Comments on: Can IBM help cut your energy bill?

Big Blue, Whirlpool, Energy Dept. plan "smart" electricity meters for 300 homes in Oregon, Washington state.

[ramsci]

What servers are being used to capture the data

I wish its not those high power hungry IBM servers.

[Squashman2]

Utility companies

I think the Government needs to put pressure on the Utility companies and power plants to make their systems more efficient. According to a family member of mine who runs a utility, the most inefficeint aspect of electricity is the Power Plants themselves. Our homes and appliances we use today are pretty darn efficient already.

[bigduke]

Energy crunch.

This is not a problem of efficiency of the appliances, but rather short term overloads of part or all of the distribution system.

As an example: My electric water heater is controlled by a thermostat to keep the water at about 115 F. This is significantly lower than most are set at the factory. When we use water to wash dishes, take a bath, or the heat leaks out of the insulation the switch asks for energy at the rate of 4.5 kW. That is a significant load, and costs us about $0.55 an hour. It can happen in the morning when system loads are somewhat lower, at noon when loads are high, or at night when a lot of industrial users are not using much power. With an extra switch in the system that is sensitive to frequency, low voltage or other disturbances to the supply line system power loads can be reduced. The same holds for many of the energy uses in the home. If it shuts off the dryer heaters for a period while not interrupting the drum motor, the energy is dropped by about as much as used in my water heater. The much smaller load of the motor continues, keeping the clothes from setting wrinkles or worse.

It seems to be a rather complex subject, but utilities used to (and might still) give credit for a switch that could be remotely opened to reduce load of water heaters in particular when loads exceeded capacity of distribution systems. It was particularly effective in heat waves when AC's use huge amount of energy. Some included the AC as well. The bait was a reduction of energy costs. Fair trade off.

An interesting method of easing strain on an overburdened distribution system.

duke