Consumers May Find Smart Appliances a Dumb Idea 347
theodp writes "As GE readies appliances that communicate with smart meters in the hope of taking advantage of cheaper electricity rates, CNet asks a big question: Are consumers ready for the smart grid? Right now, most utilities only offer a flat rate, not time-of-use pricing, so the example of a drier that reacts to a 'price signal' about peak rates by keeping one's clothes wet until a more affordable time is pretty much a fantasy. And longer-term, a big question is whether consumers will want to deal with the hassle of optimizing household appliance energy usage themselves, or be willing to relinquish monitoring and control to utility companies — with a concomitant loss of privacy. After all, losing one's copy of 1984 is one thing — losing one's lights and refrigerator is another thing altogether."
How long will peak rates be around for? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a single guy (rare for Slashdot, I know..) I don't use much energy at home during the day because surprise surprise I'm out at work. On the other hand, I'm sure there are many people who have families where one adult is home part of the day and probably takes care of cleaning, laundry, etc. during that time, probably watches TV and/or uses the computer, has kids to entertain, needs air conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter, etc. It doesn't seem like smart electronics are going to substantially change these behaviors. Great, the dryer wants to wait until off-peak to dry my clothes, but I have 3 loads of laundry to get done..
What may change things is something that we've discussed here several times: Electric cars that have the ability to return electricity to the grid during times of high demand. Hopefully this or other means of localized power storage will reduce the need for "peak" pricing in future. Hopefully devices will also consume less power in future. For example, if you're spending time online with your notebook you aren't drawing anywhere near the 100-200w you would if you were using a desktop system (my Eee 1000HE netbook draws 9-12 watts).
I would rather see us find ways to better match power availability to demand instead of a short-lived period of doing the inverse. Electric cars are a great way to do so because it's a natural leverage of developments in our lives that are already taking place with widespread support.
Another troll story from theodp (Score:2, Interesting)
Just look at the troll stories he has posted before: http://www.google.com/search?q=theodp+writes+site%3Aslashdot.org [google.com]
Re:How long will peak rates be around for? (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with you... The biggest energy users in a typical home are items that pretty much need to stay on consistently day and night, anyway. My water heater is like that. No point having it if I only get hot water on demand *some* of the times I want it. The refrigerator will spoil all the food if it shuts down to save energy during "peak hours" of the day. And I already have a programmable thermostat for the A/C and furnace, but I've never seen any real cost savings by setting it up to run less often during the day when nobody's home. (Once the walls and floors and ceilings warm up (or cool down in the winter) to a certain point, then the A/C or furnace has to work a lot harder to move the temperature back to the comfort zone for your return home.
While I am all for green energy, save the Planet (Score:5, Interesting)
etc, I don't want it done via taking away rights and freedoms and forcing people to not use electronic devices until off-peak hours. I also don't want it done in a way, like cap and trade, that makes energy use so expensive that it costs jobs and forces poor people to go without electricity.
This "Smart Grid" has a way of spying on a home owners (or renters) privacy as well as shutting off devices so that they cannot use them until off-peak hours. Can you imagine your washing and drier being shut off, and you need to get three loads of clothes done, and you are forced to wear dirty clothes until the washer and drier can be turned back on. Not only that but sweating it out during the summer when the A/C is turned off by the grid and possibly dying of heat stroke and freezing to death in the winter when the heater is forced off until it turns back on during non-peak hours. I got a feeling there will be a lot of death by the smart grid lawsuits if this thing passes.
Re:How long will peak rates be around for? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tankless water heaters only heat the water when you need it.
Your refrigerator could apply a colder temperature before peak usage period, to reduce the amount of cooling that should be needed during the peak time, or apply other measures "in anticipation" of approaching peak usage period..
It is a dumb idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I kind of like the idea of peak rates. But the idea of "smart" appliances talking to the power company over the Internet is just dumb.
If you publish a schedule of prices, and I can save money by modifying my behavior, I'll do it. With the appliances I have.
Example: Puget Sound Energy experimented with giving us peak rates, so we began doing laundry later in the evening. We used the delay timer on our dishwasher to make it start itself at about 4am. At no point did we wish we had Internet 3.0 appliances.
By the way, PSE found that most people disliked the peak rates program. The discounts for modifying your behavior were not generous enough to make it worth the hassle for most people. I live in the suburbs near Seattle, so we have relatively cheap (mostly hydro) power anyway.
So, for success, make up a simple table of rates vs. times; make sure the discounts for off-peak power are sufficient to adequately reward the people who modify their behavior; done. You can do this now, and no one needs new appliances.
P.S. I did actually RTFA, and there is a bit more to their ideas than just Internet 3.0 appliances. One actually good idea is to have an energy manager in your home, and be able to tell your home that you are going on vacation. Your hot water heater can chill down and take a break, and your air conditioner can work less hard (keep the house at 76 degrees F, say, instead of 70 (24 Celsius instead of 21). But I really don't need my dishwasher to talk to the power company.
steveha
Re:It is a dumb idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I think the idea of controlling things from somewhere off site to be a bad idea. With all the things that have been cracked in recent years, I'm not sure how adding more devices to play with is such a good idea. I would however be fully in favor of a scheme that used a standards compliant web interface to download instructions to some sort of fob that one could use to program the devices manually to power up and down at various times. A nice web interface with information about pricing and the ability to make a decision based upon ones life and the cost of providing the service.
Ugh! (Score:3, Interesting)
My mother in law had off-peak rates at the family home, and you couldn't get a damned shower unless you could shower at noon. Mornings and evenings were both out. You also couldn't wash the dishes after dinner (she didn't have a dishwasher). That led to all kinds of idiocies like warming up water for the dishes on the gas stove--a real savings!
Utility companies aren't out to conserve energy, and they're not out to help you save money on your bill. They're out to make money for their investors. If you want an example of utility monitoring, look no further than the elderly man in Michigan who froze to death in his home this past winter because there was some kind of governor on his electric meter. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/04/freezing.death.folo/index.html). And he had plenty of money to pay--he'd just lost his competency to handle his bills. "Smart" appliances are an open invitation for this sort of idiocy to increase.
Re:While I am all for green energy, save the Plane (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially since you know there is going to be a "crackdown", the "War On Electricity", originally, there might have been 2 hours a day when you were restricted, then 3, then 4... then that, plus all of Sunday from 9am to 5pm, then section X of City Y. Forcing people into some form of extra tax on electricity because you can't avoid the "limited" hours. Giving more money to the electric companies, so they can what, reduce the electricity output even more?
Then you get some weird prohibition, people selling electrical equipment on some black market, devices to by-pass the restrictions, throw some people in jail, that'l teach them, require people to get some form of Electrical Consumption Identification, Enter Your ECI To Run Your Stove...
What? Slippery Slope? It's fucking hot out, and I can't use my air-conditioner, leave me alone!
P.K. Dick wrote about this (Score:4, Interesting)
Ubik, I think, was set in a world were even the doors were 'smart' so you had to pay a toll every time you went in and out of your apartment... unless, of course, you had a screwdriver handy. Somehow I doubt that any 'consumer' really wants to live in a world like that.
Re:How long will peak rates be around for? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Japan, some places have remote water heater controllers, to shut off the water heater when it isn't used.
I discovered that the hard way, when I tried to take a shower without telling the people who's house I was staying in.
(The control panel looked like this [ipernity.com])
Japanese building used to be built without double-pane windows, insufficient insulation and a few other issues that make the water heater a minor concern relative to the ecological impact of making the building comfortable.
Re:It is a dumb idea (Score:3, Interesting)
75F instead of 70? I'll admit to turning my AC down to 70 if I know I'll be outside most of the afternoon and want to come back to a nicely cool room, but most days it stays set at 76. If I were leaving, it gets turned off. Completely. Yes, the heat stays on, set at around 48 or so. Like one of the sibling posts, when I was younger my family just turned everything off for a summer vacation. Even if it was just a two day vacation, everything electrical was unplugged. Furnace would get the pilot turns off if we were going to be gone for a week or more, no clue if the temperature got reset other times.
For my self, I would like Internet 3.0 appliances. I don't work stable hours, so being able to text the AC to start cooling the place because I'll be home in an hour would be wonderful. Having the fridge only keep things super cold when I'm at home, and saving a little power when I am not would be good too, since I can't open the door to let the cold air out if I am not there. And paying 10$ extra for those features, which is what GE seems to say in the article, would be well in the price increase I would expect. I mean, the price of converting every lightbulb in a house to CFL or LED is more than 10$.
Re:Dumb (Score:4, Interesting)
AC delays are typically only instituted as a last-resort alternative to rolling blackouts. My former employer in New York City participated in such a program when I was working there in 2006.
If you don't remember, 2006 was a particularly hot summer, and New York had a series of nasty blackouts, particularly in Queens. At one point, 10 of the 22 feeder cables to Queens literally burned up due to the excessive heat and demand, leaving the residents without power for weeks. Although there indeed should have been safeguards in place to prevent this, I think that it's preferable to lose AC for a few hours than it is to suffer through a prolonged blackout.
NYC's rushing head over heel to fix its electricity infrastructure, although it's an uphill battle, considering many years of neglect, increasing demand, and an overall pressure to cut costs.
Re:It's a pity, really... (Score:3, Interesting)
Everytime someone says "why dont' they do X instead?" you have to realize that this is also being done. There are devices that don't talk to your power meter and just have timers. And there are also other devices that can talk to your meter. And there will be devices that can do both. I don't see where all this conspiracy paranoia is coming from.
Re:Selfish/ignorant nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
The big thing to note is that we are not talking about the white meter system that we have had in the UK for decades, this gives you cheaper electricity at night for powering storage heaters and the like — although I have known people also run washing machines, etc, off them.
The big new innovation is getting appliances to switch off for short periods, eg when the adverts come on in a popular TV programme many kettles are switched on. Also when a major generator trips out it can take time to bring something else big on-line, the smaller quick-start generators are costly. Currently this is done by bringing in more expensive generators for short periods [wapedia.mobi], also large industrial users (eg Aluminium smelters) will get cut at very short notice.
So the idea is to switch off your freezer/washing-machine for 5-30 minutes so that other more important appliances do not need to be switched off. Thus we all gain at little inconvenience.
However it is something that is to the benefit of everyone if we work together. Those freetards who do not cooperate get the benefits without the cost or inconvenience, but this happens elsewhere, eg: vaccination, if most of the population is vaccinated against mumps then the best strategy for an individual is to not get vaccinated and thus avoid the small risk of vaccination side effect; however if everyone does this then mumps becomes endemic again.
Come on guys - we are civilised and know how to act in the common good!
Re:Not DUMB! stop thinking binary. (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the dryer: who said middle of the night? I have no problems with that since my dryer is in the basement, but even for people who keep their dryer next to their bed delaying the drying to non-prime hours isn't that big of a deal. Example, running it during dinner time? 7-9pm?
Ultimately the end result will be systems that don't impact lifestyle but when aggregated across communities will have significant impact on the usage of power. In the mean time I'm sure you would prefer that the utility company turns off your neighbor's dryer to prevent a rolling blackout from striking during your football game.
"Smart meters" (Score:3, Interesting)
- (a) meters that let information flow *into* our house from the electricity company (like "supply is currently tight, minimize your usage"). To which we can either instruct our own appliances to respond like "Ok, if it's really tight now I'll wait 20 minutes", or empower the "smart" meter to tell an appliance "Appliance XXX, switch to standby until I tell you to restart".
- (b) meters that let information flow *out* of our house to the electricity company "this household is now drawing XXX watts and has the following list of appliances on with their current power consumption {list}". (E.g. [Appliance_name, nominal power rating, maximum power rating, current power rating]).
I think we can all agree that type "a" meters aren't objectional and may be worth serious consideration. They just allow us to optimize our domestic electricity use, which is especially useful if we have double-tariff meters.
I think we can also agree that we do not want type "b" meters. This type of meter lets the electricity company monitor what amount of power each household consumes at what times and then lets it (a) influence those appliances directly or (b) allow them to model our individual power consumption pattern - at micro-level.
I'm not the only one's weary of the huge privacy concern. Burglars for example will make sure they quickly get access to such "confidential" and "protected" information. It's just great to be able to monitor the whole city for patterns of absence, let alone have full-scale real-time checks of owner absence, don't you think?
Re:How long will peak rates be around for? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't worry, the same inconvenience is coming to the U.S. The Senate already passing a bill that will fine people ~$1500 for not having health insurance (I don't want it damnit), so it's only a matter of time 'til they start punishing people who use too much energy. Either through a similar fine like the health fine, or just flip a switch and off goes the water heater, or the a/c, or the heat pump.
I've read the Constitution a couple times, and I can't locate any clause that gives Congress authority to fine people for lack of health insurance, or to turn off their heaters remotely. I guess I need to pull-out the magnifying glass. That law has to be in their somewhere, because the politicians wouldn't do anything unconstitutional, would they? ;-)