Subject: [smartpower-interest] Fwd: SGIP Members News>>Standing Committees Voting Results

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 11:17:27 -0800

FYI...

The Architecture Committee, which I'm (now) a member of, will be  
meeting at NIST on 17 February.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "sgipgb.administrator" <[email-masked]>
> Date: February 5, 2010 11:03:25 AM PST
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: SGIP Members News>>Standing Committees Voting Results
> Reply-To: "sgipgb.administrator" <[email-masked]>
>
>
>                                              February 5, 2010
>
> Greetings Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Members!
>
> The results of the recent ballot to instantiate initial membership  
> in the Architecture Committee (SGAC) and Test & Certification  
> Committee (SGTCC) have been tallied and a quorum of the voting  
> membership reached.   I am pleased to announce that these two  
> standing committees have been confirmed by the SGIP.   Now that the  
> committees have been formed, the names of the chairs for each  
> committee have been sent to the Governing Board for their review and  
> confirmation.  We plan to announce the chairs of the committees  
> during our web meeting on February 8 at 1 p.m. EST.
>
> The tabulation of the voting results are presented below.
>
> SGAC
> SGTCC
> Yes
> 198
> 202
> No
> 27
> 23
> Abstain
> 22
> 22
> %Yes
> 80%
> 82%
> Total
> 247
> 247
>
> Thank you for your participation of this SGIP vote. I look forward  
> to having these committees address the actions already given them by  
> the Governing Board and providing their services to our SGIP  
> community. In addition, we will work with these committees to  
> establish the mechanisms in which other valuable SGIP members can  
> contribute to their work, as well as develop the processes for  
> committee membership expansion and maintenance.
>
>
> Best Regards,
> Steve Widergren, SGIP Plenary Chair
> and the SGIP Administrator Team
> [email-masked]
>
>
> NIST Issues 2nd Draft of Its Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and  
> Requirements
> The report now identifies more than 120 interfaces that will link  
> diverse devices, systems, and organizations engaged in two-way flows  
> of electricity and information and classifies these connections  
> according to the risks posed by a potential security breach.
>
> Click here to read the press release.
> Get your nominations in for
> Plenary Vice-Chair and Secretary!
>
> The call-for-candidates closes on
> February 8 at 5p.m. EST. Click here for more details.
> __________________________________
>
> Reminder: SGIP Virtual Meeting
>
> Monday, February 8 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. EST.
> For information on how to participate, click here.
> Priority Action Plan (PAP) Update: New Subscription Lists
> To ensure participants are receiving PAP communications, the SGIP  
> Administrator and NIST have established a new set of PAP email  
> listservs which offer self-registration.
>
> The SGIP Administrator is currently working to auto-register those  
> presently on the current PAP listservs. However, we would greatly  
> appreciate your cooperation in re-subscribing yourself to the  
> desired PAP lists of your choice. This will ensure you are placed on  
> the correct PAP list and confirm your participation.
>
> You can find these lists with registration links on the TWiki here.
> EnerNex Corporation serves as SGIP administrator under a NIST- 
> awarded contract enabled by the American Recovery and Reinvestment  
> Act. For more information, go to http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid.SGIP 
> .
>

http://www.ipinc.net/IPv4.GIF

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:02:26 -0500

http://www.poten.com/NewsDetails.aspx?id=10352770

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:47:39 -0800

> http://www.poten.com/NewsDetails.aspx?id=10352770

I am very interested in how the SmartGrid affects
residential customers.  There seems to be a couple
built-in assumptions wrt/ cost reduction:

  1) the cost of electricity varies throughout the day
     by a significant amount.

  2) the home includes many electrical devices which are
     used in a lowest-energy-cost mode, rather than in
     an on-demand mode.

Where I live, these assumptions are completely false.

I cannot imagine how device manufacturers would design
consumer products which would need to interact with
the power grid in order to minimize power consumption.
Even washers and dryers are used as on-demand devices.
I do not see why people will want to let the grid
decide when their appliances will operate, unless the
energy savings are dramatic.

Are there papers which explain why residential SmartGrid
service is worthwhile?

thanks,
Andy

---

From: Gene Gaines <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:58:50 -0500

Richard.

1) The cost of electricity DOES vary significantly during the day.
Actually for many (but not all) types of power generation, a huge
factor in cost of power is the peak load.  Spread (delay) the peak
load even just a small amount and the cost of power (to the
power company) can be reduced significantly.

The above is cost to the utility company; the price they charge
you is a different thing.  I expect that in the future as more is
known by consumers, the charge for power will come to more
closely mirror the cost of power.

2)  Not true for all appliances.  I could make 100 statement to
refute your statement.  Big systems such as home heating
and conditioning systems can be shut off or turned to lower
power consumption during short peak periods.  The dozens of
power adapters just sitting plugged in, the TV and HiFi
equipment that sits drawing power all day can easily be
redesigned to save typically hundreds of dollars a year in
many homes.  I could go on.

The best argument is to purchase one of the portable power
consumption meters, or have an electrician install a home
power use transmitter and monitor with Google or similar.
Turn the data over to the typical housewife or better,
teenager, and you view and usage habits of power will change.

It, like most things in live, is a matter of becoming aware.

We could discuss power shedding (peak power delay)
benefits for steel mills, brick factories, food processing plants,
etc., another day.

Gene Gaines

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Andy Bierman <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> smartpower-interest mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/smartpower-interest
>

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:02:24 -0800

> closely mirror the cost of power.

I can see benefit to the utility company, but not for
the homeowner unless the savings are passed along,
instead of billing on total monthly Kwh alone.

> teenager, and you view and usage habits of power will change.

Most devices save power in various idle modes.
I do not see why the device would need to know
about fluctuating costs in order to function
with minimized power consumption.

I agree that homeowners who are unaware
which of their appliances are using the most electricity
would benefit from an itemized billing report,
but not if it cost too much to get the report.

Note that I can see a reason for the grid to
contact the SmartMeter, which will contact
the smart devices in the home, especially
to repair/prevent peak blackouts.

But the residential billing policy is in the
critical path, and it is different in every city.

> benefits for steel mills, brick factories, food processing plants,

I specifically asked about residential usage.
I understand why a factory would invest in the
infrastructure to optimize energy costs.

Andy

>
>
> On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Andy Bierman <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     Richard Shockey wrote:
>     >
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>

---

From: "Davis, Terry L" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:44:16 -0800

All

One interesting item to me.  I worked for DOE WAPA in the 80's, consulted a bit for some PUDs in 2000/2001 and have been looking again recently at the load patterns.  Every year the nighttime peaks are a higher percentage of the peak load; the late night loads in the in the 70s and 80s were really low as a percentage of the peak.

I assume that this is from the growth of "always on" electronics" (PCs, modems, appliance displays, more billboard lights, more street lights, etc).   The hybrid and electric cars I would expect to cause even more flattening of the load curves still as they charge overnight.

Take care
Terry

________________________________
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Gene Gaines
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 12:59 PM
To: andyb
Cc: smartpower-interest; smartpowerdir
Subject: Re: [smartpower-interest] [smartpowerdir] FYI OSTP requests inputon SmartGrid

Richard.

Gene Gaines

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Andy Bierman <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

thanks,
Andy

_______________________________________________
smartpower-interest mailing list
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/smartpower-interest

---

From: Geoff Mulligan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:23:08 -0700

> instead of billing on total monthly Kwh alone.

This is exactly what Time Of Use billing is.  Many utilities now offer
this, rather than a monthly Kwh charge.  If you "shift" your usage to
lower cost hours you save money.

	geoff

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:03:59 -0800

Davis, Terry L wrote:
> All
>  
> One interesting item to me.  I worked for DOE WAPA in the 80's,
> consulted a bit for some PUDs in 2000/2001 and have been looking again
> recently at the load patterns.  Every year the nighttime peaks are
> a higher percentage of the peak load; the late night loads in the in
> the 70s and 80s were really low as a percentage of the peak.
>  
> I assume that this is from the growth of "always on"
> electronics" (PCs, modems, appliance displays, more billboard lights,
> more street lights, etc).   The hybrid and electric cars I would
> expect to cause even more flattening of the load curves still as they
> charge overnight.

Thanks for reminding me about electric cars -- they are an obvious
use-case.  If I got an electric car now, all the power would be
charged at the highest tier rate (since they keep raising rates
by adding tiers) almost every month.

But if there was a special low rate for recharging electric
cars, then it might make economic sense.  A smart meter
could support this sort of social engineering much better
than what we have now.

Andy

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:22:25 -0800

On Feb 13, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Andy Bierman wrote:

> Are there papers which explain why residential SmartGrid service is  
> worthwhile?

I think it's fair to say that the Smart grid needs some consumer input  
(understatement).

Where I have a problem, like you, is the idea that I'm going to spend  
my day staring at the electric meter and make random changes at random  
times at the whim of the utility. What makes a lot more sense to me is  
the idea that the electric utility will give me (or my electronic  
proxy) an idea today about pricing issues tomorrow, and I can set up  
policies in accordance that intelligent devices in my home will  
implement.

BTW, a sudden wide-scale cut-off is bad for the electric utilities  
too: imagine them sending out such a command, and within the next  
hertz everyone changing their demand levels. Read RFC 3439 section  
2.2.2; the issues and arguments are much the same for the grid as they  
are for the Internet.

But imagine that I was told yesterday (or even an hour in advance  
today) that the price would be "low" most of today but between the  
hours of <this> and <that> the price would be "high". With 24 hours  
notice, I could decide to do my laundry in the morning, for example,  
if that was a real issue. With even an hour's notice my home energy  
controller could tell my air conditioner and my refrigerator/freezer  
to control to a slightly lower temperature for an hour, and then at  
the magic time (or five minutes before) it goes back to controlling to  
the normal temperature. The refrigerator/freezer, btw, doesn't run the  
defrost cycle during the high price interval - it waits until 12 hours  
later or so. That has much the same effect of randomization without  
either the square wave for the utilities or the stomach acid for me.

Alternatively, one could imagine the air conditioner having two  
temperature settings, one for when power is cheap and one for when the  
cost is high. I'll pay extra to keep the house below 90', perhaps, but  
only cool to 78' when power is cheap.

Where this fits into the technical work is that the information models  
for communications in the AMI (eg between the meter and the utility),  
we need some way to have the utility able to say "the price between  
<date/time> and <date/time> is <price> per <unit>".

It might look like this:

<tarrif_event>
       <Start ss:Type="DateTime">2010-06-01T13:00:00.000</Start>
       <Finish ss:Type="DateTime">2010-06-01T16:59:59</Finish>
       <Price ss:Type="Float">0.50</Price>
</tarrif_event>

be sent from the utility to the home energy controller aand be  
interpreted in accordance with the contract with the utility, which  
probably specifies the local currency as the unit of measure.

---

From: Damir Rajnovic <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:10:19 +0000

> policies in accordance that intelligent devices in my home will  

I would say that it must be my electronic proxy. The same way it is unlikely
for people to watch their meters all day long it is not likely that they
will review "power pricing forecast" every night and then make adjustments
to their equipment. We also have to bear in mind that these tarifs and
times are just forecast. If something significant happens in the grid
utility may shift times when price is low/high up or down.

So, instead of programming my devices in absolute times, I may want to use
a mechanism similar that is used for recording TV shows. I can see on TV
schedule that movie I want to record is after a sport event. But if the
sport event runs over then the movie will start that later. So, instead
of programming my recorder for some exact time I tell it to wait for the
movie code to be sent by the broadcaster and then start recording.

Now substitute "TV schedule" with "power pricing forecast" and "movie"
with "low tarif" and that is it. I can review if pricing forecast for
tomorrow/next week is acceptable to me and then decide to utilise it
or not. Having in mind that price forecast times may change my instruction
to the proxy may be "use low tarif for heating at all time except 
between 06:00-07:00".

> 2.2.2; the issues and arguments are much the same for the grid as they  

Should we then introduce switch off/on interval to spread in time when
devices will turn off/on? We can give users ability to say "turn off/on
this device within an interval from <Start> and <Finish> time" and then
leave the proxy or meter to randomly select exact time when device
will be turned off/on. The only worry would be for all meters to pick
the same random number.

Thanks,

Gaus

> probably specifies the local currency as the unit of measure.

==============
Damir Rajnovic <[email-masked]>, PSIRT Incident Manager, Cisco Systems
<http://www.cisco.com/go/psirt>      Telephone: +44 7715 546 033
200 Longwater Avenue, Green Park, Reading, Berkshire RG2 6GB, GB
==============
There are no insolvable problems. 
The question is can you accept the solution? 

- - - -
This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole 
use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, distribution or disclosure by 
others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient (or 
authorized to receive for the recipient), please contact the sender by reply 
e-mail and delete all copies of this message.

Cisco Systems Limited (Company Number: 02558939), is registered in England 
and Wales with its registered office at 1 Callaghan Square, Cardiff, 
South Glamorgan CF10 5BT

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:06:51 -0800

> to the proxy may be "use low tarif for heating at all time except 

I agree that a person is not going to poll pricing forecasts,
especially to save a few cents on a load of laundry.

However, I do not see how an application can do an
effective job as a proxy, because many household
tasks need to finish once they start, or finish within
a reasonable time window.  (I'm not going to wake up
at 3 am to see if the wet clothes are ready to go into
the dryer.)

It did occur to me that it would be difficult to
schedule low-demand pricing if it was known in
advance, since this would affect the future usage
patterns.  Is the utility going to guarantee that
power will be at rate X from time T1 to T2?
How far in advance can such a request be made?
Unless a 'power reservation' can be made, I
do not see how an application can go a good job
at scheduling.  Threshold-based scheduling
would be prone to fluctuations, and might end up
costing more than on-demand service.

Andy

---

From: Wilhelm Wimmreuter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:31:54 +0100

Pretty much in line with all said,
 Guess it all will end up something in line with the old stuff they call "Night-power-pricing" in here in Europe. This, pretty old system, sends guard tones over the wire to announce excess energy for a cheap price. Smart consumers like heating systems, washing machines or other high current devices could then use this guard tone to start up and use the cheap tariff during this time. Typically the power companies guarantee some hours during night time with these tariffs which has made up its name.

 Nowdays and for smart grids we might replace this 50 year old guard tone system to some brokerage protocol that allows smart consumers and power sockets to.
 - charge the cars batteries during of peak hours or immediately if needed 
 - start machinery that can be started during off peak hours
 - even deal with different power-supply companies
 - bill power consumption from smart sockets to any contract 
   of your favorite power supply company
 - sell local excess power from batteries of idle cars or
   emergency power supplies to the grid. 
 - ...

As mentioned by Fred, XML and web based communication- and brokerage protocols have all the means to provide more services through Internet protocols. This can replace the old channel-associated guard-tone systems and of course will provide much better load balancing and pricing services.

Willi

---

From: hector <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:24:59 -0500

>    emergency power supplies to the grid. 

Let the game begins after the price of energy is increased first - 
cost of building this.   Maybe I am a skeptic, but I find it a little 
hard to shallow that consumers will be paying any less than are are 
today, and that there would be a rates menu ala cart.

I read this in  draft-sturek-6lowapp-smartenergy-00 and it just blew 
my mind.

2.  Requirements

    For Smart Energy to be truly successful, it must be ubiquitous.
    It is useful for an energy producer to be able to indicate an
    increase in price to a consumer, and have their equipment respond
    according to some consumer specified behavior; it becomes more
    useful when the consumer has a rich variety of choices regarding
    how to respond.

Either they wish to prepare the market for the reality - prices will 
increase or someone from PR and marketing needs get involved and 
rephrase the above. The often used "Flex" plan in businesses once 
again - flexible but more expensive overall.

It nit fix is simple - one word:

    It is useful for an energy producer to be able to indicate an
    CHANGE in price to a consumer, and have their equipment respond
    .........

Oh well.

--
HLS

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:09:11 -0800

hector wrote:
> ...

The rates that residential customers pay for electricity
seems very different all over the world.  I don't see how
appliance manufacturers could deal with this problem
on their own.

If my utility offered significant savings to use power
between midnight and 6 am, then I would be able to
select which appliances I want to use during that
predictable time period.   Appliances already have
buttons to delay-start.  I don't need a SmartGrid for that.

I don't think I want a complex electric bill, and
automated appliances bidding for kilo-watt-minutes,
and running whenever the 'price is right'.
I prefer the simple midnight - 6am solution for homes.

Andy

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:57:17 -0500

I find the discussions of the SmartGrid and my clothes dryer somewhat
boring, but the SmartGrid requirement to manage plug in electric vehicles is
totally compelling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/15electric.html?hpw

A full automotive charge at 240 volts would use almost the electricity that
a typical 1800 sq foot house would use during the entire day. 

That is a load factor that has to be very very carefully managed by a highly
secure communications network.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Andy Bierman
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 1:09 PM
To: hector
Cc: [email-masked]; Wilhelm Wimmreuter
Subject: Re: [smartpower-interest] [smartpowerdir] FYI OSTP requests input
on SmartGrid

Andy

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:22:27 -0800

> secure communications network.

I was interested in how consumers would utilize
and manage their smart appliances.  There are a lot
more dishwashers and clothes dryers out there than electric cars.
If I doubled my home usage because of an electric car,
my bill would go up 5 fold, using the current monthly
tiered rates.  That's not a compelling use case.
Even at the lowest tier, it is still 5 or 10 times
more expensive than gasoline where I live.

Andy

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:00:17 -0500

That is clearly a local utility issue. Though in North America the cost of
driving a electric car would be 2.5 cents per mile vs 12 cents currently
with gasoline at the US's absurdly low price per gallon. The CAPEX costs
still make hybrid vehicles a challenging ROI issue.

And if gas prices go up again ( which they surely will ) you can easily see
a stampede into the showrooms faster than you can say "cash for clunkers".
There is demand for this. 

I could write the commercials. "Buy a Chevy Volt and screw an oil
company!!", while the Star-Spangled Banner is being played in the
background.  

>From the Utilities perspective increasing demand during off load times makes
sense, its very profitable especially during the 11PM to 5AM time frames.
It's essentially idle capacity that could be put to better use. It just has
to be managed since demand would become highly localized to specific
substations based on income/demographics, like you live in Berkeley CA or
here in Fairfax county VA. You just cant put a big egg timer in your garage
( presuming you have a garage) its much too complicated for that.

The larger issue in managing smart appliances is that there are no effective
standards and there are at least 5 approaches at last count, plus the larger
political issue of who owns the meter data, how is it accessed by the
consumer and or/who is the Home Energy Management partner is for the
consumer. Those are the core issues at the heart of OSTP questionnaire.  The
US Government is, at least, asking the right questions. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Bierman [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 3:22 PM
To: Richard Shockey
Cc: [email-masked]; 'Wilhelm Wimmreuter'
Subject: Re: [smartpower-interest] [smartpowerdir] FYI OSTP requests input
on SmartGrid

Andy

---

From: Wilhelm Wimmreuter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:50:08 +0100

I see it as a natural evolution of these ancient guard tone systems in use for high power consumers like heating systems and that like to overcome peak load hours. With a decent introduction of two way communication we can get the network ready to balance upcoming challenges of wind- and solar power distribution.

 Sure, Richard's thoughts on cloth dryers and smart power sockets are right. However, we shall consider such smart sockets as well for further evolution. 

 I Agree with Andy and the number of dish washers compared to electric cars. It shall be mentioned, that todays networks can handle all dishwashers over the day. However, the same networks might get problems if future electric cars will rattle the grid at 6 PM in a much stronger way than all dish washers together. Therefore smart chargers can spread out this consumption all over the night.

 Across the pond you might currently not feel the price of oil as much as an average European. Nevertheless, we shall care to enable our grids early enough to avoid painting ourselves in to a corner with electricity and alternative energy as it nowadays happens with oil in some areas.

 As for timing, agree that one can use a timer as well. However we can hardly predict when we have strong wind or sun or rain and thus it would be great to start these devices without a fixed time to advantage of better tariffs or overwrite such negotiations for a higher price if one needs the machinery now.
 
 So I really look for some brokerage standards and protocols providing an evolutionary path out of the current guard tone systems that control a considerable part of power consumption in Europe today.

 XML and Web services combined with some settlement protocols might be the tools of the trade to facilitate the needs of consumers as well as some load balancing between power companies across borders in future.

Willi

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:00:20 -0500

ISTM that a tricky problem will be deciding "should I take my power now, 
at this price, or wait in hope of a lower price later?"

When I get home in my electric car at 6pm (ha!) and plug it in, I know I 
want it recharged before I leave tomorrow morning at 8am. And maybe, at 
maximum charging rate it will take 2 hrs to do that.

Now power is peak priced at 6pm, so that is a bad time to start. Worst 
case the charging needs to start at 6am. If there is a known minimum 
price, then of course it should charge whenever that rate is in effect 
until it is topped off. And it should start charging at whatever rate is 
in effect when it must to top off by 8am. But if there is an 
intermediate rate between max and min, then it has to bet whether to 
take power at that rate, or hold out for a lower rate and risk a higher 
rate.

It will get even more complex if you factor in the possibility of the 
car selling back part of its power at peak rate times. E.g. when I get 
home at 6pm with a half charge still in my battery and its peak rate 
time, maybe I should sell that back, and replace it at 6am. But odds are 
that the the inefficiencies, plus the middleman's cut of each 
transaction will make that an ineffective strategy.

	Thanks,
	Paul

---

From: "Akyol, Bora A" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:39:45 -0800

Hi Fred

There has been experiments done in a wide area at the Olympic Peninsula in WA, USA.

http://www.conference-on-integration.com/pres/34_Pratt.pdf

The general thought on this area is that the customer will have a few knobs to manipulate to indicate their sensitivity to energy use.

While "smart" appliances may be all the range, it is clear that the most cost savings at least in the US will come from heating and cooling. The challenge is technical but more of a policy issue where the customers  need to be clearly made aware that their monthly bill can not be higher than what it would have been based on the old flat rate tariff. Once this is done, the customers are willing to participate and they save money. 

Regards

Bora

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Fred Baker
Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2010 12:22 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [smartpower-interest] [smartpowerdir] FYI OSTP requests input on SmartGrid

It might look like this:

<tarrif_event>

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:29:27 -0500

>>>>> "Fred" == Fred Baker <[email-masked]> writes:
    >> Are there papers which explain why residential SmartGrid service
    >> is worthwhile?

    Fred> I think it's fair to say that the Smart grid needs some
    Fred> consumer input (understatement).

    Fred> Where I have a problem, like you, is the idea that I'm going
    Fred> to spend my day staring at the electric meter and make random
    Fred> changes at random times at the whim of the utility. What makes
    Fred> a lot more sense to me is the idea that the electric utility
    Fred> will give me (or my electronic proxy) an idea today about
    Fred> pricing issues tomorrow, and I can set up policies in
    Fred> accordance that intelligent devices in my home will implement.

Yes.... your electronic proxy.  i.e. my home automation system.
Specifically, *MY* home automation system, not the power companies' system.

>From what I've heard so far from the grid people, a lot of them have not
quite thought this through --- they think they will controlling my
appliances, rather than me...

    Fred> But imagine that I was told yesterday (or even an hour in
    Fred> advance today) that the price would be "low" most of today but
    Fred> between the hours of <this> and <that> the price would be
    Fred> "high". With 24 hours notice, I could decide to do my laundry
    Fred> in the morning, for example, if that was a real issue. With

Your laundry can be sitting *in* the machine waiting to be done.
Lord knows my laundry spends half it's life in the machine after it's
done :-)

-- 
]       He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life!           |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] [email-masked] http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
   Kyoto Plus: watch the video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzx1ycLXQSE>
	               then sign the petition.

---

From: Chris Lonvick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:39:35 -0800 (PST)

Hi,

I have two examples of interactions between consumers and the grid.

First, someone explained a French system to me a while ago.
http://www.edf-bleuciel.fr/accueil/mon-quotidien-avec-bleu-ciel-d-edf/option-tempo-141090.html

As I understand it, it is a billing option that provides consumers with 
rates for the next day and night.  The rates are defined as
Red Day - highest cost
Red Night
White Day
White Night
Blue Day
Blue Night - lowest cost

The color of the day/night is available on the web site and is also 
transmitted via pulses down the wire.  People who have a meter that 
understands this can program their circuit breaker boxes to take 
appropriate actions.  For example, if the following day is going to be 
Red, then it heats the water in the hot water tank as high as it can go 
before that time, and tries to not use any more electricity to heat the 
water until after that time.

The second is the Pacific Northwest GridWise Testbed Demonstration Project 
by PNNL.
http://gridwise.pnl.gov/docs/op_project_final_report_pnnl17167.pdf
Essentially, consumers were given appliances (washing machine and hot 
water heater) and a thermostat that could interact with their policies 
based upon time of day pricing given at 5 minute intervals.  The 
appliances could also be turned off for intervals by the power company 
when they were experiencing spikes or other problems.

Both of these examples show that the grid can give pricing information to 
consumers and that the consumers can establish policies based upon them as 
Fred was requesting.

Thanks,
Chris

---

From: Geoff Mulligan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:52:37 -0700

Chris,
  A minor point -- in the PNNL test the only "appliances" that were
controllable were the Thermostat/HVAC and the electic water heater.  The
only other appliance that was part of the project was the electric
dryer, but only an alert was displayed.  It was not actually controlled
by the utility.

There was a separate project called the Grid Friendly Appliance that had
an autonomous "grid sensor" that would watch for frequency fluctuations
and other anomalies and shut off the appliance.  These devices were not
"controlled" by the utility nor was there function based on pricing.

	geoff

---

From: "Greg Daley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:50:56 +1100

Hi Michael and Fred,

Managing low and high power demand is clearly the driver for the smart
grid technologies.

I think a number of issues associated with "low" prices and future
demand are interesting to the power companies, and potentially
interesting
to users as well.

This is a potentially fraught issue for the power companies, where they 
will have an idea of demand from predictions, but will also have to take
into account the additional demand driven by the community of users
based on price.

It may be that the cost of generation is higher than that when the 
advertisement is made (due perhaps to unforseen user demand).  What does
the power
company do?  

1. Increase the discounted price advertised for 24 hours in the future
(Bad: reduces uptake)

2. Increase the price above the predicted price when metered (Bad: makes
planning hard)

3. Wear the difference in generation cost (which would eventiually lead
to (1 or 2)).

What if there was a mechanism whereby devices could bid on the
discounted power that the
will use and buy a ticket for it, like the Airlines do with Price-Demand
systems.  This would
allow the power companies to regulate how much power was available at a
particular price level,
which may be closer to their costs.

Users could then prepurchase a block of power at the
discounted/predicted price,
and if they exceed the purchase profile (outside the prescribed hours,
exceeding the
wattage) they would buy excess power at the immediate undiscounted
price.

This would allow systems to operate with some automated policy (bid on a
price up to X, say),
at the minimal price.

It would also allow power companies to apply discounts to people who
purchase blocks of 
power in advance, even when it is not for a low demand period.  This
would allow power 
generators/distributors to perform planning for load.

This effectively extends the market to the users, where they have a
choice of how
they consume power (time of day, alternative generation).

Is this too far out of interest?

Greg Daley

> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of 
> Michael Richardson
> Sent: Wednesday, 17 February 2010 6:29 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> ] [email-masked] 
> http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
>    Kyoto Plus: watch the video 
> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzx1ycLXQSE>
> 	               then sign the petition.

---

From: Mirja Kuehlewind <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:53:12 +0100

>  As for timing, agree that one can use a timer as well. However we can
> hardly predict when we have strong wind or sun or rain and thus it would be
> great to start these devices without a fixed time to advantage of better
> tariffs or overwrite such negotiations for a higher price if one needs the
> machinery now.
Yes, I definitely don't want to depend on the weatherconditions when using the 
dryer. But actually there is no need for that. E.g. in Danmark they have 20% 
of their energy from willmills. Surplus energy which is produced in peak 
times is used to operate pumps in hydropower station in Norway to basically 
store the energy for later use. That really makes sense to me and doesn't 
involve the home user's dryer.

Btw. the first step to save energy in a residential home would be a good 
isolation and a modern heating.

---

From: "Akyol, Bora A" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:35:16 -0800

Geoff

It turns out that consumers are not super happy when their dishwasher is cycled off
in the middle of doing the dishes.

HVAC accounts for 46% of average energy use in a residence and most of that use
is shiftable by pre-heating or pre-cooling. 

In the PNNL experiment, the customers got to choose how sensitive they were to price and 
the system took care of the rest.

Bora
PNNL

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Geoff Mulligan
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:53 PM
To: Chris Lonvick
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [smartpower-interest] [smartpowerdir] FYI OSTP requests input on SmartGrid

Chris,

	geoff

---

From: Damir Rajnovic <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:36:19 +0000

Hi Greg,

I think that we should consider things you are saying. People will change
their usage patterns and what used to be low time may not be that low any
more.

We should provide means how price negitiation could be done.

Gaus

==============

- - - -

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:38:30 -0500

>>>>> "Damir" == Damir Rajnovic <[email-masked]> writes:
    Damir> I think that we should consider things you are saying. People
    Damir> will change their usage patterns and what used to be low time
    Damir> may not be that low any more.

Yes, and the feedback to the system *will* result in a chaotic system
similar to the system we see in international currency systems.

Fortunately, electrons that can do work do not move around the planet 
very fast, so the resulting chaos should be rather localized.

I think that what Greg Daley says:

    >> discounted power that the will use and buy a ticket for it, like
    >> the Airlines do with Price-Demand systems.  This would allow the
    >> power companies to regulate how much power was available at a
    >> particular price level, which may be closer to their costs.
    >> 
    >> discounted/predicted price, and if they exceed the purchase
    >> profile (outside the prescribed hours, exceeding the wattage)
    >> they would buy excess power at the immediate undiscounted price.
    >> 
    >> This would allow systems to operate with some automated policy
    >> (bid on a price up to X, say), at the minimal price.

it entirely relevant.

What I have been hearing from the electrical supply people is that they
think they are going to own and control the SmartGrid, and homeowners
(i.e. power consumers) will enter the system only from outside.  That's
one of the reasons some of them think they can do it all on rfc1918 space.

What we in the network side of things see is what Greg sees. 
The interaction is going to be between my electric dryer and the
substation on the next block over.  It matters not at all what the price
of power is 2-substations over --- what matters is how much I can get at
*my* house.

My dryer is willing to be told when to start consuming, but to do that
it has to be addressable in some way.  Having it poll (because of NAT),
means that it has to have something alive to do that.  In the middle
term, that means another wall wart consuming power to no end.
In the near term, I imagine a smart panel plugged into my old dryer.

---

From: "Greg Daley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:32:24 +1100

Hi Michael, 

> In the near term, I imagine a smart panel plugged into my old dryer. 

So, discussing around my office, it seems that some liked the idea
of prepurchasing the electricity, but asked why not directly contact
the power company over the Internet (e.g. via a WWW page).

There are existing electricity markets which do just that in a "B2B" 
arrangement between transmission/consumption and generation (but not to
end users).
So is it better to build out end-user power purchase and management
infrastructure over the existing internet, Out-of-band from the metering
infrastructure?

Or are there classes of applications which demand interaction with end
systems
based on local information, or more predictable behaviour (etc).

If there's a clear succinct reason why the end user's IP devices have to
interact with
the transmission side infrastructure, it may be worthwhile peddling the
the 
idea to the Meter side people.

Greg

BTW, I think one of the more interesting applications is to sell
a rebate or promise to reduce consumption during periods of high demand.
This would allow people to purchase their remaining electricity at a
lower
tarriff even if the dynamic market price is high.