Smart Meters Signal More Flexible Power Grid

Ever try to meet a friend downtown when one of you has forgotten to bring his cell phone? Or find your way to an obscure location without a portable GPS? As capabilities advance, individuals (and society) cannot realize the benefits until the proper technology is in place. That's why it's important that the European Union has recently establish a new objective to install so-called "smart electric meters" in 80% of households across Europe by 2020. As more and more renewable energy sources are built and connected to the power grid, it takes a smarter and smarter electric meter to enable individual families to gain the maximum benefits available to them. For example, smart meters can notify members of a household when overall demand for power is relatively high, which is also when prices for electricity will be higher in tomorrow's more advanced and flexible "smart grid" economy. Smart meters can send signals to people at home, who can adjust their use of electricity to compensate for higher prices by, say, turning off an unnecessary light putting off certain chores, such as vacuuming or using power tools. Even smarter electric meters can automatically shut down certain electrical devices that do not need to use electricity every minute, such as food freezers and refrigerators. They can also temporarily disable the circuits that feed power to equipment, such as washing machines and dryers, that can just as conveniently be run when demand is lowest, and when electricity is priced the cheapest. A new report by Greenbang, as reported in the Financial Times' Energy Source blog, suggests that the market for 'smart' electric meters in Europe is likely to require as many as 145 million new meters by the year 2020. Germany, the UK, Poland, France and Spain are expected to lead the way. Smart meters are essential to energy conservation in a system incorporating alternative generating sources because renewable power sources like wind and sun are inherently variable -- there's no solar power generation at night, for example, and wind turbines generate far less power on calm days, far more on breezy ones. Integration these variable power sources into a grid becomes far more practical and efficient when every electric customer can be made away of these variations, and can take advantage of them. Without an increased installed-based of smart electric meters, Lifeboat Earth's power generation system will not easily be able to shift from what it is -- is dominated by large-capacity fossil fuel and nuclear plants -- to what it can be -- a flexible web of variable electrical generating sources coupled to a flexible web of variable electrical consumers. More later ... Photo credit: Tom Raftery