use, but it all costs $$$ and none is willing to make the hard short term investments
@@audistik1199 I’ve just been doing it manually for now. So in the summer I set it at 74 or 72F when I go to sleep (otherwise I’m too hot to sleep), and then I change it to 78F when I leave for work. In the winter I’m typically setting it at 71 overnight and 69 during the day. Eventually I’ll get a programmable controller to do this for me, but I rent my place so it’s not something to do now. My local utility supplier will actually give me a programmable controller for free (if I’m a homeowner) which I think goes to show how big of a difference it can make!
@@shawnr771 they sure do! The energy star program in America helps direct users to appliances which use less energy overall, have features to use less energy, and even some that have a lower “phantom load” usage. If you’re an American citizen then you can often get a small rebate by purchasing one of these and turning in the appropriate paperwork. Even if you’re not an American citizen though; I see no reason why you can use the website to research your next purchase and keep energy usage down!
Funny thing - there is a "Quality of Service" (QoS) layer to internet routing these days. If youre gaming, livestreaming, or on a video-call? The idea is you get higher priority due to the real-time nature of your activity. Where a webpage waits in line a little better, usually imperceptibly. This could be further implemented in this technology.
There's been a QoS capability since the beginning. It just doesn't do anything on the internet. It works fine on private networks that have been configured to enable it, but internet routers universally have it turned off. Because if it was enabled, everyone who knew how (or could download an app to make it easy) would mark all their packets as top-priority urgent.
I love it, but I would make one tweak: when you opt out of the managed system to force energy delivery, you should pay a higher price for that energy. And maybe it shouldn't be a binary thing -- it could be a simple dial or slider indicating how urgently you need the energy (and how much extra you are willing to pay for it). In other words, apply economics to the problem.
But that would penalise people who need, for example, urgent heating more often. People with poorly insulated houses- mostly poorer people- will thus be paying higher rates.
@@danyoutube7491 Good point. This argument often comes up -- we can't use economics to cause the right thing to happen because the poorest people are the least capable of adapting. The same thing is often said about carbon taxes. But of course there are ways to help the poor. For example, with a carbon tax you can use the very tax money you collect to give the poor back some money. They still have an incentive to be more efficient, because if they do they'll actually MAKE money. You DEFINITELY want those who are being the most inefficient to have an incentive to improve, even if they are dirt-poor. And you could do the same thing here. Start a program to upgrade the insulation in poorly insulated homes, and fund it with the extra money paid by those who say they need energy urgently.
My go-to solutions are often economic incentives as well. But in this case, I think any attempt to charge the one opting out would be seen as a draconian, and a reason to not adopt this technology in the first place. Tl;dr Better to skip the extra charge for the one opting out, rather than risk this plan becoming unpopular before it's even adopted.
Really, we should let the price of power float. If you have a smart water heater, it would just be bidding for electricity and deciding to turn on when the price per kwh gets low enough. The people who want to opt out of the system just pay fixed rate that is approximately the peak demand rate.I can see smart thermostats where it move the slider between sticking more strictly to the set temp & paying more, or letting it drift a few degrees until the price gets low & paying less. It would also give great economic incentives to build storage facilities when they are truly needed to deal with the parts of peak demand that can't/won't shift.
That's not packet switching, that's digitally controlled allotment. I think an intent based event scheduler would be better for demand side management. The controller on a device sends over the network that it predicts it will consume at x Watts over t amount of time. This would add further predictability to the electric grid and wouldn't cause a failure due to loss of communication.
Thank you for this so clear presentation of this energy management system. With electricity becoming a widespread source of energy because of the wider use of heat pumps, this seems an important step. The system of appliances behaving like hungry birdies is somwhat surprising however. It is opposite to the electricity suppliers using the appliances as a sort of buffer. In some existing systems, a signal is given when there is excess of electricity via the pricing. thereof.
Pretty interesting idea. The amount of data collection will be crazy. They'll know when people use what devices at what times. If it was house-level requests, with devices communicating with a central hub, then that'd anonymize device usage but allow PEM to still function.
this looks really cool. I hope they continue to expand the number of people served. It would also be interesting to see what the impact of some distributed batteries of even 5kwh would have.
I love Dave's common sense approach, and simple delivery. For years, I've wondered why we haven't system like this. It just seems logical. But everyone is too busy squabbling over...... can't have electric cars, grid will collapse, nuclear is bad, need to keep burning coal blah blah blah
Dynamic demand is a great idea, it seemed to lose momentum around 2009 probably because the cost of incorporating the frequency monitoring hardware added too much cost then, but now when everything has a computer built into it, it would be low cost. An example of where it can be used is refrigerators which say have an operating range of 2 to 5 degrees, when the grid frequency is high you cool to the lower end of the range, when the frequency is low you allow the temperature to rise to the upper end, given the load on the grid is indicated by it's frequency (less load means the generators at the power stations spin more easily & faster) it means the appliance modifies it's load dynamically, apply this to the washing machine (heat faster/slower), dishwasher, tumble dry, Freezer. immersion heater, EV charger, A/C Units etc... it all adds up, then multiply across all the household on the grid and it could really make a difference. Just need political will to say reduce VAT on new devices to encourage manufacturers to add the feature. It also has the advantage that 'Bad' actors can't hack the grid coordinating all the Packets!! A few links - www.dynamicdemand.co.uk/index.htm en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_demand_(electric_power) strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5166/1/dynamicDemand_as_on_IEEE_site_1_.pdf
It''s a good idea, and it will certainly help with short term grid balancing and reducing peaks, but it would be naive to believe that demand flexibility alone can solve the total storage conundrum. The issue is that demand flexibility is limited in time - you can offset demands by perhaps a few hours at most. (e.g. you can delay heating or car charging a bit, but ultimately you plug it in because it's needed at a certain time) But storage measured in hours is not really an issue already - the real problem with intermittent renewable grids is seasonal storage, with storage measured in weeks, to cover those slack weather periods with little renewable resource. Demand flexibility won't help with this, unless people are prepared to sit in cold houses with cars they can't use for weeks on end. Of course with spot pricing models this does become a possible choice for consumers, but then we are likely getting into the realms of energy poverty, where some people live in very poor conditions because they can't afford the heating or to leave the house.
Hmm ... I wonder whether this kind of distributed load management system could be implemented as an automated bidding process. When the water is hot your water heater bids a low price; when it is cold it bids a high price. Base the underlying algorithms on Adam Smith's theory of Supply and Demand.
Excellent video and yet another constructive addition to hopefully meet energy and climate issues we all face as a civilization . So my country seems to be banking on nuclear(large/SMR)/renewables(world's largest offshore wind) and "green" hydrogen(world's largest electrolyser facility) to reach net zero and negate hydrocarbon use. However I think this could be backed up by tidal/wave and fingers crossed nuclear fusion(wild card)! So whatever your energy input, this sounds like a great idea and would boost efficiency available power sources on a grid.
Sounds like an excellent idea for day-to-day efficiency. However, extended problems such as the Texas winter would see more and more devices switching to manual as they fail to get energy in a timely fashion, then the current unmanaged system results and chaos ensues. There needs to be some sort of back-up power for those rare problem times. In the case of Texas, that means connecting to the national grid infrastructure.
When your car charging is joined to the PEM system it may even be allowed to work in reverse contributing power to the grid depending on the state of charge of the battery.
Yea. Having all our cars constantly sitting at 80-100% battery state seems silly when you factor in charging rates and the fact that most people will use
God I have heard this idea for years now ... just what a person would want ... you go out to drive to work in the morning and find out someone made the decision that the power you thought you had in your car has been sucked out to power air-conditioners in Texas and you are stuck at home. I must be missing something but I don't see how it's a good idea to be able to use people's electric car batteries as energy resources - even if they pay you back a premium.
@@justgivemethetruth I expect that there will be a reserve that you can set to make certain that your car has adequate range in the morning. I always wonder of the car batteries are designed for this and if it will be good or bad for the battery.
@@justgivemethetruth That's where it really starts to make sense that it is based on a power market with floating prices. Then a valid way to make money with your EV is leave it plugged in, buy power (charge) when it's cheap, and sell (discharge/reverse metering) when the price is high. Of course, the EV charge controller would have settings of how much charge to have it at in the morning for you, how much you need to get to make it worth it (remember, charge/discharge wears an a battery). People with their own solar system with batteries could also get in on it. And there is the potential with a system like his that if a tree falls through the line, the system isolates the broken line, and people with cars/solar/generators all kick on to keep the isolated part of the grid up -- though at a high power price -- and thus conserved for the very most important loads.
@@erikandersen4081 > Then a valid way to make money with your EV is leave it plugged in, buy power (charge) when it's cheap, and sell (discharge/reverse metering) when the price is high. That's dumb, buy a fucking battery for your solar or your houses, not an EV. This is the most idiotic business model.
Another great video. I wonder if the 225 thousand ev charging stations currently operating in Europe can be adapted to PEM to help smooth grid power demands. Maybe these should get shipping container sized battery banks to have a few MWh each of storage to enhance grid flexibility - with electricity moving both ways when attractive. It may have less affect than ~100 million HVAC and water heaters, but we can’t allow « un-buffered » fast charging when the grid is already stressed.
This is a really interesting idea. I do see a lot of industrial applyances as well. For example I work at a supply water company, where resevoirs are filled in accordance with expected demand. To combine this parameter with available power/demand could be really interesting.
definitely makes a lot of sense - I just hope that data privacy issues won't cause some almost fanatics to try and stop this. Paired with private people allowed to trade energy packets on the energy stock exchange for real-time prices, this would be the incentive to get PV everywhere AND for car-owners to let their vehicle take part in the stabilization and distribution of power by being profitable if you opt to sell when everybody wants some power. I desperately want to reach that state as I would immediately get a battery to provide clean energy during peak hours at good profit! While being a vital part of grid stabilization, this won't solve peak demands - like during lunch time on dark, dead calm days - or a bunch of them. That's the biggest challenge and once you solve this, the packetization will lose part of it's appeal. Whatever technology solves the seasonal storage might make things like packetization superfluous.... I'm really curious to see what pops up.
This is one of those ideas that solicits a reaction like, "Of course!" and "Why didn't this happen sooner?" Even with battery storage, this scheme would seem to have advantages for peak load control at a minimum. If anyone wasn't feeling urgent about climate disaster, the last week of events should emphasize the critical need for energy independence at least regionally.
The reason we didn't have this sooner is because it's an enormous attack surface for cyberattacks. Our power distribution systems already suffer cyberattacks all the time, literally *all the time.* This system is basically itching to get DDoSed.
@@tissuepaper9962 Good point about cyberattacks, but it's simpler than that. This system, as smart as it is, is complicated and would be expensive. Every major electrical appliance would need to be modified. I would also beware of single point of failure problems and want to see robust fail-safe modes in the event of any failures in the system.
"the last week of events should emphasize the critical need for energy independence" Part of this mess is result of phasing out coal / nuclear and replacing it with unstable renewables stabilised by natural gas coming from clearly politically unstable source. I'm not saying that's impossible to strive for climate goals and geopolitical stability (modest storage, HVDC, nuclear), but the way it was done was clearly asking for problems.
Voltalis has been doing this in France for over 15 years, with electric heaters and hot water heaters. It is now important to develop smart EV charging, so that it can better match the needs of the grid (and allow users to recharge at the lowest cost). When we will have millions of electric vehicles that will plug into the grid, it will be necessary to control EV charging much more precisely than simply recharging during off-peak hours at night.
I’ve been thinking about installing a solar system with battery storage for several years now, partly for reducing emissions and also so I could deal with extended grid interruptions during the winter. With the Russian attack on Ukraine, the possibility of a cyber attack on the grid suddenly seems like a compelling reason to amplify my efforts to follow through on that. I think we’re all better off with a decentralized system of power generation, or maybe a combination that couldn’t be brought down by hackers, especially foreign ones.
Insulate your house first. East and west walls are the most important. Only one egress window per room on those walls. Use fixed windows on the north and south sides unless an egress window is necessary. Use a white sealer on your roof if you have an asphalt roof. This makes a dramatic difference in the summer. Have at least 14" of cellulose insulation in the attic. If there's fiberglass in the attic, use a radiant barrier over the top of the fiberglass. Your walls should be an effective R-value of R-25. The attic should be at least R-50. After you've got that done, you are ready for solar.
Good thoughts from all of you. Insulation is vital and awnings can be of great help. Also having a dog, even a small one to reduce consumption, can be a great thing in temperate climates. During the warmer months you can leave windows and sliding doors wide open for passive cooling. I was woken by my dog one night only to see someone jumping the back fence. This was a 12 LB dog. This made a huge difference. Low tech too.
@@My_HandleIs_ I looked into that. The problem was my utilities were so low anyway, I couldn't justify the cost. You're talking $12,000 to $30,000 for an installation. There wasn't a break-even point even after 30 years. Insulating your house is by far the better option. I've been watching Matt Rissinger on youtube. I'm impressed. They are insulating on the outside now with Rockwool continuous batting that covers up the studs. I've got a west wall I'm going to work over just to see what it will do. It's my only weak thermal wall. If it helps, then I'll do the north wall. Once I install solar panels, I should have a zero energy house.
Great but needs a discussion of Jevon's Paradox and how it applies to any attempt at making usage more dependable, more efficient. That is to say, the more efficient, the more dependable, the more we use. Thanks.
It's comforting to think that our tech, engineering, and science will solve all of our intricate conundrums. However, socio-political-economic-psychological-whatnots say that this heat engine problem might be a bridge too far. But I am a massive fan of people trying to create a business that might extend our fortunate, energy-dependent, consumer society into the far-flung quarters of glorious future markets. There is nothing sexier than seeing a video that tells us what we can get. Keep opening high-tech, climate change busting boxes. It's exciting and might make people think about things they can't afford not to think about. And, of course, it's lovely to hear an affable presenter say, "never change." I'd love it if "just have a think" could interview Richard Buckminster Fuller; he was so much ahead of his time. Think of all that time we've spent not paying attention to Buckie because he wasn't "money." Perhaps we finally have the right stuff. Somehow we'll have a Dyson Sphere sooner or later, and then we'll have the capacity to create marketable products on Mars and sell cool stuff to aliens all over the far-flung universe. Paradise is going to make us all rich. We're talking prosperity paradise built by brilliant entrepreneurs. Our Species Is Great. Sing it from the parapets five times a day. But seriously, folks, this man does a great job here, and I appreciate his work.
Bloody brilliant idea.. ot could be named on dual rate system. Also fill washer dryer in the morning let the grid decide when is best time to do the laundry
25 years ago, as an appliance designer in New Zealand, I tried to companies I worked with and for to start a development program for Smart Appliances. The need at the time was to smooth the load demand on the grid with appliances that could reduce their momentary power demands and or to delay their needs by co-ordinating with other appliances. Had that been successful then New Zealand would have a full set of smart appliances as appliance replacement rate is around 5% per year. None of those companies manufacture in NZ now, lack of foresight.
I think this is already happening on a manual basis in the uk with Octopus. They are emailing customers and encouraging them to reduce peak usage (4-7pm) and giving them credit in return.
One of the "hidden" sources of electrical waste are the chargers we us for our personal devices (which, admit it, all stay plugged-in when not being used), and the step down transformers we use for electronic devices. If you had the power equivalent of your home wi-fi switch, along with "smart" charger transformers, the chargers could stay plugged-in and not get power when they weren't charging.
It's also very important that homes and businesses be able to generate some of their own power. This also reduces load on the grid and reduces the need for new centralized power generation. Yes... It is a daytime thing and may be seasonal at high latitudes, but it's also a great way to build resilience into the entire power system to smooth fluctuations in demand and also to minimize the impact of storms, foods, wars, earthquakes / disasters on all power users. As it stands today, one well-aimed missile could disable power to an entire city. For months. If everyone had the ability to generate at least some of their power .... the impact would be vastly reduced. Same goes for anything that disrupts central power production.
... go buy. $300 petrol lil generator and keep 100 gallons petrol and biyearly burn in car to avoid water buildup, but most people are too dumb to do this so heck with them they deserve to be without power a week, , if people won't use a good option the govt ain't responsible for helping, , , will government fix leak in my roof cause I don't wanna and it only rains monthly hahaha, , , , just am tired of socialists wanting to tinker w grid that works ok to fix imaginary problems, , , , Petrol generator solves blackouts cheaply but some nerd will try to say $20000 of solar and battery is needed... I am grumpy today cause my Ticket didn't win the lottery yet again
It's a great start for getting people thinking about how to do real time energy management (minimizing expensive storage)! However it leaves the system open to being made unstable by communication disruptions (/hacking). I believe there is a more solid and maybe even simpler solution. How would one get a paper to David explaining an alternative approach?
Really like the idea of lightning and thunder to compliment thinking in the intro. Seems similar to the EV problem It all depended on a good battery. This packet distribution system seems to need a low power loss transmission means like graphene can provide. Some crazy thought tells me dynamite and/or gold is going to be involved in manufacturing industrial quantities of it.
Excellent video Dave. Just to offset those who are tempted to say,,. "that'll never happen [there's that foolish never word again] because the grid will never cope with the demand", it's worth pointing out that once we ditch expensive fossil fuels and build up our renewable resource energy, this type of technology should be fairly easy, as we'll enter an age of energy abundance. For those who follow tech development, this kind of thing might be more of an "of course" realisation moment, rather than a "wow, whatever will they do next?" scenario. I do think that household batteries are a good thing overall, as they give a temporary measure of independence, and are a useful buffer. And for those who wish to generate their own power and go "off-grid", they are pretty much essential.
Excellent Video Dave, I think Smart Grids are a very important puzzle piece to optimize our energy use, when renewables are working (and no russian gas is available)
I think the title of this excellent-as-usual video should be"How to Better Balance renewable energy grids and minimize energy storage!" Despite optimizing demand with supply, there will be times, especially in regions with severe climates, when even the most optimized demand will exceed the supply and when demand will still not be able to absorb all the supply. Storage will still be necessary both in the short periods and for seasonal periods when renewables are simply not able to meet demand for weeks and months at a time. Right now that storage comes in the form of fossil fuels one of whose great strength is their inherent storage capacity. In fact, they are stored energy until someone puts a match to them. Electricity doesn't work like that and if not used the instant it is created, must be stored to avoid being wasted. So we will have to rethink our energy use patterns. Curtailment is not the answer as it is 100% wasted potential so storage, no matter how inefficient has to be employed. But, as Dave makes so clear, smarter is always better and there are many savings to be had by establishing communication across the grid.
I think this is one of the best ideas I have heard and quite simply to achieve compared to some of the other breakthroughs technology’s I heard so far . We need to start implementing something instead of leaving this to our children and then blaming them for the consequences of climate change
Thanks for sharing this. Such ideas / technologies are critical to effectively accommodating renewables and the subsequent reduction in energy costs. I do believe however additional large gains can be made using a similar techniques in the demand side. Especially with the big uses of heating and cooling because there are numerous examples of passive houses and buildings reducing energy needs to zero for large parts of the day or year even without active systems like solar power and hot water. The end results of both the reduction of the need for power and it's management as this video demonstrates, including the financial signals both can send will make our systems more efficient, scalable, renewable, adaptable in addition to providing new opportunities not yet even predicted eg; Distributed Hydrogen electrolysis for transport or storage and fuel cells as an alternative to batteries and heating elements.
Definitely my favorite RUclips channel. You have inspired me unfortunately RUclips unsubscribed to me for some reason. I have resubscribed so I do not miss any of your shows . I was wondering if there is any way to contact you personally I am in the process of Acquiring some acreage to start a small farm. Was hoping if there was any way I could communicate with you directly . Nothing would please me more to personally tell you how much you are appreciated in my circle and how important the work that you do and your dedication is.. Thank you..
This approach may level out demand and production difference during few hours till maybe single day. But I wonder how these smart houses will discuss their energy needs, when next two week winter storm will come.
This seems like a good idea for short term variance (minutes to hours) in the renewable energy generation, but how would this solve fluctuations in power output if for one or more days the power output is lower than the needed power demand? You would still need something like biomass, fossil fuels or energy storage to fix this gap between energy supply and demand.
We just need to have more renewable generation than demand. That's how we've made fossil grids for as long as we've had stable grids, we have an overcapacity of peaker plants, which is something we can do with wind. Throwing storage into the mix helps, but isn't necessary if your grid is of any reasonable size. The question broadly will be which costs less, an overcapacity of wind turbines, or a battery minus the value of local backup.
@@TheReykjavik Doesn't matter how many wind turbines you have if the wind doesn't blow. And we can't possibly build enough batteries to power the grid.
@@Withnail1969 "here". So you found a single location on the planet where it wasn't windy, and assumed that therefore the entire global atmosphere had stopped moving? smort.
7:18 just great. so every appliance will be part of the 'internet of things', access the internet and most importantly will be accessible from outside too! given the usual care applied in programming firmware this will result in big opportunities for malicious software to terrorise us all; not to mention the loss of privacy. grid operators will know exactly what you do at any moment via _smart meter_ and other devices. tyvm
The way, basically the only really feasible way to have a stable renewable grid is the same way we have a stable fossil grid: have more capacity than we need and be able to shut it off at will. Wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric stations can stop producing power at will, so by having enough of them that we can always turn a few more on to meet unexpected demand is sufficient to balance the grid. Just like we have idle peaker plants (or idle capacity within those plants) at all times during normal operations, we will eventually have some idle renewable sources. Packetizing energy seems like a good idea that will make the grid more efficient and also allow us to lower the excess capacity needed to be confident in the high up time we need. Storage can do the same thing while also providing a backup power supply. And we should do both, smart grid management as well as storage will build a grid that is more robust and cheaper to operate, but they are good in that they make the problem easier to solve. Overcapacity is the solution. We don't panic when a gas turbine shuts down because demand is low, neither should we panic when a wind turbine puts on the brakes for the same reason, and we need to continue building sustainable electricity generation as fast as we practically can.
This is just a slightly different form of power demand management, and it still has some form of central management. Whilst it could help with optimisation, it most certainly does not remove the need for long term energy storage. What it might do is reduce the need for short term storage, but that's wildly different to coping with medium to long periods of time when generation is consistently below demand. It's also just part of the smart grid thinking, and just a particular detailed method of implementation.
I imagine a system could be built in which distributed energy providers could respond to PEM requests. For example, one home in a neighborhood could have extra solar and battery capacity, and PEM requests in the neighborhood would go to that home controller, which would provide the energy packet right there in the neighborhood. If a local provider doesn't have the energy to respond to the packet, the request would continue on to more distant providers until it finds one or times out. Packets could also contain parameters like acceptable price for the unit of energy, or a preference for the source of that energy, acceptable distance of generation etc.
It's a brilliant idea and I think it's a great step for innovators to look at more than just the raw technology. Here they are using new tech, yes, but they are actually tackling a process problem. My deep concern with this in the US is monetization. I can already see utilities coming up with new and sleazy ways to monetize this. "Introducing customized consumption plans: platinum, standard, and basic" ring, ring "... I'm sorry sir you have the basic plan. If you upgrade to the platinum package for $29.99/month..." This is a certainty if we don't insist on limits. Of course there will always be those who will attempt to morally launder this activity by claiming it's just how the market works.
The problem is there is no incentive for manufacturers or consumers to have this capability as there is no benefit to the device or consumer. Needs to be done through legislation.
for best results, these distributions should be networked as decentralized. Centralized systems will come with problems like overloading and mis-synchronization.
i imagine most of the actual communication will take place over the powerlines themselves. power companies have been using the electric grid itself to read electric usage for almost 2 decades now in my part of the world
This is an interesting concept. It seems this could be a natural adjunct to Tesla’s Autobidder system & virtual power plant. When we add Internet of Things & AI to the mix this really does have a role to play in the transition.
Brilliant video as usual. But ... 1) how do those device controllers communicate with the PEM controller? Via internet? That would mean: no internet == no power control. 2) did they tell the cost of those device controllers in your freezer, boiler, charger, ... might add up quite a bit for a household.
Sounds like a great idea. If we could jump forward 10 or so years and we all had solar and batteries, or at least EV to grid 2 way connections, the grid wouldn't need any or at least very little battery storage, as each house would act as a part of the whole grid.
The uk new house build should be installing 3phase Supplies for the future. But, currently most properties have single phase. This system in a local area could be used to balance loads and reduce peak loads. W ith weather changes predictions it could be possible to say overheat water or property by couple degrees to reduce load by bit when cold night or wind stops blowing
I did a review of IoT tech including grid connected tech a year ago and I found that most IoT devices have little or no security. In my opinion, this is where the biggest problem with it lies. If these devices end up getting connected to home networks, they put the full network at risk. There's also the issue that without a connection to the home network, the devices need SIM cards connected to the local 3G or 4G networks, but there's only so much capacity on these networks. I have been wondering if the grid itself could be used as a low speed network with hubs placed around cities that connect these low speed transmissions to the internet, thus eliminating the need for telco networks or home networks.
I just keep being blissfully satisfied by this exemplary channel; regardless of the content - which ticks all my boxes in that category. In terms of production: excellent sound balancing, excellent graphics, minimal and intelligent use of stock footage, warm and engaging personality in the presentation, mandatory high definition of sound and video; but the main strength is in the most crucial facet - writing. You are a superb science writer sir, among your many talents - verbal communication being the second most important - which you clearly pay a lot of attention to. Clear, that is, to those who notice how effortless it seems. Bravissimo!
I was actually studying this, exactly, for my masters thesis. Wow. Thank you Dave!
Congratulation for the choice of the master, I think it'll give you good opportunities.
@@pomodorino1766 Yes, thank you. This is my passion along with EVs. I wish all rooftops could have solar panels and work as microgrids. But, there are so many psychological, financial, and epistemological barriers for the retail market of solar modules, that I wonder when this will be a thing. Thank you for your support.
Excellent. Good luck with your thesis :-)
@@JustHaveaThink Thank you, Dave.
You don't need to study for a solution, I've had one for over 2 years , Government not interested.
Technicaly, this is not *without* energy storage. The storage happens, just not in the form of electricity. You store heat in the water heater, heat in the air of your house, etc. It just adds a smart distributed management system for this "storage".
It is demand scheduling and shifting to avoid in rush consumption and peak loads. There is no energy stored in your heater or house air the system is forced to go without that energy until the utility company has sufficient capacity to handle the load. For example take the water heater. If the heater is set to come on at 120f and you finish your shower and it needs to heat the water back to 180f to turn off and store energy for your kids shower but the grid saids sorry there is no packet to fill that demand for the next hour the water heater stays at 120f cooling down if your kid take a shower ending in a pissed off cold showered kid. For this system to store energy as you suggest the water heater would have to operate from say 160f to 120f normally but over night when the power company saids I have excess energy the water heater would have to say ok for 1 cent per kW I will heat the water from 160 to 180 so there is more heat in 4 hours when we need 2 hot showers. Or the house would heat up to 80f so it could cool back down to 70 when they demand is high that is not suggested in this packet scheme.
You're not storing it electrically, nor at the grid level. This is demand management, the fact that the consumer *happens* to be using it for heat or in an EV is irrelevant to the concept. It works outside of those situations as well.
@@DanA-nl5uo there will be trivial solutions for cases like that: the water heater will store water at a slightly higher temp and will have some buffer action on demand. A 25L storage water heater can act like a 35L storage water heater. But the worst sufferers will be those instant heaters that use a 5kW heater and heat the passing water. I, as an example, always put on the water heater before bath and turn it off immediately after my bath. I do not use hot water for other purposes and the system will ask me to keep the water heater on 24 hours and hot water will be always available that I do not want.
@@janami-dharmam the solution will be the spot price market control. Meaning people who are not willing to pay more than x for electricity will go without while those who are willing to pay more will get the service. This technology has the advantage of allowing the power grid to size to maximize profitability not to match real demand. Meaning if running the plant at maximum profitability means x percent of the poorest go with cold showers or less heating and cooling so be it the free market can now match limited supply with the demand. In the past the lack of demand side control ment that the entire community had to have their demand met or the wealthy would force the power company to expand capacity to avoid blackout.
@@janami-dharmam I also drop the temp on my HW heater when not needed. I'm recently single now and don't use it much as I usually shower at the gym and only use "warm" water for dishes and laundry. With that said, it just crossed my mind that this could potentially cause some unhealthy water conditions... Thoughts?
Very timely viewing. The UK grid now is showing the lowest ever gas consumption for generating electricity. The wind contribution is high and the sun is shining at a time when grid consumption is low.
The gas power stations are used to flex the supply but what happens if the demand from them reaches zero. It is inefficient to have a gang of industrial units reving up and down and not easy to switch them off.
Coincidently Octopus Energy is experimenting in the area of your discussion by asking consumers to reduce demand when we are short of supply and hopefully soon will ask us to take free delivery when in surplus!
Please take a look at deep bore geothermal. Technologies like millimeter wave drilling might make drilling that deep much cheaper. That could wind up being the go to clean energy of the near future. Micro-grids would also be less vulnerable.
This is a very interesting idea, somewhat similar to an idea I've had for years. Devices that control themselves based on line frequency. Put very simply, when it dips down below the base frequency of by say, 1/100 of a cycle per second, loads shut off. When it rises above they turn on. Would have it set for batteries to charge or discharge based on frequency as well.
Nice
Add a random delay before turning off and on, and it sounds fine.
I suppose that this works best for turbine-based power... solar goes through an inverter and will probably show signs of load in its *voltage*..?
Being a part time Vermont resident I think it's a great idea and we all need this kind of change in our systems!!
I think this can be solved with a much simpler and much more robust way. Each device could just monitor the grid frequency. When there's too much demand the frequency drops, when there's too much production the frequency increases. No internet connection needed, no big central computer needed, can't fail, and can't be hacked.
Another possibility is to monitor the spot price of electricity. If there isn't enough, the price goes up, if there's too much the price goes down. Tesla's batteries are already doing just that. This requires internet connection, but still decentralized and reasonably secure. Plus Tesla is doing the whole thing too, with it's Virtual Power Plant software.
In the Netherlands, we have the option to consume electricity based on a flexible price. This provides an additional incentive for users to shift their energy use.
For households, the prices are fixed 8 hours in advance and set per hour. Industrial consumers pay for energy per second which is basically the same as the grid frequency.
All you need is a smart phone app which monitors the energy price and tells your car to pause charging for a bit. The simplicity, privacy, control and financial incentive makes it a no-brainer for everyone.
If you had large numbers of devices doing this it could lead to huge overswings depending on how often the devices measure the voltage of the grid. You could end up with very destabilising feedback loops that would swing out of control.
@@mentality-monster be default, the voltage is measured every 10 seconds by every electrical meter in every building. The timing is not synced so there is a natural spread when shifting loads. One can add an additional meter to measure the voltage every second, but this is only interesting for large consumers such as chemical, metal or greenhouse industry.
In Czech Republic, the information about which price tariff is currently active is signalled using the power grid itself, it's modulated on top of the fixed frequency power transmission. We have devices that can automatically switch on and off power based on this.
Hourly prices are not the same as tariffs. We have 2 tariffs (high and low) or we can choose to use an hourly tariff which can vary to a tenth of a cent every hour.
Another excellent presentation Dave and all the technicians at Just Have a Think! We have a program for off peak water heaters, but this is truly a smart grid approach! Aunt Bernice had the off peak water heater setup with the power company, and after insulating the water heater with an added blanket of insulation, it works quite well. I'm using side saddle tanks in the basement next to the wood stove which gives some mighty hot water and helps heat the house at night as that water cools a bit, but since we can't keep burning gas, and carbon neutral firewood is practical for just a small number of people, plus it's messy, so the electric water heater option is the sensible path for most people, and the team in Vermont has a practical answer. 🌲🌲🌲🌞🌄
I've got a van with solar panels, 300Ah of batteries a little-used inverter and lots of 12V stuff. My dump load is to the water heater (got to go somewhere) and I can disconnect the batteries if I need it in a hurry. Everything is connected up with current detectors throughout and combination switching available (eg inverter + coffee maker, - coffee maker, - inverter) etc. I use a similar system to this with the refrigerator unit going right down to the target during excess times and letting it float a little when power is scarcer. I've also got a relay ready to experiment with a brown gas generator only while driving.
I live off grid with solar and batteries in Canada and I love this idea! It could so well to help stabilize my battery situation here to have maximal usage when the sun is shining and minimal when it is not. It would greatly reduce my need for storage. Large industries do help with energy use modulation in some places, where a lumber mill will shut down during a very hot day to reduce injuries and allow for that power to go to AC units instead. They have deals with the local power providers to do this too. But yeah, AC, hot water, and car charging loads could all do this too
Love your videos, I'm a renewables installer so all you do is well up my street.
Great to hear! Thank you :-)
I am impressed by your channel. You ask for comment, here's an observation. a) EV's are big batteries on four wheels, b) there are millions of rooftops, c) roof tops are on buildings which are connected to the grid. Ergo; there is already an embryonic collection, storage and distribution system to potentially handle massive amounts of electricity. In order to realise the potential there would need to be a scheme to incentivise roof top solar and EV ownership on a grand scale. Roof owners would need to sign into the scheme, which would have clever algorithms at it's heart. They would be required to agree to sell an negotiable amount of their electricity from their EV batteries to the grid. Problem solved. There is a lot of detail to be worked out, beyond my resources. However, 'I had a think' and I think that on the face of it, what could possibly go wrong?
Very interesting concept! Adding Power Line Communication (PLC) will make it even more viable. Thank you very much.
Every EV already has it, GreenPHY is the standard protocol..
Thanks for the video and the info on youtube. I didn't know what had happened, at first I though it was my internet company or something. You cleared that up too!
I love those insights into new startups! :)
Having read how some energy providers are making eye-watering profits, people who are not on the inside have a right to be sceptical about the amount in monetary gains made by efficiency savings being passed onto the consumer.
Pity we have so few (if any) energy co-ops.
True. The savings almost never seems to trickle down to us normal people. Still might be important to do though just for the reduction in emissions.
Very rarely does this result in cost savings nor emissions savings. It allows produces to sell more power and usually as special long term contracts given a company trying to meet its "renewable energy" targets.
Also the lack of investment in grid infrastructure.
The realities of power loads have little bearing on corporate profits though.
Look at how they close coal plants (good) but then also close nuke plants (bad) leaving natural gas as a peaker crutch against intermittent renewables.
This drives up costs to the consumer but those costs are downloaded to the consumer, as the shareholder value is still the top concern.
Regardless of people getting rich owning the generation facilities, it's still beneficial to the population to have a sane strategy.
Here in sweden we have several start up companies developing technology for moving the energy consumption during the day but also use it to balance the load in the grid. Checkwatt, krafthem, myrspoven, minestorage just to name a few.
Smart consumption and better heat storage for Bio-CHP plants is the green balancing future!
If swedish people lived in Greece, to a such more friendly environment and rich in renewable sources, I guess you will had zero energy problems.
Great video, I didn't know about this technology before but it seems relatively easy to implement. I had a similar system provided for by the electric company just for my air conditioner for a reduced rate. It seems like this should get instituted at a national level, phased in at first for large loads, HVAC and EV charging and later for smaller loads.
Marvellous description Dave, really useful.
This system exists in Germany for years. There is a 10 cent lower electricity tariff per kWh for heat pumps and since 2 years also for wall boxes, charging electric cars. Two electricity meters are installed. One for the house with the normal tariff and one that can be switched off for the heat pump and wall box. The electricity supplier uses a low frequency control signal modulated onto the mains voltage to switch off the second meter in order to avoid peak loads.
Very clever idea. One simple drawback from a system prospective is that we are solving a problem of a system A (electric grid), by creating a dependency on a system B (internet connection). But I guess there are solution to that (backup mode when internet connection is broken). Even if, when you scaled down your electrical infrastructure, you will not be able to provide the original energy peaks when internet connection gets unavailable for unknown reasons.
The PEM Coordinator would get DDOS'ed on a cold day if all these devices start screaming for power. It would also be very fulnerable to all kinds of attacks. So while this sounds great, if it get's used on a large scale and we would become denpendend on it, it wil create problems. People will install hacks for faster power, companies will try to make money by harvesting on cheap times and selling on high creating even more data load etc.
I have a smart thermostat and during the summer months, I use pre peak electricity to cool the house down _in advance_ of a hot day, then set it to 28°C to coast for the rest of the day. In a sense, I am using the air in my house as a battery. The city wanted me to give them the ability to shut my system off if they were concerned about power usage and I said no. Partly because I don't think they can manage my electricity better than I do, and partly because I think it's there job to improve the grid's infrastructure, and don't want them to pass the buck to the consumer. They privatised electricity production in my region and I resent a Corporation that pays out dividends instead of reinvesting profits in an essential service.
Thanks for the great new video! I enjoy all of your videos, but this one was particularly fun because it feels so real.
This is the way. This is a system that will actually work. It's based on ideas that have transformed many other technologies, and they should work just as well with energy storage. I really think all our grids will have systems like this eventually.
Brilliant and from MY Own Perspective as an Electrician , ...pretty simple
The 21stCentury is awesome
I love this development so much! Distributed networks pop up everywhere. The mycorrhizal networks connecting 95%of the plants on Earth, the Internet, insect colonies, etc!
YES! So many people ignore the demand side of energy needs. At a personal level, I was able to cut my electricity use by ~30% just by micromanaging my thermostat! So there’s a lot of potential on the table here.
It would be very interesting to see a town do a pilot run of a program like this and hear what the results are.
My grandmother used to unplug every appliance except the refrigerator when she was not using it.
Her electric bill was generally significantly lower than her neighbors.
Phantom loads add up.
You can also couse refrigeration, water heaters for pools and such from home to nominalize and off peak energy use, but it all costs $$$ and none is willing to make the hard short term investments
You did that manually? Or did you install some kind of programmed controller?
@@audistik1199 I’ve just been doing it manually for now. So in the summer I set it at 74 or 72F when I go to sleep (otherwise I’m too hot to sleep), and then I change it to 78F when I leave for work.
In the winter I’m typically setting it at 71 overnight and 69 during the day.
Eventually I’ll get a programmable controller to do this for me, but I rent my place so it’s not something to do now. My local utility supplier will actually give me a programmable controller for free (if I’m a homeowner) which I think goes to show how big of a difference it can make!
@@shawnr771 they sure do! The energy star program in America helps direct users to appliances which use less energy overall, have features to use less energy, and even some that have a lower “phantom load” usage.
If you’re an American citizen then you can often get a small rebate by purchasing one of these and turning in the appropriate paperwork. Even if you’re not an American citizen though; I see no reason why you can use the website to research your next purchase and keep energy usage down!
Funny thing - there is a "Quality of Service" (QoS) layer to internet routing these days. If youre gaming, livestreaming, or on a video-call? The idea is you get higher priority due to the real-time nature of your activity. Where a webpage waits in line a little better, usually imperceptibly. This could be further implemented in this technology.
There's been a QoS capability since the beginning. It just doesn't do anything on the internet. It works fine on private networks that have been configured to enable it, but internet routers universally have it turned off. Because if it was enabled, everyone who knew how (or could download an app to make it easy) would mark all their packets as top-priority urgent.
Thanks again, for sharing what ingenuity can do for our future. I love this technique and am hoping to see it used.
Thanks for watching!
I love it, but I would make one tweak: when you opt out of the managed system to force energy delivery, you should pay a higher price for that energy. And maybe it shouldn't be a binary thing -- it could be a simple dial or slider indicating how urgently you need the energy (and how much extra you are willing to pay for it).
In other words, apply economics to the problem.
But that would penalise people who need, for example, urgent heating more often. People with poorly insulated houses- mostly poorer people- will thus be paying higher rates.
@@danyoutube7491 Good point. This argument often comes up -- we can't use economics to cause the right thing to happen because the poorest people are the least capable of adapting. The same thing is often said about carbon taxes. But of course there are ways to help the poor. For example, with a carbon tax you can use the very tax money you collect to give the poor back some money. They still have an incentive to be more efficient, because if they do they'll actually MAKE money. You DEFINITELY want those who are being the most inefficient to have an incentive to improve, even if they are dirt-poor.
And you could do the same thing here. Start a program to upgrade the insulation in poorly insulated homes, and fund it with the extra money paid by those who say they need energy urgently.
My go-to solutions are often economic incentives as well.
But in this case, I think any attempt to charge the one opting out would be seen as a draconian, and a reason to not adopt this technology in the first place.
Tl;dr Better to skip the extra charge for the one opting out, rather than risk this plan becoming unpopular before it's even adopted.
Really, we should let the price of power float. If you have a smart water heater, it would just be bidding for electricity and deciding to turn on when the price per kwh gets low enough. The people who want to opt out of the system just pay fixed rate that is approximately the peak demand rate.I can see smart thermostats where it move the slider between sticking more strictly to the set temp & paying more, or letting it drift a few degrees until the price gets low & paying less. It would also give great economic incentives to build storage facilities when they are truly needed to deal with the parts of peak demand that can't/won't shift.
That's not packet switching, that's digitally controlled allotment.
I think an intent based event scheduler would be better for demand side management. The controller on a device sends over the network that it predicts it will consume at x Watts over t amount of time. This would add further predictability to the electric grid and wouldn't cause a failure due to loss of communication.
"HAL please turn on my water heater." "I am sorry Dave, but you are a low priority at this time. Please take a shower at 3 AM."
Thank you for this so clear presentation of this energy management system. With electricity becoming a widespread source of energy because of the wider use of heat pumps, this seems an important step. The system of appliances behaving like hungry birdies is somwhat surprising however. It is opposite to the electricity suppliers using the appliances as a sort of buffer. In some existing systems, a signal is given when there is excess of electricity via the pricing. thereof.
Pretty interesting idea.
The amount of data collection will be crazy. They'll know when people use what devices at what times.
If it was house-level requests, with devices communicating with a central hub, then that'd anonymize device usage but allow PEM to still function.
this looks really cool. I hope they continue to expand the number of people served. It would also be interesting to see what the impact of some distributed batteries of even 5kwh would have.
I love Dave's common sense approach, and simple delivery. For years, I've wondered why we haven't system like this. It just seems logical. But everyone is too busy squabbling over...... can't have electric cars, grid will collapse, nuclear is bad, need to keep burning coal blah blah blah
dynamic demand co in the uk has a simple solution, use the 60 cycle variations to call appliances to reduce temperatures
Dynamic demand is a great idea, it seemed to lose momentum around 2009 probably because the cost of incorporating the frequency monitoring hardware added too much cost then, but now when everything has a computer built into it, it would be low cost. An example of where it can be used is refrigerators which say have an operating range of 2 to 5 degrees, when the grid frequency is high you cool to the lower end of the range, when the frequency is low you allow the temperature to rise to the upper end, given the load on the grid is indicated by it's frequency (less load means the generators at the power stations spin more easily & faster) it means the appliance modifies it's load dynamically, apply this to the washing machine (heat faster/slower), dishwasher, tumble dry, Freezer. immersion heater, EV charger, A/C Units etc... it all adds up, then multiply across all the household on the grid and it could really make a difference. Just need political will to say reduce VAT on new devices to encourage manufacturers to add the feature. It also has the advantage that 'Bad' actors can't hack the grid coordinating all the Packets!!
A few links - www.dynamicdemand.co.uk/index.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_demand_(electric_power)
strathprints.strath.ac.uk/5166/1/dynamicDemand_as_on_IEEE_site_1_.pdf
It''s a good idea, and it will certainly help with short term grid balancing and reducing peaks, but it would be naive to believe that demand flexibility alone can solve the total storage conundrum. The issue is that demand flexibility is limited in time - you can offset demands by perhaps a few hours at most. (e.g. you can delay heating or car charging a bit, but ultimately you plug it in because it's needed at a certain time) But storage measured in hours is not really an issue already - the real problem with intermittent renewable grids is seasonal storage, with storage measured in weeks, to cover those slack weather periods with little renewable resource. Demand flexibility won't help with this, unless people are prepared to sit in cold houses with cars they can't use for weeks on end. Of course with spot pricing models this does become a possible choice for consumers, but then we are likely getting into the realms of energy poverty, where some people live in very poor conditions because they can't afford the heating or to leave the house.
Makes so much sense and seems as though it should be relatively easy to implement
Hmm ... I wonder whether this kind of distributed load management system could be implemented as an automated bidding process. When the water is hot your water heater bids a low price; when it is cold it bids a high price. Base the underlying algorithms on Adam Smith's theory of Supply and Demand.
This sounds perfect! I live off grid and have to be a manual packet manager.
Excellent video and yet another constructive addition to hopefully meet energy and climate issues we all face as a civilization . So my country seems to be banking on nuclear(large/SMR)/renewables(world's largest offshore wind) and "green" hydrogen(world's largest electrolyser facility) to reach net zero and negate hydrocarbon use. However I think this could be backed up by tidal/wave and fingers crossed nuclear fusion(wild card)! So whatever your energy input, this sounds like a great idea and would boost efficiency available power sources on a grid.
Sounds like an excellent idea for day-to-day efficiency. However, extended problems such as the Texas winter would see more and more devices switching to manual as they fail to get energy in a timely fashion, then the current unmanaged system results and chaos ensues. There needs to be some sort of back-up power for those rare problem times. In the case of Texas, that means connecting to the national grid infrastructure.
When your car charging is joined to the PEM system it may even be allowed to work in reverse contributing power to the grid depending on the state of charge of the battery.
Yea. Having all our cars constantly sitting at 80-100% battery state seems silly when you factor in charging rates and the fact that most people will use
God I have heard this idea for years now ... just what a person would want ... you go out to drive to work in the morning and find out someone made the decision that the power you thought you had in your car has been sucked out to power air-conditioners in Texas and you are stuck at home. I must be missing something but I don't see how it's a good idea to be able to use people's electric car batteries as energy resources - even if they pay you back a premium.
@@justgivemethetruth I expect that there will be a reserve that you can set to make certain that your car has adequate range in the morning. I always wonder of the car batteries are designed for this and if it will be good or bad for the battery.
@@justgivemethetruth That's where it really starts to make sense that it is based on a power market with floating prices. Then a valid way to make money with your EV is leave it plugged in, buy power (charge) when it's cheap, and sell (discharge/reverse metering) when the price is high. Of course, the EV charge controller would have settings of how much charge to have it at in the morning for you, how much you need to get to make it worth it (remember, charge/discharge wears an a battery). People with their own solar system with batteries could also get in on it. And there is the potential with a system like his that if a tree falls through the line, the system isolates the broken line, and people with cars/solar/generators all kick on to keep the isolated part of the grid up -- though at a high power price -- and thus conserved for the very most important loads.
@@erikandersen4081
> Then a valid way to make money with your EV is leave it plugged in, buy power (charge) when it's cheap, and sell (discharge/reverse metering) when the price is high.
That's dumb, buy a fucking battery for your solar or your houses, not an EV. This is the most idiotic business model.
Another great video. I wonder if the 225 thousand ev charging stations currently operating in Europe can be adapted to PEM to help smooth grid power demands. Maybe these should get shipping container sized battery banks to have a few MWh each of storage to enhance grid flexibility - with electricity moving both ways when attractive. It may have less affect than ~100 million HVAC and water heaters, but we can’t allow « un-buffered » fast charging when the grid is already stressed.
This is a really interesting idea. I do see a lot of industrial applyances as well. For example I work at a supply water company, where resevoirs are filled in accordance with expected demand. To combine this parameter with available power/demand could be really interesting.
This feels like an "aha!" moment. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
Wonderful concept.
definitely makes a lot of sense - I just hope that data privacy issues won't cause some almost fanatics to try and stop this.
Paired with private people allowed to trade energy packets on the energy stock exchange for real-time prices, this would be the incentive to get PV everywhere AND for car-owners to let their vehicle take part in the stabilization and distribution of power by being profitable if you opt to sell when everybody wants some power. I desperately want to reach that state as I would immediately get a battery to provide clean energy during peak hours at good profit!
While being a vital part of grid stabilization, this won't solve peak demands - like during lunch time on dark, dead calm days - or a bunch of them. That's the biggest challenge and once you solve this, the packetization will lose part of it's appeal. Whatever technology solves the seasonal storage might make things like packetization superfluous.... I'm really curious to see what pops up.
Finally a technology on this show that I actually like.... Took a while but you got there eventually
Sounds like a good idea as long as you can keep the hackers out of the system.
Really interesting technology. Lets hope it's rolled out sooner than later!
This is one of those ideas that solicits a reaction like, "Of course!" and "Why didn't this happen sooner?" Even with battery storage, this scheme would seem to have advantages for peak load control at a minimum. If anyone wasn't feeling urgent about climate disaster, the last week of events should emphasize the critical need for energy independence at least regionally.
The reason we didn't have this sooner is because it's an enormous attack surface for cyberattacks. Our power distribution systems already suffer cyberattacks all the time, literally *all the time.* This system is basically itching to get DDoSed.
The last week of events should make politicians really start using their brains. Europe urgently needs energy independence
@@tissuepaper9962 Good point about cyberattacks, but it's simpler than that. This system, as smart as it is, is complicated and would be expensive. Every major electrical appliance would need to be modified. I would also beware of single point of failure problems and want to see robust fail-safe modes in the event of any failures in the system.
@@luismachado6264 Politicians with brains? Maybe, but said brains are fully occupied by staying in power and maximising personal profit.
"the last week of events should emphasize the critical need for energy independence" Part of this mess is result of phasing out coal / nuclear and replacing it with unstable renewables stabilised by natural gas coming from clearly politically unstable source.
I'm not saying that's impossible to strive for climate goals and geopolitical stability (modest storage, HVDC, nuclear), but the way it was done was clearly asking for problems.
Voltalis has been doing this in France for over 15 years, with electric heaters and hot water heaters. It is now important to develop smart EV charging, so that it can better match the needs of the grid (and allow users to recharge at the lowest cost). When we will have millions of electric vehicles that will plug into the grid, it will be necessary to control EV charging much more precisely than simply recharging during off-peak hours at night.
It might be a great time to look at Ess/GWH iron flow batteries from Oregon again they are ramping up production of long duration energy storage
I’ve been thinking about installing a solar system with battery storage for several years now, partly for reducing emissions and also so I could deal with extended grid interruptions during the winter. With the Russian attack on Ukraine, the possibility of a cyber attack on the grid suddenly seems like a compelling reason to amplify my efforts to follow through on that. I think we’re all better off with a decentralized system of power generation, or maybe a combination that couldn’t be brought down by hackers, especially foreign ones.
Insulate your house first. East and west walls are the most important. Only one egress window per room on those walls. Use fixed windows on the north and south sides unless an egress window is necessary. Use a white sealer on your roof if you have an asphalt roof. This makes a dramatic difference in the summer. Have at least 14" of cellulose insulation in the attic. If there's fiberglass in the attic, use a radiant barrier over the top of the fiberglass. Your walls should be an effective R-value of R-25. The attic should be at least R-50. After you've got that done, you are ready for solar.
@@spacescatatford Your suggestion on the attic applies in my circumstances, though it’s a small part of my vaulted ceilings. Thanks for the reminder!
@@spacescatatford don’t forget that geothermal and heat pumps are important to reach super low consumption.
Good thoughts from all of you. Insulation is vital and awnings can be of great help. Also having a dog, even a small one to reduce consumption, can be a great thing in temperate climates. During the warmer months you can leave windows and sliding doors wide open for passive cooling. I was woken by my dog one night only to see someone jumping the back fence. This was a 12 LB dog. This made a huge difference. Low tech too.
@@My_HandleIs_ I looked into that. The problem was my utilities were so low anyway, I couldn't justify the cost. You're talking $12,000 to $30,000 for an installation. There wasn't a break-even point even after 30 years. Insulating your house is by far the better option. I've been watching Matt Rissinger on youtube. I'm impressed. They are insulating on the outside now with Rockwool continuous batting that covers up the studs. I've got a west wall I'm going to work over just to see what it will do. It's my only weak thermal wall. If it helps, then I'll do the north wall. Once I install solar panels, I should have a zero energy house.
Incentivizing electrical demands using the frequency of packet requests would be an obvious benefit to this system. Thanks reporting on this.
Great but needs a discussion of Jevon's Paradox and how it applies to any attempt at making usage more dependable, more efficient. That is to say, the more efficient, the more dependable, the more we use. Thanks.
It's comforting to think that our tech, engineering, and science will solve all of our intricate conundrums. However, socio-political-economic-psychological-whatnots say that this heat engine problem might be a bridge too far. But I am a massive fan of people trying to create a business that might extend our fortunate, energy-dependent, consumer society into the far-flung quarters of glorious future markets. There is nothing sexier than seeing a video that tells us what we can get. Keep opening high-tech, climate change busting boxes. It's exciting and might make people think about things they can't afford not to think about. And, of course, it's lovely to hear an affable presenter say, "never change." I'd love it if "just have a think" could interview Richard Buckminster Fuller; he was so much ahead of his time. Think of all that time we've spent not paying attention to Buckie because he wasn't "money." Perhaps we finally have the right stuff. Somehow we'll have a Dyson Sphere sooner or later, and then we'll have the capacity to create marketable products on Mars and sell cool stuff to aliens all over the far-flung universe. Paradise is going to make us all rich. We're talking prosperity paradise built by brilliant entrepreneurs. Our Species Is Great. Sing it from the parapets five times a day. But seriously, folks, this man does a great job here, and I appreciate his work.
excellent film
Great program, would love to see it in Australia..!
Bloody brilliant idea.. ot could be named on dual rate system. Also fill washer dryer in the morning let the grid decide when is best time to do the laundry
Here for the thumbs up, Dave! Already "hearted" in Patreon. Earthlings need to "just have a think" about such solutions!
Bless you Mark :-)
25 years ago, as an appliance designer in New Zealand, I tried to companies I worked with and for to start a development program for Smart Appliances. The need at the time was to smooth the load demand on the grid with appliances that could reduce their momentary power demands and or to delay their needs by co-ordinating with other appliances. Had that been successful then New Zealand would have a full set of smart appliances as appliance replacement rate is around 5% per year. None of those companies manufacture in NZ now, lack of foresight.
I think this is already happening on a manual basis in the uk with Octopus. They are emailing customers and encouraging them to reduce peak usage (4-7pm) and giving them credit in return.
One of the "hidden" sources of electrical waste are the chargers we us for our personal devices (which, admit it, all stay plugged-in when not being used), and the step down transformers we use for electronic devices. If you had the power equivalent of your home wi-fi switch, along with "smart" charger transformers, the chargers could stay plugged-in and not get power when they weren't charging.
Great idea, I'd sign up for it
It's also very important that homes and businesses be able to generate some of their own power. This also reduces load on the grid and reduces the need for new centralized power generation. Yes... It is a daytime thing and may be seasonal at high latitudes, but it's also a great way to build resilience into the entire power system to smooth fluctuations in demand and also to minimize the impact of storms, foods, wars, earthquakes / disasters on all power users. As it stands today, one well-aimed missile could disable power to an entire city. For months. If everyone had the ability to generate at least some of their power .... the impact would be vastly reduced. Same goes for anything that disrupts central power production.
... go buy. $300 petrol lil generator and keep 100 gallons petrol and biyearly burn in car to avoid water buildup, but most people are too dumb to do this so heck with them they deserve to be without power a week, , if people won't use a good option the govt ain't responsible for helping, , , will government fix leak in my roof cause I don't wanna and it only rains monthly hahaha, , , , just am tired of socialists wanting to tinker w grid that works ok to fix imaginary problems, , , , Petrol generator solves blackouts cheaply but some nerd will try to say $20000 of solar and battery is needed... I am grumpy today cause my Ticket didn't win the lottery yet again
It's a great start for getting people thinking about how to do real time energy management (minimizing expensive storage)! However it leaves the system open to being made unstable by communication disruptions (/hacking). I believe there is a more solid and maybe even simpler solution. How would one get a paper to David explaining an alternative approach?
Really like the idea of lightning and thunder to compliment thinking in the intro. Seems similar to the EV problem It all depended on a good battery. This packet distribution system seems to need a low power loss transmission means like graphene can provide. Some crazy thought tells me dynamite and/or gold is going to be involved in manufacturing industrial quantities of it.
Excellent video Dave. Just to offset those who are tempted to say,,. "that'll never happen [there's that foolish never word again] because the grid will never cope with the demand", it's worth pointing out that once we ditch expensive fossil fuels and build up our renewable resource energy, this type of technology should be fairly easy, as we'll enter an age of energy abundance. For those who follow tech development, this kind of thing might be more of an "of course" realisation moment, rather than a "wow, whatever will they do next?" scenario. I do think that household batteries are a good thing overall, as they give a temporary measure of independence, and are a useful buffer. And for those who wish to generate their own power and go "off-grid", they are pretty much essential.
Well said Andy
Excellent Video Dave, I think Smart Grids are a very important puzzle piece to optimize our energy use, when renewables are working (and no russian gas is available)
Cheers Holger :-)
I think the title of this excellent-as-usual video should be"How to Better Balance renewable energy grids and minimize energy storage!" Despite optimizing demand with supply, there will be times, especially in regions with severe climates, when even the most optimized demand will exceed the supply and when demand will still not be able to absorb all the supply. Storage will still be necessary both in the short periods and for seasonal periods when renewables are simply not able to meet demand for weeks and months at a time.
Right now that storage comes in the form of fossil fuels one of whose great strength is their inherent storage capacity. In fact, they are stored energy until someone puts a match to them. Electricity doesn't work like that and if not used the instant it is created, must be stored to avoid being wasted. So we will have to rethink our energy use patterns. Curtailment is not the answer as it is 100% wasted potential so storage, no matter how inefficient has to be employed.
But, as Dave makes so clear, smarter is always better and there are many savings to be had by establishing communication across the grid.
I think this is one of the best ideas I have heard and quite simply to achieve compared to some of the other breakthroughs technology’s I heard so far . We need to start implementing something instead of leaving this to our children and then blaming them for the consequences of climate change
Thanks for sharing this. Such ideas / technologies are critical to effectively accommodating renewables and the subsequent reduction in energy costs. I do believe however additional large gains can be made using a similar techniques in the demand side. Especially with the big uses of heating and cooling because there are numerous examples of passive houses and buildings reducing energy needs to zero for large parts of the day or year even without active systems like solar power and hot water. The end results of both the reduction of the need for power and it's management as this video demonstrates, including the financial signals both can send will make our systems more efficient, scalable, renewable, adaptable in addition to providing new opportunities not yet even predicted eg; Distributed Hydrogen electrolysis for transport or storage and fuel cells as an alternative to batteries and heating elements.
Definitely my favorite RUclips channel. You have inspired me unfortunately RUclips unsubscribed to me for some reason. I have resubscribed so I do not miss any of your shows . I was wondering if there is any way to contact you personally I am in the process of Acquiring some acreage to start a small farm. Was hoping if there was any way I could communicate with you directly . Nothing would please me more to personally tell you how much you are appreciated in my circle and how important the work that you do and your dedication is.. Thank you..
This approach may level out demand and production difference during few hours till maybe single day. But I wonder how these smart houses will discuss their energy needs, when next two week winter storm will come.
This is great.
I can imagine it being built into a smart plug and used with fan heaters and battery chargers.
This seems like a good idea for short term variance (minutes to hours) in the renewable energy generation, but how would this solve fluctuations in power output if for one or more days the power output is lower than the needed power demand? You would still need something like biomass, fossil fuels or energy storage to fix this gap between energy supply and demand.
We just need to have more renewable generation than demand. That's how we've made fossil grids for as long as we've had stable grids, we have an overcapacity of peaker plants, which is something we can do with wind.
Throwing storage into the mix helps, but isn't necessary if your grid is of any reasonable size. The question broadly will be which costs less, an overcapacity of wind turbines, or a battery minus the value of local backup.
@@TheReykjavik Doesn't matter how many wind turbines you have if the wind doesn't blow. And we can't possibly build enough batteries to power the grid.
@@Withnail1969 Can you name a single time in the history of the world when the wind wasn't blowing?
@@TheReykjavik Yes the wind isnt blowing here today. The wind often doesn't blow.
@@Withnail1969 "here". So you found a single location on the planet where it wasn't windy, and assumed that therefore the entire global atmosphere had stopped moving? smort.
Should would. The system protection devices could also be connected to optimize line losses and help prevent over current and cold load situations.
Great post my friend.
7:18 just great. so every appliance will be part of the 'internet of things', access the internet and most importantly will be accessible from outside too! given the usual care applied in programming firmware this will result in big opportunities for malicious software to terrorise us all; not to mention the loss of privacy. grid operators will know exactly what you do at any moment via _smart meter_ and other devices. tyvm
That's awesome! Great video!
The way, basically the only really feasible way to have a stable renewable grid is the same way we have a stable fossil grid: have more capacity than we need and be able to shut it off at will. Wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric stations can stop producing power at will, so by having enough of them that we can always turn a few more on to meet unexpected demand is sufficient to balance the grid. Just like we have idle peaker plants (or idle capacity within those plants) at all times during normal operations, we will eventually have some idle renewable sources.
Packetizing energy seems like a good idea that will make the grid more efficient and also allow us to lower the excess capacity needed to be confident in the high up time we need. Storage can do the same thing while also providing a backup power supply. And we should do both, smart grid management as well as storage will build a grid that is more robust and cheaper to operate, but they are good in that they make the problem easier to solve. Overcapacity is the solution. We don't panic when a gas turbine shuts down because demand is low, neither should we panic when a wind turbine puts on the brakes for the same reason, and we need to continue building sustainable electricity generation as fast as we practically can.
What an interesting idea!
This is just a slightly different form of power demand management, and it still has some form of central management. Whilst it could help with optimisation, it most certainly does not remove the need for long term energy storage. What it might do is reduce the need for short term storage, but that's wildly different to coping with medium to long periods of time when generation is consistently below demand. It's also just part of the smart grid thinking, and just a particular detailed method of implementation.
I really like the idea of packetized electricity distribution. Are there any locations that have implemented this?
I imagine a system could be built in which distributed energy providers could respond to PEM requests. For example, one home in a neighborhood could have extra solar and battery capacity, and PEM requests in the neighborhood would go to that home controller, which would provide the energy packet right there in the neighborhood. If a local provider doesn't have the energy to respond to the packet, the request would continue on to more distant providers until it finds one or times out.
Packets could also contain parameters like acceptable price for the unit of energy, or a preference for the source of that energy, acceptable distance of generation etc.
Great video as always.
Glad you enjoyed it
Certainly an interesting topic. Curious how this will affect grid safety however, given current volatilities...
It's a brilliant idea and I think it's a great step for innovators to look at more than just the raw technology. Here they are using new tech, yes, but they are actually tackling a process problem.
My deep concern with this in the US is monetization. I can already see utilities coming up with new and sleazy ways to monetize this. "Introducing customized consumption plans: platinum, standard, and basic" ring, ring "... I'm sorry sir you have the basic plan. If you upgrade to the platinum package for $29.99/month..."
This is a certainty if we don't insist on limits. Of course there will always be those who will attempt to morally launder this activity by claiming it's just how the market works.
The problem is there is no incentive for manufacturers or consumers to have this capability as there is no benefit to the device or consumer. Needs to be done through legislation.
Or not done at all.
This centralised rationalisation of energy is very interesting, you could just treat each household as a device at first too introduce the tech
for best results, these distributions should be networked as decentralized. Centralized systems will come with problems like overloading and mis-synchronization.
i imagine most of the actual communication will take place over the powerlines themselves. power companies have been using the electric grid itself to read electric usage for almost 2 decades now in my part of the world
This is an interesting concept. It seems this could be a natural adjunct to Tesla’s Autobidder system & virtual power plant. When we add Internet of Things & AI to the mix this really does have a role to play in the transition.
Brilliant video as usual. But ...
1) how do those device controllers communicate with the PEM controller? Via internet? That would mean: no internet == no power control.
2) did they tell the cost of those device controllers in your freezer, boiler, charger, ... might add up quite a bit for a household.
Sounds like a great idea. If we could jump forward 10 or so years and we all had solar and batteries, or at least EV to grid 2 way connections, the grid wouldn't need any or at least very little battery storage, as each house would act as a part of the whole grid.
The uk new house build should be installing 3phase Supplies for the future. But, currently most properties have single phase. This system in a local area could be used to balance loads and reduce peak loads. W ith weather changes predictions it could be possible to say overheat water or property by couple degrees to reduce load by bit when cold night or wind stops blowing
I did a review of IoT tech including grid connected tech a year ago and I found that most IoT devices have little or no security. In my opinion, this is where the biggest problem with it lies. If these devices end up getting connected to home networks, they put the full network at risk. There's also the issue that without a connection to the home network, the devices need SIM cards connected to the local 3G or 4G networks, but there's only so much capacity on these networks. I have been wondering if the grid itself could be used as a low speed network with hubs placed around cities that connect these low speed transmissions to the internet, thus eliminating the need for telco networks or home networks.
Powerline communication. No home network required.