Smart meters, dumb utility, dumber customers.

My utility is smart. Not uncommon outside of California. My utility provides low cost reliable electricity. The excess generating is used to sell electricity to neighboring utilities.

Don't build, or be constrained not to be able to build, enough electric generating capacity, by the Green Wackos. So install "smart-meters" that can turn off the service to a building remotely.

What does that recipe do? Why it provides a method to RATION electricity, to spread the shortages to everyone, except for privileged ones, hospitals and of course the politicians and their ass-kissers.

In these circumstances, installing "smart meters" is preparing for RATIONING.

Some Democrat bureaucrat will then decide how many hours a day you deserve to have electricity.

Don't say it can't happen. Marxists are always expert at creating shortages and creating queues for food, bread, toilet paper, water, electricity, gasoline, et cetera. That is essentially their only "successes". More than anything that is why the were tossed out on their asses in half the world, the Marxist half. People just got tired of standing in line forever, and revolted.

You have several variable factors:

Demand - where you have a clearly defined daily, weekly and annual pattern - smart meters can be used to "encourage" people to avoid the daytime peaks and do things like clothes and dish washing in the nighttime troughs.

Supply: the patterns from solar are reasonable enough - they follow a daily pattern that well suits regions with air conditioning.
However, wind has no useful pattern - even assuming you can predict several days out, you can hardly tell people to "wait till Thursday and wash stuff then" - I can't see how you can usefully do demand management for wind.

On the other hand, if you have an electric car or some other electricity storage device, you can have loads of fun (with the daily supply cycle).

stas:

What incorrect things to say about one of the top-10 capitalist high efficiency tools.

Smart meters (paid by end users) are used lower cost and increase profits for every energy distributor while reducing the capital investment required at the production end.

All distribution networks become much more efficient if they are used at close to their fully load potential 24/7. Building production centers/plants and distribution networks for consumption peaks is very expensive and not efficient. Spreading the load evenly is the best way to maximize revenues and $$$ profits and less cost to the patient users. It is a win-win solution.

Higher efficiency = less investment and more profits and is not pro socialist.

Let's not get carried away on the wrong path.

It is now time to start the end of the electric utility. Most electricity in the US is generated from burning coal and natural gas. This is done with high theoretical efficiency, but the second law of thermodynamics requires that 40 percent to 80 percent or more of the energy be wasted to the air.

This energy, now wasted to the air, can be used to heat and cool buildings. It is called combined heat and power and cooling or cogeneration. This process can save more fuel use and cost less than any form of solar electricity. Including the extra fuel costs over those for just providing heat cogeneration is always money saving and CO2 saving in the long run. The extra capital costs can be paid back in as little as a few months but usualy take a few years. Swimming pool operators at schools where electricity is expensive have a very short payback period because more heat is used at low temperatures and the electric demand is also high.

An automobile is a very low efficiency fuel to mechanical energy converter; When idling at a stop, a car wastes up to 100 percent of its fuel energy.

It is possible to use heat to create cold for air-conditioning. The gas or electric refrigerators in motor homes and some hotel rooms use such a process.

UTC and others make large building air-conditioners that use heat for cooling. Small home units may be available somewhere.

The waste heat from an engine or gas turbine exhaust can be used in these cooling units and UTC makes complete units that use gas to generate elecricity and provide air-conditioning and heating and hot water.

If natural gas were delivered free to electric power plants, the price of electricity at the home would drop by a maximum of forty percent. Every dollar of your bill would be reduced, at most, to 60 cents.

With coal fired power plants the cost of the fuel to the consumer is only 20 percent of the bill.

For nuclear power plants the cost of the uranium used is much less than 20 percent of the bill, and can be reduced to 5 percent or less with newer reactors. The used fuel rods of some present reactors can be used in newer reactors, and the cost of the uranium in these fuel rods is less than zero because the power companies are already paying for their eventual long term storage.

Most of the cost of electricity is in the capital and operating costs plus profits to the owners. Deregulation has caused the price of electricity to increase sharply to home owners. Large industries pay less or the power companies would lose their business, but individual home owners have no say.

Now the time for home owners to generate their own electricity has started. The availability of natural gas is the most important factor. There are units that burn natural gas and generate electricity for homes and deliver hot water to be used for heating the house and the bath.

Computer control and high power electronics is the other factor in local generation of power. High power electronics now allow common alternating currents and voltages to be produced from high-power storage batteries.

The free piston steam LION from Germany is an interesting example of cogeneration. The HONDA combustion engine unit is far more wide spread and has over 50,000 units in operation. Both of these units require an operating electric grid as does Whispergen and others, but LION will offer a system that will operate during grid failure.

The main reason that these units do not operate without a grid connection is that they do not produce enough electricity for a house's high peak loads. This problem is solved with the use of batteries and two or more Combined-Heat-Power units. Except for the high price, ZEBRA batteries are the best for this type of service. EFFPOWER has prototype products that use lead and could be cheaper because of it. UQM has just announced products that will deliver high quality AC electricity from a bank of batteries in an electric car or elsewhere.

Many solar systems use the grid to "store" electricity, but this is not true storage, and there are many economic, safety, and regulatory issues that do not permit such an operation on a widespread basis. The few low-power solar systems now so connected have no measurable effect, but the present grid operation cannot tolerate a large number of such connections and the economic issues of such an operation are unclear.

It is best for each building to supply its own electric storage. This storage can be quite small and only needs to be enough to give time to bring additional engines into operation. Vanadium Redox Batteries could be very good storage for larger buildings. The failure of the natural gas supply can be compensated for by a system that makes a mix of stored propane and air. The ratio of engines to batteries depends upon the ratio of their costs and the desired results. The grid uses almost all "engines" and very little storage except for hydro-electric dams.

Natural gas is made and can be made from coal and biomass. It is very easy and fast to make natural gas from corn, potatoes, sugar, fruits etc, and remote farms that use propane might very well convert to natural gas and use their own and their neighbors waste crops. If mixed with the right amount of air, propane can be used to substitute for natural gas as a back up; the reverse is not true.

Coal to natural gas plants insure that there is a local supply of natural gas in the US. These plants should also produce methanol that can be used directly in some cars or quickly converted gasoline. In contrast to gasoline, methanol can be stored forever. These plants can also extract nitrogen fertilizer from the coal or produce it from air and hydrogen made from coal.

Gas lines are far less suseptible to weather, and gas can be stored if needed or a substitute used. As a start, no natural gas burning furnace should be built without at least a co-generation unit that can supply enough electricity to operate the entire furnace including the blower. This, at least, should be the required high efficiency furnace design; it would also be good if the unit could power a few CFLs or at least a few LEDs.

@Henry:

I just looked at the LION Powerblock cogenerator and found it very interesting. Right now, as you note they are not yet capable of the 10kWh minimum a typical household needs for electric. But they are generating up to 3kWh and that will improve. The limit of moving parts in the free piston engine and linear generator all suggest this to be a prime residential co-generation candidate. Hopefully we will see some rapid expansion on research into these simple thermal energy converters.

Huh? Solar and wind? The utility business model for distributed power has to do one thing; buy power from RPUs and offer to supply it as backup or primary power via the local grid. A local grid is a stripped down version of grid wiring already in place. Ninety percent of RPU power will come from new tech co-generation systems - eliminating intermittent production.

Solar and wind will predominate in land areas where they excel. Deserts for solar. Plains (offshore) for wind. KIS.

@ EP:

"The trolls are both on the side of 19th-century technology."

How erudite can be those who bristle at opposing/challenging points of view and descend to name-calling in defense? "Trolls," the slur de jour of the Herkle geek - are merely self-reflective. Though we would not stoop to naming a "poet" as such.

Net metering entered the California market by legislation NOT the efforts of utility companies. Utility companies fought having to BUY energy from customers tooth and nail. Generating electricity on a residential basis strikes fear and loathing in the heart of the true "corporate" dweeb, because it strips him of monopoly.

Distributed energy generated by Residential Power Units, removes about one third of the utility's fiefdom. It does away with the need for centralized control of your TV, radio, air conditioner or toaster oven. It puts the power into the hands of the consumer - like having a well in your backyard.

Only those who oppose "power to the people" - i.e. clandestine operatives of big energy monopolies - would argue against it.

In the article has been discussed very limited number of smart meter functions. How about EV charging at any location and having specific EV account? I do no hear any options on being able to switch from one supplier to another or having two contracts in parallel. This would require unbundling network operations and supply.

"All economic systems are human creations..."

Not entirely true. For millennia immortal gods have demanded payment of various sort from their mortal servants. The notion of barter and trade began long before Zinjanthropus man hunkered around.

Yes E-P, essentially free is something like to cheap to meter. Very astute. For those of us who conserve, we must pay the cost of expensive 'smart' meters to collect from those who are energy pigs.

I did check out Home Power Magazine. Rarely have a seen a magazine devoted to consumerism. Who needs a million dollar house 5000 square foot house? Nice solar panels on the roof so you can tell how much they car about the environment.

My favorite, “Richmond saved money—roughly $1,000—by doing it himself.” After spending $12,000 can save $5.00 a week. Assuming no maintenance cost or value of money, that is a 48 year payback period.

So on one had you have utilities that provide a public service meeting the needs of the public and the other you have the RPU industry ripping off consumers.

Great story, especially because a lot of organisations are looking at major prjects to save power and reduce their carbon footprint. Something as simple as energy-efficient lights often gets overlooked.
http://business-power.com.au/