Smart – from home to grid

Reflections from the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show

By George Arnold, Deputy Director, Technology Services, and National Coordinator for Smart Grid Interoperability, NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), US Department of Commerce

U.S. DOE (Department of energy) banner for the smart grid

The Smart Grid is a critical US national policy objective. Since taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama has described the Smart Grid as central to his goals to promote a clean energy economy. It is interesting that an infrastructure project – the modernization of our electrical system – would rise to the level of a major national goal. Interesting, but perhaps not surprising. Infrastructure is, after all, an enabler. It allows new functionality – opportunities to do things that couldn’t be done before. New infrastructure has the potential not just to solve an immediate problem – like improving the resilience of the grid against blackouts, or enabling distributed power generation – but it also opens the possibility of brand new products and services. Like other great infrastructure projects in US history, such as the interstate highway system, the telephone network, and the Internet, the Smart Grid has the potential to transform the country. Indeed, many of the innovations on display at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) have been enabled by the broadband infrastructure of the Internet.

In less than two decades, the Internet has transformed the way in which people around the world gather and disseminate information, manage their social relationships, work and shop. Similarly, the Internet has helped businesses expand and streamline their supply chains; find, market, and serve customers; and reduce costs and increase productivity.

Smart Grid development to become as familiar as Internet

I predict that over the next decade, we are going to see a similar transformation unfold, this time enabled by the Smart Grid. Just as the internet has fundamentally changed the way we think about, use and manage information, the Smart Grid will fundamentally change the way that we think about, use and manage energy. The Smart Grid will enable the replacement of oil by electricity in our cars, and the replacement of coal by wind and sun in the generation of electricity.

Being part of a national priority means that the Smart Grid is the focus of great effort and resources, with a total investment of private and public funds of over USD 8.2 billion. With this new infusion of funding, the number of Smart Grid projects in the United States of America has jumped to more than 130 projects spread across 45 states and territories. Over the next three years, about 18 million smart meters and 1.2 million in-home displays will be installed.

The consumer experience in using and managing electric energy will undergo a fundamental transformation. Today, the existing grid provides an invisible one-way flow of electricity from the utility into the myriad of appliances and devices at the consumer’s home. Out of sight, out of mind. Consumers are only reminded of their electricity usage once a month when they get their utility bill. They lack the real-time information and automation that could help them conserve and manage consumption. Consumers also have no idea what the environmental effects are of the electricity they consume. They have no clue that the equivalent of an entire coal-fired power plant is needed to power all US televisions just when they are on stand-by.

The Smart Grid will change this – in the same way that the internet changed the way we obtain, use, and manage information. The Smart Grid will empower consumers and give them new tools to obtain, use and manage energy.

Intelligent automation to create the enernet

Over the next decade, that static, unseen, one-way flow of electricity will become a dynamic two-way flow of both electricity and real-time information about energy use and cost. Aided by intelligent automation, this will enable consumers to conserve and manage energy. This two-way flow of electricity and information, the key characteristic of the Smart Grid, is described by some people as the “enernet” – the energy Internet.

Backed by integrated software automation

Consumer electronics will play multiple roles in this transformation of the grid. For one thing, consumer electronics represent a growing load on the grid as our life becomes more and more dependent on electronics and software. The consumer electronics industry is working hard to achieve more efficient use of electricity by consumer devices. Much more can be gained by integrating software into these devices that adjust energy usage based on electricity pricing and other so-called demand response signals from the Smart Grid.

We can’t expect consumers to manage their energy use based on real-time information from the Smart Grid on their own. It has to be automated. Consumer electronics devices that provide energy management automation will be critical to realizing the benefits of the Smart Grid in the home. There is room for a lot of innovation here.

Standardized configuration for a smarter user?

However, most consumers don’t think about their white goods appliances and heating and cooling systems – the main users of energy in the home – in the same way that they think about their home entertainment devices or home computers. Few consumers will have the interest, even if they have the skill, to configure their Wi-Fi network so that their electric meter can talk to their refrigerator. They will not want to spend time looking at graphs on their computer to tell when it is cheapest to run the clothes dryer. The Smart Grid-enabled devices in the home need to be completely plug-and-play and auto-configuring and to optimize energy use automatically based on user preferences expressed through a single button push. If the consumer electronics industry does not design it this way, Smart Grid appliances will become the VCRs of the 21st century, sitting with LED (Light Emitting Diode) display flashing, their energy-saving potential unused.

One of the most important enablers that made the Internet possible was a robust, flexible and evolutionary framework of interoperability standards that allow countless different types of devices to communicate end-to-end, work together and exchange information. This is equally true of the Smart Grid. Moving towards a nationwide, interoperable and secure Smart Grid cannot be done without establishing standards. Over the last year, NIST has been very hard at work with the Smart Grid community to develop a standards framework that also includes many IEC International Standards.

The realization of the Smart Grid is truly a unique opportunity for all of us. It is not every day that we get to work collaboratively across industries, on a global basis, to modernize such a fundamental infrastructure. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And the consumer electronics industry plays an absolutely essential role in delivering the benefits of the Smart Grid to all its users.