Microsoft's Utility Survey on Smart Grid

Click here to view the survey results hosted on elp site

The wonder world of AMI

If you are one of those home office junkies tasked with sizing the AMI market for your boss who has to meet his boss in two days, it’s time to fall in love with Google all over again. Google has mapped it all out, literally. Well, the real credit goes to the Smart Metering Project Team at the Energy Retail Association in the UK. Follow this link, and you will emerge into the wonder-world of AMI. Click on the circles, and you will all the good stuff you have been yearning to see for last many hours. Pretty neat, huh!

Haddock on Dynamic Pricing

“Thank you contacting Smart Utility. This is Smarty Pants. How can I help you today?”

“Billions of bilious blistering barnacles, - my bill has ballooned three times.”

“Sorry to hear that, Sir.” Smarty Pants gets ready to tap on the mute button. “May I have your name and address, please?”

“Captain Haddock. 1234 Smart Lane. Smart City.”

“I see that your bill for this month is $450, and your average for the last 12 months was $150.”

“Tell me why, Vampire!” Captain roared.

“Hmm, your usage looks a little higher.”

“So, you numb-skulled fuzzy-wuzzy, why is my usage so ramshackle high if my usage is just a tiny-miny higher?”

“Can I place you on hold?”

“No. I am sick of that bleeping music. I was holding for last 20 minutes.”

“No problem, Sir. Just to comfort you, - lots of people have the same complain. So, don’t feel that you are alone, OK?”

“OK. Thank you.”

“Sir, I found the problem. We replaced your electromechanical meter with a smart meter.”

“Darn good. Why do I pay more?”

“Two reasons. First – your previous meter was very old, and so was recording readings lower the actual. Now you have an electronic meter which actually works.”

“I thought I am the only one losing my pace. Balkan Beetle! You have been subsidizing my whisky for all these years?”

“Thank you. You should feel good about that. Second, I notice that you are in real time pricing. And you seem to be swimming in your heated pool between 8 and 9 AM every morning”.

“Gibbering ghost, how do you know that?”

“Ho ho. I can tell a lot about your personal habits looking at your data.” Smarty Pants continued boastfully, "We got our home area network, Sir. Let me see. You had a 10 days vacation last month after which you hosted a series of bacchanalia at your place...you gotta pay for all that, Mr Haddock.”

“Yes I went to Tibet. Holy moly, I have been violated. I don’t understand this... what pricing?”

“Dynamic pricing, Sir. You apparently opted for the most risky category – Real Time.”

“Yes, yes. I am the captain, I love risks... but explain this thing to me, baboon!”

“I don’t know anything beyond this screen, Sir. But if you hold, I can transfer this call to my supervisor. She has just completed the train-the-trainer course. But I can tell you that your bill will be significantly reduced if you take your laps after midnight.”

“You fuzz-headed profiteer, you are not getting away with that. I will have my razor-toothed piranhas cut your wires.” Captain hung up.

The Consumer Interface with Smart Grid

Recently, the NIST blog was open for consumer opinion on several topics related to Smartgrid.

The question that intrigued me most was "Who owns the usage data?"

I posted the following response to this question:

Energy usage data of individuals or commercial entities is private and can have security, safety and societal implications if made public. The ownership clearly belongs to the consumer.

The consumer generates this data and it is collected in the privacy of his or her premises. The data reflects the lifestyle and personal choices of the consumer.However, Smart grid is an intricate network linking various assets by the constant flow of energy and data. Conversion of raw data into useful information is a critical step in equipping the grid with the right “intelligence”. This conversion requires tools, techniques and business rules for processing of the data. The consumer does not have this infrastructure or incentive to process the data but is definitely the central entity in the information. The question then really becomes “who protects this information?” and “who can use it?”The accountability of protecting the information and the underlying data lies with the Utility. The Utility will have to protect the collection, flow, storage and archival of the data leading to the information.

The owner, a consumer in this case, has the responsibility to ensure the protection measures put by the Utility are not compromised in any way. The regulators will have to be informed of all exceptions and breaches of security of the data. A parallel one can think of is the banking data. When we go to the ATM machine, we share private information at the ATM. The bank is accountable for providing a secure and safe way of collecting and dispersing information during the interaction. However, the responsibility of ensuring that the privacy and security measures put in by the Bank are not compromised remains with us. We own the data but the bank protects it – at least that is what we trust our banks with.The usage of the information should be for the core objectives that a smartgrid needs to meet. Utilities and regulators alongwith authorized service providers should be able to use this data.

The ownership of data and its implications will continue to be an area where debates will continue and new issues will be uncovered everyday as we embrace the smartgrid. After all, there are two sides to usage of every information - the constructive and the destructive. While we reap the benefits of the constructive usage, minimizing the destructive usage of data is what we should all think about.

A brief history of electricity....and smart grid!

The History of Electricity starts in the era of renaissance with great scientific minds trying to understand the mysteries behind lightning, static-electricity and magnetism. This started with Benjamin Franklin and continued for almost a century until Edison and finally culminating with the research done by Otto Hahn and Einstein. By this time the economics of patenting scientific research and monetization of inventions was giving good returns to inventors such as Edison and Westinghouse. The business generated out of existing inventions led to complacency and lack of funding for further research. Had the curiosity to discover further not been killed we would be living in a completely different world may be receiving electricity without the need of transmission poles or wires. In fact Tesla had demonstrated wireless illumination of incandescent lamp in 1894 using wireless energy transfer.

The next hundred years belonged to corporations - the likes of GE founded by Edison and Ford Motor Co. founded by Henry Ford. The scientific research now was driven more to grow respective businesses than to nurture scientific curiosity. The cobwebs of modern economy never allowed the Newtons and Edisons in today's world to discover or invent things that could change the face of the world by 180 degrees.

So the smart-guys are constrained....but the capacity to think exists and so there is hope.

Minus the Hype and Hoopla embedded in the Smart Grid package, there is some real stuff which could bring immense value to all stake holders in this business including rate payers (customers).

Information-Technology (IT) would be the key enabler providing the backbone for bringing together all the elements of a real Smart Grid such as micro-grids (built on Small Town Nukes, Photo-voltaic, etc.) and Home Area Networks (HANs)