Keeping Up with Demand: The Smart Grid

The film “End of Suburbia” and the discussions we had in class about peak oil and our dependence on cheap energy really got me thinking about just how incredibly important a reliable supply of energy is to our society. If the Media Consumption assignment taught us anything, it’s that technology is deeply embedded in our daily lives.  Cars, refrigerators, TV’s, computers, phones, and most other things we rely on all need energy to function, and as our dependence on technology grows, so will our demand for energy. This is especially true for electricity. But can our current electrical grid keep up with the growth in demand and meet our future needs? Can we expect energy prices to stay relatively stable as the years go by? If you answered no and you wish to these questions, you’re probably right.

Our current grid is not designed to deal with the demands of the 21^st century. According to a Department of Energy Report titled “The Smart Grid: An Introduction,” electricity demand is expected to grow  30% by 2030 and prices are expected to increase 50% over the next 7 years. Demand is being driven by population growth and by consumers’ growing use of technological products. Since 1982, growth in electricity demand has exceeded growth in the grid’s transmission capacities by 25% each year. The closer we get to reaching full capacity, the more problems pop up. Blackouts and brownouts are becoming more common and grid operators are having a hard time responding. What caught my attention from the report was that in the past 40 years there have been five massive blackouts in the U.S. and three of those occurred during the past nine years. Even so, the amount of R&D spending set aside by the utility companies-a critical component for innovation- ranks at the bottom of most industries. Not much change is taking place.

So what is our government doing to try to prevent these foreseeable problems from causing damage in the future? For one thing, the Obama Administration wants to invest in the construction of a Smart Grid. Through the American Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress secured 4.5 billion in funding for the modernization of the electric grid system. This new grid would allow for 2-way communication between energy producers and consumers and would make full use of 21^st century technologies to enhance the electric delivery system by making generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption of energy more efficient. Remember those black outs I mentioned earlier? Under our current system customers actually have to call the utility company to report that light has been cut off at their residence. Under the Smart Grid however, grid operators would receive this information almost immediately and would be able to respond much more quickly. Other components of the Smart Grid, such as Smart Meters, would allow for better consumer choices by providing consumers with data on how their energy consumption varies by time of day and by home appliance. The economic theory behind this is that if consumers know how much energy they are consuming and what appliances are using up the most power, they will be able to modify their behavior to optimize their energy use. This should save both utilities and households money since waste would be reduced which would hopefully keep prices down.

It is crucial that our electric grid undergo the proposed transformation as soon as possible. Not only will it generate savings for households, it is also good for the environment. This new smart grid allows for a more efficient implementation of renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind, and since we currently produce half of our energy by burning coal, it would significantly reduce our country’s carbon footprint. This is important considering we're one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases worldwide (see below). I'm looking forward to seeing the Smart Grid in action, because saving the world and some money at the same time doesn’t sound half bad to me.