Amid recent media reports of smart grid security concerns and meter angst, it's easy to wonder whether U.S. plans for an energy overhaul are really all that "smart." Ask the experts, however, and they'll assure you that we've chosen the right direction for energy production, transmission, distribution and usage. We just have to fine-tune how we're going to get there.
"Yes, the smart grid is generally a good idea," says professor Deepak Divan, director of Georgia Tech's Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium (IPIC). "The bigger concerns are, 'What is the smart grid and why are we doing it?' I think the answers to those two questions are at the heart of the issue. I always joke that if you have 50 people in a room and ask them what the smart grid is, you'll get a hundred different definitions."
The confusion is understandable.
The nation's power grid is, by some definitions, the largest machine in the world. It encompasses hundreds of vendors and more than 300 million users. It entails hardware, software and a complex infrastructure that encompasses more than 300,000 miles (482,803 kilometers) of sprawling transmission lines. All of these pieces enable us to use a resource that cannot be stored and has to be used the moment it's generated.
The problem is that much of the current electrical infrastructure depends on a skeleton of early 20th century engineering. This makes for an often glaringly inefficient mixture of 100-year-old design, 50-year-old assets and modern technology. Meanwhile, energy consumers demand an increasing amount of juice from a carbon-emitting, fossil fuel-dependent system.
"A lot of the older infrastructure was certainly not smart in any sense of the word," Divan says, "but utility companies have systematically been deploying smart meters in commercial establishments for 15 to 20 years. Some of that has migrated out to residential users in some states.
In other words, utility companies haven't been resting on their laurels this whole time. They've deployed intelligent devices such as Phasor measurement units that measure electrical waves on the grid. They've also introduced computerized management systems for the deployment and control of electrical power.
So shouldn't we just let utility companies stay the course?
"That's one story, but I'm not sure that's the right story," Divan says. "My worry is that [smart grid updates] will inevitably raise the cost of electricity and if it does, you're going to start seeing push back from consumers who really are not prepared for a substantial increase in the cost of electricity. So if we just do that and allow the utilities to do what they've been doing anyway, it is not going to achieve all the objectives."
As to what those objectives are, again, it depends who you ask. The U.S. government, Divan says, primarily puts the emphasis on reduced carbon emissions and improved sustainability, stressing the increased integration of wind and solar energy. Utilities, on the other hand, tend to play up smart meters and automated infrastructure.
"My concern is that without any broad agreement on overall objectives that relate back to sustainability, we're going to spend a lot of money without seeing any immediate results, and people are going to get disillusioned," Divan says. "And you know what happens when people get disillusioned. The whole thing disappears and we'll be left halfway there with a dead program."
GreenTech Media analyst David Leeds, author of "The Smart Grid in 2010," also contends that it's how we get there — not where we want to go — that needs figuring out.
"A lot of very smart people agree with the smart grid vision and what it should ultimately become," Leeds says. "I think the flaws are much more human, in terms of existing policies and existing utility business cases. So it's more kind of reinventing how we do business in terms of electric power than it is anything else."
Ultimately, Leeds contends, energy consumers are going to have to learn to better manage their energy consumption while utility companies and the U.S. government develop better means of incorporating renewable resources such as wind and solar into the power grid.
"In a sense, the smart grid becomes the fundamental platform necessary to transition from an oil-based civilization to an electricity-based civilization," Leeds says. "Green technologies and electric transportation will be a big part of the answer — and we're now witnessing a phenomenal and once inconceivable growth in solar power — but there are still a lot of hardcore engineering challenges that come with transitioning from a one-way power grid to a two-way energy trading platform.”