Things I Like - Sciences

Mr. White has posted several times about ‘smart grids’. Everyone seems to know that the smart grid is a key component of an energy program based on clean and renewable sources. In the hopes that I am not the only person out there who doesn’t actually know what a smart grid is, I offer the following:

Today’s power grids are designed for local delivery, linking customers in a given city or region to power plants relatively nearby. But local grids are ill-suited to distributing energy from the alternative sources of tomorrow. North America’s strongest winds, most intense sunlight, and hottest geothermal springs are largely concentrated in remote regions hundreds or thousands of miles from the big cities that need electricity most.

Power engineers are…sketching the outlines of the next-generation electrical grid that will keep our homes and factories humming with clean—but fluctuating—renewable energy. The idea is to expand the grid from the top down by adding thousands of miles of robust new transmission lines, while enhancing communication from the bottom up with electronics enabling millions of homes and businesses to optimize their energy use.

The present mode of operation—essentially unchanged since the invention of power grids in the late 19th century—keeps blackouts at bay by measuring total consumer demand and throttling up and down on the supply of electricity from power stations as needed. It works, but it is a bad fit for renewable energy. Solar panels and wind turbines can stop supplying electricity at any time if the weather shifts. So even when the renewables are going strong, conventional power plants must always be at the ready to step in and carry the load.

Smart grids will do better by inverting the power system’s most basic rule of operation. Instead of adjusting power output in accordance with shifting demand, they will help consumers control their use of electricity, timing it to coincide with availability of the grid’s cleanest and cheapest power sources.
Discover Magazine

See the article for more detail but it appears that the smart grid concept is pretty simple - different power cables that can handle the higher voltage of wind and solar energy combined with power meters that help the consumer regulate usage. Why did I think smart grids were going to be a lot more high tech?