4 ms·

Smart thermometer manufacturers could solve this fairly easily by randomizing the start time. Instead of them all turning on the heater in the winter at 6am, th

Smart thermometer manufacturers could solve this fairly easily by randomizing the start time. Instead of them all turning on the heater in the winter at 6am, they could i.e pick a random start time between 5:30-6:30 by default.

pdonis 4y ago
That just means the load peak is now at 6:30, when all the heaters are turned on.
- yellow_lead 4y ago
  It would be a smaller usage at 6:30, and not necessarily a peak, since usage would probably surpass it right after
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > It would be a smaller usage at 6:30 Why? Won't all the heaters that turned on from 5:30 through 6:30 be on?
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      This might be a regional variation for how people are imagining this - I agree with you, living in a cold environment my furnace takes 2-3 hours to get the house up to temp, even longer in extreme (-30) cold, and will still have prolonged on/off cycles after the house heats up so that it's pretty much guaranteed to still be running in case of a staggered start. Warmer climates might be able to get things heated up in less than that hour.
    - naasking 4y ago
      Even if they're all on by 6:30, that gives the power plant time to ramp up production to meet demand from 5:30-6:30. If everything is synchronized and everyone in a region starts drawing lots of power at the exact same time, the line voltage on the grid will suddenly drop below safety thresholds and could trigger a brownout for that whole region. The point being, randomizing power draw over a period of time allows the grid more time to match demand.
      - pdonis 4y ago
        > that gives the power plant time to ramp up production to meet demand But the capacity isn't there, at least not if the article's primary claim is correct: "the peak demands are concentrated primarily when renewable energy is unavailable" It doesn't seem like the availability of renewable energy will be much better at 6:30 vs. 5:30 or 6:00. So once all the demand is ramped up, there would still be a capacity shortfall.
        naasking 4y ago
        I'm saying that even if the power were there, these smart thermostats would still strain the grid by turning on all at exactly the same time. Power coming from renewables can exacerbate the problem, thus requiring grid storage, but the problem remains even without them.
mikepurvis 4y ago
Cron has a bunch of this kind of thing built in for stuff that's known to touch the network, like automatically running apt-update in the background. You don't want millions of Ubuntu machines in each timezone all hitting the CDN within seconds of each other. I think Google Maps does it too with routing— it adds a bit of fuzz so that it doesn't send literally every car down path A when there's a path B that's nearly as goo.
- ciupicri 4y ago
  systemd.timer [1] also has AccuracySec, RandomizedDelaySec and FixedRandomDelay. [1]: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.timer.html#AccuracySec= https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.tim...
- jwilk 4y ago
  > Cron has a bunch of this kind of thing built in At least Vixie Cron doesn't support anything like this. Each cron job that needs it has to implement it on its own, e.g.: https://github.com/Debian/apt/blob/2.5.1/debian/apt.apt-compat.cron.daily#L31 https://github.com/Debian/apt/blob/2.5.1/debian/apt.apt-comp...

pdonis 4y ago

That just means the load peak is now at 6:30, when all the heaters are turned on.

yellow_lead 4y ago
It would be a smaller usage at 6:30, and not necessarily a peak, since usage would probably surpass it right after
- pdonis 4y ago
  > It would be a smaller usage at 6:30 Why? Won't all the heaters that turned on from 5:30 through 6:30 be on?
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    This might be a regional variation for how people are imagining this - I agree with you, living in a cold environment my furnace takes 2-3 hours to get the house up to temp, even longer in extreme (-30) cold, and will still have prolonged on/off cycles after the house heats up so that it's pretty much guaranteed to still be running in case of a staggered start. Warmer climates might be able to get things heated up in less than that hour.
  - naasking 4y ago
    Even if they're all on by 6:30, that gives the power plant time to ramp up production to meet demand from 5:30-6:30. If everything is synchronized and everyone in a region starts drawing lots of power at the exact same time, the line voltage on the grid will suddenly drop below safety thresholds and could trigger a brownout for that whole region. The point being, randomizing power draw over a period of time allows the grid more time to match demand.
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > that gives the power plant time to ramp up production to meet demand But the capacity isn't there, at least not if the article's primary claim is correct: "the peak demands are concentrated primarily when renewable energy is unavailable" It doesn't seem like the availability of renewable energy will be much better at 6:30 vs. 5:30 or 6:00. So once all the demand is ramped up, there would still be a capacity shortfall.
      - naasking 4y ago
        I'm saying that even if the power were there, these smart thermostats would still strain the grid by turning on all at exactly the same time. Power coming from renewables can exacerbate the problem, thus requiring grid storage, but the problem remains even without them.

mikepurvis 4y ago

Cron has a bunch of this kind of thing built in for stuff that's known to touch the network, like automatically running apt-update in the background. You don't want millions of Ubuntu machines in each timezone all hitting the CDN within seconds of each other. I think Google Maps does it too with routing— it adds a bit of fuzz so that it doesn't send literally every car down path A when there's a path B that's nearly as goo.

ciupicri 4y ago
systemd.timer [1] also has AccuracySec, RandomizedDelaySec and FixedRandomDelay. [1]: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.timer.html#AccuracySec= https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.tim...
jwilk 4y ago
> Cron has a bunch of this kind of thing built in At least Vixie Cron doesn't support anything like this. Each cron job that needs it has to implement it on its own, e.g.: https://github.com/Debian/apt/blob/2.5.1/debian/apt.apt-compat.cron.daily#L31 https://github.com/Debian/apt/blob/2.5.1/debian/apt.apt-comp...