{"id":4214,"date":"2012-07-30T11:18:26","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T18:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=4214"},"modified":"2012-08-26T11:18:49","modified_gmt":"2012-08-26T18:18:49","slug":"the-rise-of-the-smart-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=4214","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the Smart Grid"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama’s plan for a state-of-the-art electrical grid is gaining power bit by digital bit<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By <\/strong>MICHAEL GRUNWALD<\/strong><\/a> | July 26, 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/business.time.com\/2012\/07\/26\/obamas-smart-elec<\/a>trical-grid-plan\/<\/p>\n

Washington<\/a>, America\u2019s power center, recently experienced life without power\u2014the kind that gets generated, not the kind that gets wielded. After a nasty storm knocked out the Beltway\u2019s electricity for days during a heat wave, power brokers of the political type complained: Didn\u2019t President Obama promise a smarter, more reliable grid?<\/p>\n

Yes, he did. And the blackout notwithstanding, the grid is slowly improving. In fact, its story is a nice parable about change in the Obama era. On the trail in 2008, Obama had big dreams for a digital smart grid that would self-monitor and self-heal, minimizing costly outages by diagnosing problems electronically and rerouting power around them. He envisioned a national network of high-voltage transmission lines that would connect windy and sunny areas to cities, as well as smart meters and other high-tech gizmos that would give us real-time feedback and control over our energy use. He basically wanted to merge the grid with the Internet so we could adjust our air conditioners with our iPhones when we were out of the house, program our appliances to save us energy and money and sell power from solar panels and electric cars back to our utilities.<\/p>\n

After the election, Obama wanted his economic stimulus package to include some iconic, futuristic legacy projects to advance his long-term agenda. The smart grid seemed perfect, a modern moon mission, a 21st century version of the interstates. He suggested pouring in $100 billion. \u201cLet\u2019s just build it!\u201d he told his transition team. His aides explained that that wasn\u2019t possible or even desirable. Utilities own the grid, and they could pay to upgrade it themselves. But it would take decades to convert an analog grid to digital and string high-voltage wires nationwide. Ultimately, Obama settled for $11 billion in seed money. \u201cThere was this sense of frustration,\u201d his former budget director Peter Orszag recalled when I interviewed him for my forthcoming book on the -stimulus, The New <\/em>New Deal<\/em><\/a>: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era<\/em>. \u201cHere\u2019s the first African\u2013American President, the economy has fallen off a cliff, history is calling, and -really? I can\u2019t just do a smart grid?\u201d<\/p>\n

The frustration only mounted after the stimulus passed. The grid money got snarled in bureaucratic morasses, and the initial investments in smart meters actually inspired a backlash\u2014partly because of unfounded fears about radiation and partly because smart meters aren\u2019t that helpful when the grid remains dumb. And their main up-front benefit was their ability to replace human meter readers, an inconvenient stimulus message.<\/p>\n

But behind the scenes, Obama\u2019s billions are gradually upgrading the grid. Utilities now receive updates on transmission lines 30 times a second instead of every two seconds.<\/span><\/strong> They are also expanding transmission, even though electricity use has yet to recover to prerecession levels. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t expect the industry to be building new wires left and right, but there\u2019s a huge amount of activity,\u201d says Peter Fox-Penner of the Brattle Group. Meanwhile, stimulus investments in sensors, auto-mated substations, \u201csynchrophasors\u201d and other unsexy electrical equipment are helping diagnose, pinpoint and solve problems before we even notice them so utilities no longer have to deploy battalions of trucks to troubleshoot entire neighborhoods. \u201cPeople don\u2019t see it, but it\u2019s happening,\u201d Fox-Penner says.<\/p>\n

What people see are blackouts, and they assume nothing has changed. Not even a smart grid can send power through a downed line. But over time it will be more reliable and user-friendly on a day-to-day basis. Nobody notices infrastructure investments when they work, but that\u2019s the point of infrastructure\u2014and power.
\nOne Washington resident whose lights stayed on was Rhone Resch, who has solar panels on his roof, perhaps because he\u2019s the solar industry\u2019s top lobbyist. His neighbors stopped by to charge their phones and enjoy his cold beer. \u201cIt was an Armageddon situation, and our house became the beacon of comfort,\u201d Resch says. The stimulus poured money into solar too, and installations have increased sixfold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d Resch says. \u201cThat\u2019s change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: http:\/\/business.time.com\/2012\/07\/26\/obamas-smart-electrical-grid-plan\/#ixzz24g2YK7AJ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obama’s plan for a state-of-the-art electrical grid is gaining power bit by digital bit By MICHAEL GRUNWALD | July 26, 2012 http:\/\/business.time.com\/2012\/07\/26\/obamas-smart-electrical-grid-plan\/ Washington, America\u2019s power center, recently experienced life without power\u2014the kind that gets generated, not the kind that gets wielded. After a nasty storm knocked out the Beltway\u2019s electricity for days during a heat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,18,160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grid","category-smart-meter","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4216,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4214\/revisions\/4216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}