The grid’s reduced safety margins make even moderate adoption of intermittent energy sources risky. By every measure, the quality of the North American grid will get worse. That’s the plan.
At the AHR show last month, buildings integrators and control system makers seemed at a loss to describe where they fit into the smart grid. The perception was that the smart grid is a funding opportunity for utilities, but has little to do with buildings. They may be right about federal funding checks this year, but they could not be more wrong about smart grids. Smart grids will succeed or fail based upon innovation and investments in buildings. This innovation will be built upon the market-oriented interfaces of smart grids.
The grid will never be as good as it was. The old grid had reliable surplus energy based on predictable energy sources, and adequate safety margins. The smart grid will have none of these. We are replacing predictable coal, nuclear, and hydro with intermittent energy sources. We cannot build the consensus to build transmission capacity to bring energy from far away. The grid’s reduced safety margins make even moderate adoption of intermittent energy sources risky. By every measure, the quality of the North American grid will get worse. That’s the plan.
via AutomatedBuildings.com Column – Buildings must get smarter because Smart Grids will be worse.
Related posts:
- Creating smart power grids Smarter grids means more renewables, better power management
- Smart Grid and buildings: An office view of the future | MapAWatt
- State of California Buildings Plug into Smart Grid
- Not All Smart Grids are Green Grids — EDF Innovation Exchange Blog
- AutomatedBuildings.com Column – Smart Grids and Distributed Energy create opportunities for Diversity in Energy Storage
