Could We See A Skype For The Power Industry?

from the peer-to-peer-power dept

Wed, Sep 27th 2006 8:56am — Joseph Weisenthal

There are many out there who see the future of the IT industry as resembling that of electrical utilities. In this vision, companies like Google and Salesforce.com build out computing power plants, and rent out software and processing power to their customers. Certainly, there are aspects of the business that are going this way, but to assume that today's utility model is the model to strive for is to ignore some interesting things that are happening within the field of electrical power. A young company called GridPoint wants utilities to install backup power appliances in customer homes. The idea is that customers can store up power during off-peak hours, for use when demand is high. The company claims that by evening out demand this way, power companies can put off building new power plants. So while it may be that IT is looking to emulate the power industry, the power industry itself may go less decentralized, as new technologies help bring about distributed generation and storage.

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18 Comments

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dorpus, 27 Sep 2006 @ 9:05am

Why not centralized storage?
Instead of having millions of little backup power appliances, what is to prevent utilities from storing backup power where it is made? Or having secondary generators?

Or do we want millions of fire hazards in every home instead?
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anonymous coward, 27 Sep 2006 @ 10:46am

i think this is a great concept for new home and multi-unit construction but installation could be problematic for existing homes and apartments. there would probably need to be some critical mass of installation before a particular city or region would see much of flattening of pwoer demand.

i like the idea especially for earthquake prone areas like San Francisco. having even a few hours of non-generator home backup power could be helpful in a post-earthquake brown/blackout.
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not available, 27 Sep 2006 @ 11:02am

Re: Why not centralized storage?
The problem isn't in that there isn't enough power. The problem is in that the infrastructure can not handle the demand. Think of it as a hose.. it is only so big and can only push so much no matter the demand.. the solution is to either get more hoses, get a bigger hose, or as these folks are suggesting, store a little extra in a bucket at your house and use it when you can get enough otherwise.
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Anonymous of Course, 27 Sep 2006 @ 11:21am

Re: Why not centralized storage?
There is some centralized storage now.
One of the more common methods is
pumping water up an elevation then
recapturing some of the energy when
its allowed to run back down.

Distributed generation by enlisting
customers with back-up generators in
cogeneration plans was a big deal in
Massachusetts a few years ago.
I thought that was a bad idea. Since
you have a bunch of dirty generators
running instead of one centralized source
which you can more easily clean-up and
monitor

A small amount of local energy storage for
peak shaving would improve power quality.
I can see some advantages to this.

Decentralized storage of any substantial
amount of electrical energy could be a huge
headache for the linemen trying to clean
up after a disaster. It might knock a few of
the "mister fix-it" types and would be energy
cheats out of the gene pool as well. I'm
sure firemen would welcome yet another
additional hazard to deal with as well.

Stored energy is a hazard no matter what
the source, compressed springs or gas,
rotating mass, batteries, capacitors, fuel-oil
So I'm a bit leery of this idea.

Then again I'm still waiting for that nuclear
reactor in my basement they promised me in
Popular Mechanics during the 60s and the
free electricity it would bring.
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jsnbase, 27 Sep 2006 @ 11:22am

Re: Why not centralized storage?
Don't be ridiculous; we'll only be adding ONE fire hazard to each home.

Oh, that isn't what you meant?

I guess we should just be glad that most homes don't have fireplaces or stoves or appliances of any kind or matches or little flammable dogs or.....oh, that's not what you meant?

So what was your point?
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danimal, 27 Sep 2006 @ 11:23am

Easier transition
The added benefit of this idea is that as alternative energies mature, it will be an easy transition to just plug in your nano-solar panels (or whatever) to supplement your energy needs.
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rishi, 27 Sep 2006 @ 11:32am

Hi,
I am from India and we use these things here a lot. They are called inverters here. There is a lot of power problems here and it is useful to have a battery backup.

The specs of my inverter are 500 VA. It powers 3 lights, 3 fans and maybe a computer for 2-3 hours. The spec on the site seems to be 1200VA so it would be slightly larger.

Even so, there is no way that an inverter can carry heavy loads like an air conditioner, iron, heater, microwave, washing machine etc.

This is a highly impractical solution and will not pass the test of time. It is only useful if there is frequent breakdown of power.

This solution will not be useful to even out the electricity use during non peak hours as it will not be cost effective. Even not considering the disadvantages of not using equpiment mentioned above, at most it can transfer 1.2Kwh per day to non peak use. Here that costs ~12c. And the equipment costs $10,000.
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Steve E, 27 Sep 2006 @ 12:03pm

If only the Buckminster-Fuller concept of a global energy grid was feasible, could solve a lot of issues for power and consumers alike.
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Robert, 27 Sep 2006 @ 12:05pm

Re: Why not centralized storage?
Distributed generation has several benefits when you consider the complete picture of energy. The efficiency associated with generating power from a central location and distributing this across power lines has significant losses associated with such a configuration. The effective energy at the outlet in your house is less than 15% of the total energy consumed through generation and transfer by the grid. Utilizing “In-efficient” smaller units are still going to be more energy effective once you consider all the issues.

Consider areas of high population density where a community (Distributed) generation station provides power to a few city blocks or street. This localized configuration improves the effective utilization of energy we consume.

…Sorry, I am busy so this is all I can contribute right now.
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anonymous, 27 Sep 2006 @ 12:17pm

Re: Why not centralized storage?
you mean like natural gas lines?
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Jimbo, 27 Sep 2006 @ 1:11pm

Re: Re: Why not centralized storage?
"So while it may be that IT is looking to emulate the power industry, the power industry itself may go less decentralized..."

Don't you mean "less centralized" or "more decentralized"?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2006 @ 1:48pm

Re: Re: Why not centralized storage?
Your plan sounds oddly like the internet being made up of tubes. You see these tubs can only push so much information around ,they arent something you just dump massive ammounts of material on. massive amounts of material
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Anonymous of Course, 27 Sep 2006 @ 2:17pm

Re: Re: Why not centralized storage?
The efficiency of generation plants in the USA
is on average 33%. That's a mix of old and new
plants.

Newer distributed heat and power plants are
between 65% to 90% efficient.

I'm told by a person that just finished his masters
thesis on the subject that new generation plants
run about in the same range.

The transmission and distribution systems are on
average about 90% efficient.

If you take 90% of 33% you get 29.7%
efficiency and that'd from end to end.

And 90% of 77% (the average of 65% and 90%)
you get 69%

The sooner we get newer plants on on-line the
better.

I don't know where 15% at the outlet or 85%
T&D loss number comes from. I know it's not
from the DOE or this fine gentleman's lecture.

http://alumweb.mit.edu/opendoor/200301/connors.shtml
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David T, 27 Sep 2006 @ 2:32pm

Centralized storage... great, except when the dist
In large parts of the country the problem is not that the centralized power source goes offline (plants are rotated in and out all the time but nobody notices because the grid is designed for that), but rather that the distribution network takes a hit. Often, it's in the form of a tree that falls on local power lines in a storm. Alternatively, it's in a direct lightning strike to a grid component. Centralized storage doesn't solve that since it still relies on the same distribution network.
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AJ Lamb, 27 Sep 2006 @ 6:30pm

Newer plants and Solar
The effciency of newer plants are better than the older nat. gas and coal plants. They are no where near 70 or 90%, more like 50 to 60%.

If you live in the southwest solar power can drastically reduce your dependance on the grid. If you size your solar PV system right you can feed power back to the grid and collect credits through the net meter program. This"stored" power through the credits program can be used at night. So. Cal. Edison has all the info you need on their website.

The best way to get started saving energy is to dump that refrig. in the garage and switch all your light bulbs to florecents.
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Jo Mamma, 27 Sep 2006 @ 11:51pm

Re:
Very insightful comments... thanks rishi!
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rishi, 28 Sep 2006 @ 12:35am

Distributed power generation and distributed power storage are two separate things.

Distributed generation is a good thing, as mentioned by other comments and the link in the article.

However what is offered by Gridpoint is distributed storage of power and it will not work for the reasons that I mentioned above.
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tibcon (profile), 26 Jan 2018 @ 4:21am

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