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The power grid is a very complex thing, and I strongly believe that demand management is an important component for stability. There are ways we could better or

The power grid is a very complex thing, and I strongly believe that demand management is an important component for stability. There are ways we could better organize our HVAC fleets to provide near-equivalent levels of comfort. The current proposals really suck though. Storage is a big deal that seems to be the focal point of most of the renewable/non-renewable debate, but there are other concerns that are discussed less frequently. Having sufficient inertia in the grid is important as well. It's like a low-pass filter for the desired grid frequency. The less equivalent spinning mass you have, the easier it is for these spikes to cause serious problems - Even if you have a gigantic reservoir of water ready to spin up some turbines, you still need to be able to handle all of the instantaneous events up to that point, during, and following.

mistrial9 4y ago
what I am reading here is that the first use-case for "smart" remote is .. remote service disconnect. Profit goes Up. Second use-case is better dossier building. "smart"
wongarsu 4y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if "power plants" that just provide inertia pop up. Basically flywheel storage, but with the intent to keep the flywheel at a fixed saturation level to stabilize the grid frequency. But we are at an interesting point in time where "smarter" devices make the addition of demand management easier than ever, and at the same time less predictable power generation makes demand management financially more attractive. We just have to settle on the right mechanism: do electricity prices stay simple, but the provider can control your devices, or are electricity prices reflective of actual supply and devices regulate themselves based off that.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  This is some substations.
mikepurvis 4y ago
I guess I don't know what's out there, but it feels like there must be a bunch of industrial-type loads that could be pretty flexible, and would absolutely benefit from a model where they get electricity for a fraction of the price with the promise that the utility can throttle them back by 80-90% at a second's notice. Think stuff that's naturally storage-oriented, like charging forklift/AGV batteries, pumping something into a tank, boiling a large kettle, etc. These are all potentially loads where the convenience cost might be well worth a discount from the utility, where the discount is maybe proportional to how long the throttling can be— some loads you'd only want to lose a few minutes (so, basically buying the utility time to spin up another turbine), whereas others you could lose for hours at a time (actual load shifting).
- mlsu 4y ago
  I think this already exists. I've read that aluminum smelters (very very energy intensive) get a discount rate that you describe. I think all very large scale industrial projects interact pretty extensively with the power provider to make sure that both parties know how the impact to the grid can be managed. I can't imagine that a 50MW industrial operation just pays their power bill the way you and I do.

mistrial9 4y ago

what I am reading here is that the first use-case for "smart" remote is .. remote service disconnect. Profit goes Up. Second use-case is better dossier building. "smart"

wongarsu 4y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if "power plants" that just provide inertia pop up. Basically flywheel storage, but with the intent to keep the flywheel at a fixed saturation level to stabilize the grid frequency. But we are at an interesting point in time where "smarter" devices make the addition of demand management easier than ever, and at the same time less predictable power generation makes demand management financially more attractive. We just have to settle on the right mechanism: do electricity prices stay simple, but the provider can control your devices, or are electricity prices reflective of actual supply and devices regulate themselves based off that.

smileysteve 4y ago
This is some substations.

mikepurvis 4y ago

I guess I don't know what's out there, but it feels like there must be a bunch of industrial-type loads that could be pretty flexible, and would absolutely benefit from a model where they get electricity for a fraction of the price with the promise that the utility can throttle them back by 80-90% at a second's notice. Think stuff that's naturally storage-oriented, like charging forklift/AGV batteries, pumping something into a tank, boiling a large kettle, etc. These are all potentially loads where the convenience cost might be well worth a discount from the utility, where the discount is maybe proportional to how long the throttling can be— some loads you'd only want to lose a few minutes (so, basically buying the utility time to spin up another turbine), whereas others you could lose for hours at a time (actual load shifting).

mlsu 4y ago
I think this already exists. I've read that aluminum smelters (very very energy intensive) get a discount rate that you describe. I think all very large scale industrial projects interact pretty extensively with the power provider to make sure that both parties know how the impact to the grid can be managed. I can't imagine that a 50MW industrial operation just pays their power bill the way you and I do.