Smart Power Grid Could Wreak Havoc On Itself 331
MrSeb writes "Smart power grid monitoring that lets you pick the exact cheapest time to run the dishwasher or recharge your electric car may put too much power (so to speak) in the hands of the consumer, according to a new study by MIT. Researchers say that users receiving minute-by-minute pricing information might cycle off-peak power use more rapidly than utilities can spool up their power plants. In other words, it's OK if you're the only person charging your Chevy Volt at 2am in the morning, but if a whole town does it exactly the same time... there will be issues."
These researchers misunderstood the idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How were electric cars EVER supposed to work? (Score:5, Informative)
yea I will hold my breath for that to happen, in the meantime who is going to beefing up this enormous nationwide grid? thats right a team of workers pouring out of a 2 ton quad cab V8 Chevy
Them's fightin' words, son. Any self-respecting lineman drives a Ford. And we sure as shit don't carpool.
Re:I've been saying this for years (Score:5, Informative)
I've been saying this for years - despite what boosters of electric cars would have you believe, there isn't a magical well of electrical power available at night.
Yes there is. You've been wrong for years.
The utilities have spent the better part of a century either finding customers for the overnight low demand period or optimizing their networks to not generate unneeded power in the first place.
But they haven't found enough customers for overnight electricity to make the demand anything like during the day. As to "optimising the networks", power station capacity that is there during the day is also there at night. Whilst much of it is currently taken off line, if night time power demands increase, then they can leave more of them on-line at night.
Of course there are consequences to changes. But that's a very different thing from there being catastrophic, or even difficult consequences.