Monday, June 20, 2011
You Can Generate Infotricity in Your Home
10:16 AM | 
Posted by
Billy Ray |
Get out your favorite pen, crayon, or marker and make a very large “S” and then cut out that S and lay it over on its side. You now have a graph of the power consumption in the TVA region over a one day period. Congratulations, you are now a scientist! Now your graph can be combined with the real graph of power consumption at my house on a day last week and a day last year with identical temperatures which is shown above and you can see some of the problems and opportunities for solving the issues presently confronting the power business.
Half of the time, generally during the night, power demand is too low and that means that generation plants have to be cycled back or totally shut down. The other half of the time the demand is too high and even after firing up every unit TVA has in its arsenal, they still fall far short of what is needed to meet the power demand. To keep the lights on, TVA must go out and buy additional power from its neighbors during the peak times. Both the constant cycling up and down of their plants during the daily “valley” of demand and the constant daily purchases of power during the daily “peak” cost staggering sums of money and create many other negative environmental impacts. Everyone in the power business is looking for ways to smooth the peaks and valleys of the daily load cycle in pursuit of the perfect situation – a daily load shape that would look like a flat horizontal line.
Though the perfection of that horizontal line will likely never be realized, we certainly can improve on that recumbent “S” situation we have today. Several years ago TVA made a giant move in that direction by building their Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant. This facility, just outside of Chattanooga, uses a lot of power during the valley portion of the daily demand curve by pumping water from the Tennessee River up to the top of Raccoon Mountain where TVA hollowed out the top of the mountain to create an artificial lake. This allows them to keep other base load plants operating efficiently during the night instead of shutting them down. Once the lake is full, TVA can turn the pumps into electric generators and drain the lake back down into the river while generating about 1,600 mW of power to offset the peak portion of the next day’s load curve. It is a brilliant project. It works as designed. Today, TVA needs several more of these projects to help further flatten the daily load shape.
In Glasgow we have discovered that they might accomplish this without any construction crews and without hollowing out another mountain. It turns out we all have a little Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant in our home! Over the last couple of hot weeks I have been experimenting with programmable thermostats and general changes of power consumption habits in my home and the graphic included here represents the sort of change I have been able to accomplish during a recent 24 hour period (the reddish line) compared to a similar day when I made no effort to shift my consumption (the blue line). Like Raccoon Mountain, I stored energy during the off-peak hours by heating water and pre-cooling my home below our normal set-point. During on-peak hours, instead of draining an artificial lake, we allowed the temperature to rise to 78 degrees and we refrained from running clothes drying and dishwashing. The resulting difference in on-peak power usage at my house last year (the blue line) and this year (the red line) is pretty stunning. As you can see, compared to a day with the same temperatures but without any effort being made to avoid on-peak hours, my simple changes resulted in an average on-peak power reduction of about 4 kW. This is a very big deal.
Now, my measly 4 kW is totally insignificant compared to Raccoon Mountain’s capacity of 1,600,000 kW, but this is 2011 and a lot more is possible by using the latest technology. Today all of the homes which harbor these little bits of Raccoon Mountain can be connected via the internet. In those homes the thermostats, water heaters, appliances, and electric meters can also be connected to create a virtual power plant many times larger than Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant. Let’s do the math. Let’s say that the average on-peak demand reduction capacity is only half of what I have been able to accomplish at my house. So, if 2 kW is available in each home and since TVA serves roughly 4 million homes, then about 8,000,000 kW is possibly available in our virtual pumped storage plant! That means we discovered five pumped storage plants of the same size as Raccoon Mountain in our homes! It means that this capacity is available basically for free. It means that this capacity would require no fuel, would generate no greenhouse gases, and would require not one shovel of earth to be disturbed to tap that capacity. Who knew we were hiding infotricity generators in our houses?
Accomplishing the on-peak reduction depicted here in my house was not without some sacrifice. When the house is being pre-cooled to about 72, it can get a little chilly. In the afternoon when it is allowed to warm to 78, it is noticeably warm. We have to remember to run the dishwasher and clothes dryer after 8:00 p.m. and to not use the electric oven in the afternoons. But really, after a couple of weeks the changes are not much of a burden and when you compare the possible benefit of gaining all of this clean energy from simple changes in habit, the burden/benefit ratio is ridiculously canted toward the benefit side. We have been talking about infotricity as a replacement for today’s electric power for many years. Now we have more proof that it is viable. As soon as we learn how to compensate everyone for generating this infotricity and making it available to TVA, every electric power user may also become an owner of the most efficient generation technology ever devised. We are convinced this is a real possibility and we continue to have you to thank for giving us the latitude to explore these ideas.
Friday, June 3, 2011
More Time Of Use Rate Information
Since June 1 you have likely seen or heard some of our discussion about Time Of Use (TOU) electric rates and how all EPB electric customers can help save the community a lot of money by shifting power usage on weekdays away from the hours of noon until 8:00 p.m. This information has caused us to get some questions and this post is intended to answer them.
First and foremost, the new rate is not being directly applied to anyone at their home or business in Glasgow. The new rate is applicable only to Glasgow EPB for the power we buy from TVA for our customers to use in Glasgow. Of course, if we have to pay it, that means we have to collect the money from our customers. The plea we are making is for you to cut back your afternoon usage of energy so that we can minimize rate adjustments which are necessary to cover the wholesale rates TVA charges us. Our plea for community action is to save the community money.
The idea of TOU rates did not originate with TVA. This rate concept is a long held response to real world events relative to electric power supply versus the demand for electric power. In a very real sense, we have all created the need for TOU rates. We celebrate growth. We are gleeful at the opening of a new big box store in our community even though it consumes gobs of energy. The same goes for the expansion of an industry or the construction of a new school, but we don’t feel the same about the construction of a new nuclear or coal fired generation plant in our town (or anyone else’s for that matter). Therein lies the problem. We celebrate the growth of electric demand but if anyone is paying attention to the news, all of the announcements from the electric utility industry seem to be about decisions to shut down existing generation plants and defer the construction of new ones. This is an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless. We all face a future in which electric power is in shorter supply than it was in the past.
This short supply of energy might not be as ominous as it sounds. In reality, we still have plenty of supply most of the time. In the summer, the exception happens to be on weekdays, from about noon until about 8:00 p.m. During those hours TVA presently depends on its neighbors as TVA does not have adequate generation capacity to make all of the electric power we are demanding. When they go to the neighbors, the neighbors can demand whatever the market will bear for the power TVA purchases from them. As a result, the power is very expensive. This situation will only get worse in the coming years as TVA recently announced plans to shut down several more of their coal fired generation plants.
Now, different utilities have chosen different ways to pay the added expense of this “on-peak” energy. The most popular and simplest habit is to simply move these extra expenses into an account and charge for the purchased power through a monthly “fuel cost adjustment.” No matter whether you get your power from EPB, FRECC, or KU, you have been paying this fuel cost adjustment so, in effect, you have already been paying sort of a TOU rate for years – it just was not called that. The problem with this method is that it socializes the cost of electric power. It provides no incentive for folks to operate more efficiently and move load away from the on-peak time. Instead, all costs are evenly spread across all customers in the form of rate increases. This disguises the truth and penalizes all for inefficiency that could be corrected if folks were given enough information and incentives. After all, if energy is the same cost no matter what time of day it is used, why would anyone take action to move away from the hot afternoon hours with their consumption?
TVA and Glasgow EPB are moving in the direction of providing information and incentives as an opportunity for folks interested in saving money and living more efficiently. This move is not meant to be punishing nor are we forcing folks to swelter on hot summer afternoons. We do not plan to ever force anyone to move to a TOU retail rate, but we do plan on giving those who are interested in modifying their consumption patterns a reward for that change. Those who are not interested in this will likely always have the option of ignoring TOU, but they should be prepared to continue the upward spiral of energy cost. Living in a world of cheap and abundant energy as we have for the last fifty years, is simply no longer going to be an option.
So, all of this discussion about TOU rates is about Glasgow getting prepared for a future that we feel is coming just as predictably as the changing of the seasons. We have invested in a broadband network and advanced electric meters capable of exchanging information between us and your home around the clock. We believe we can work together to change the way energy is used in Glasgow and exploit the coming changes in the rates we pay. We are working to make our community sustainable in whatever fashion that the coming changes in energy supply and weather present themselves. We feel that we are ahead of other communities in preparing for the future. If any of this still leaves you confused, just let us hear from you.
First and foremost, the new rate is not being directly applied to anyone at their home or business in Glasgow. The new rate is applicable only to Glasgow EPB for the power we buy from TVA for our customers to use in Glasgow. Of course, if we have to pay it, that means we have to collect the money from our customers. The plea we are making is for you to cut back your afternoon usage of energy so that we can minimize rate adjustments which are necessary to cover the wholesale rates TVA charges us. Our plea for community action is to save the community money.
The idea of TOU rates did not originate with TVA. This rate concept is a long held response to real world events relative to electric power supply versus the demand for electric power. In a very real sense, we have all created the need for TOU rates. We celebrate growth. We are gleeful at the opening of a new big box store in our community even though it consumes gobs of energy. The same goes for the expansion of an industry or the construction of a new school, but we don’t feel the same about the construction of a new nuclear or coal fired generation plant in our town (or anyone else’s for that matter). Therein lies the problem. We celebrate the growth of electric demand but if anyone is paying attention to the news, all of the announcements from the electric utility industry seem to be about decisions to shut down existing generation plants and defer the construction of new ones. This is an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless. We all face a future in which electric power is in shorter supply than it was in the past.
This short supply of energy might not be as ominous as it sounds. In reality, we still have plenty of supply most of the time. In the summer, the exception happens to be on weekdays, from about noon until about 8:00 p.m. During those hours TVA presently depends on its neighbors as TVA does not have adequate generation capacity to make all of the electric power we are demanding. When they go to the neighbors, the neighbors can demand whatever the market will bear for the power TVA purchases from them. As a result, the power is very expensive. This situation will only get worse in the coming years as TVA recently announced plans to shut down several more of their coal fired generation plants.
Now, different utilities have chosen different ways to pay the added expense of this “on-peak” energy. The most popular and simplest habit is to simply move these extra expenses into an account and charge for the purchased power through a monthly “fuel cost adjustment.” No matter whether you get your power from EPB, FRECC, or KU, you have been paying this fuel cost adjustment so, in effect, you have already been paying sort of a TOU rate for years – it just was not called that. The problem with this method is that it socializes the cost of electric power. It provides no incentive for folks to operate more efficiently and move load away from the on-peak time. Instead, all costs are evenly spread across all customers in the form of rate increases. This disguises the truth and penalizes all for inefficiency that could be corrected if folks were given enough information and incentives. After all, if energy is the same cost no matter what time of day it is used, why would anyone take action to move away from the hot afternoon hours with their consumption?
TVA and Glasgow EPB are moving in the direction of providing information and incentives as an opportunity for folks interested in saving money and living more efficiently. This move is not meant to be punishing nor are we forcing folks to swelter on hot summer afternoons. We do not plan to ever force anyone to move to a TOU retail rate, but we do plan on giving those who are interested in modifying their consumption patterns a reward for that change. Those who are not interested in this will likely always have the option of ignoring TOU, but they should be prepared to continue the upward spiral of energy cost. Living in a world of cheap and abundant energy as we have for the last fifty years, is simply no longer going to be an option.
So, all of this discussion about TOU rates is about Glasgow getting prepared for a future that we feel is coming just as predictably as the changing of the seasons. We have invested in a broadband network and advanced electric meters capable of exchanging information between us and your home around the clock. We believe we can work together to change the way energy is used in Glasgow and exploit the coming changes in the rates we pay. We are working to make our community sustainable in whatever fashion that the coming changes in energy supply and weather present themselves. We feel that we are ahead of other communities in preparing for the future. If any of this still leaves you confused, just let us hear from you.
Labels:
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Storms, Trees, and Newspaper Articles
Today's Glasgow Daily Times has an excellent article about the recent storms and the problems they have caused us in dealing with the damage. While the article is completely accurate and true to what I said in the board meeting, I should have done a better job of explaining myself in that meeting. So, I am going to try that now.
The problematic part of my remarks related to downed conductors during storms. No matter what the tone of my remarks was in the meeting and in the article, the one thing that must be remembered is that any downed conductor should be treated as if it were energized and deadly. Although my remarks sounded fine to me as I said them (I'm sure this surprises no one), when I read them in the Glasgow Daily Times, they sounded terrible.
I was trying to explain the problems of having enough personnel to respond to the many calls about downed conductors during several days of intense storms. While it is true that we often can make a judgement about whether a conductor is energized or not from our dispatch center using our telemetry, we still want to get someone out to look at each of them before anyone touches, drives over, or comes near any downed conductor. The problem is, when we have thousands of folks without power and it is 2:00 a.m. and we have only a limited number of folks to respond, it is likely to take a while for us to get there to take a look at a downed conductor. Calling 911 instead of our number does not help the situation at all, it fact, it endangers folks who may have critical information to get to the emergency services folks.
This line of intense, day-after-day weather taxes our team that is designed to be responsive to the sort of weather we get 98% of the time. The only message we meant to get out is that unusually violent weather can cause our response to take longer than usual and we all need to recognize that. But, even if you have to wait a while, treat all downed conductors as deadly energized hazards until someone from our team can arrive to survey the situation.
The problematic part of my remarks related to downed conductors during storms. No matter what the tone of my remarks was in the meeting and in the article, the one thing that must be remembered is that any downed conductor should be treated as if it were energized and deadly. Although my remarks sounded fine to me as I said them (I'm sure this surprises no one), when I read them in the Glasgow Daily Times, they sounded terrible.
I was trying to explain the problems of having enough personnel to respond to the many calls about downed conductors during several days of intense storms. While it is true that we often can make a judgement about whether a conductor is energized or not from our dispatch center using our telemetry, we still want to get someone out to look at each of them before anyone touches, drives over, or comes near any downed conductor. The problem is, when we have thousands of folks without power and it is 2:00 a.m. and we have only a limited number of folks to respond, it is likely to take a while for us to get there to take a look at a downed conductor. Calling 911 instead of our number does not help the situation at all, it fact, it endangers folks who may have critical information to get to the emergency services folks.
This line of intense, day-after-day weather taxes our team that is designed to be responsive to the sort of weather we get 98% of the time. The only message we meant to get out is that unusually violent weather can cause our response to take longer than usual and we all need to recognize that. But, even if you have to wait a while, treat all downed conductors as deadly energized hazards until someone from our team can arrive to survey the situation.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Roll Over or Get Tough?
When we fill our vehicles with fuel these days it is impossible not to feel powerless in the face of the big oil companies. When we paid our taxes this week, it is certain that we all felt we paid too much, but we felt just as powerless to change that. We watch the budget process in Washington and in Frankfort and we see waste and greed but we see no way for us little folks in Glasgow to stop it. We feel powerless on all of these matters, but there is another budget battle coming that you can make a difference in – the cost of your cable television service from Glasgow EPB.
The biggest expense we have in providing your television service is what we pay for the programming you enjoy, and that big expense is getting so big that it can no longer be ignored. When we started our cable service in 1988, we charged $13.50 per month for classic basic cable. In the next twenty three years we increased the price we charge for classic basic by just over 100% while the programmers increased their fees 650%! You do not have to be a financial wizard to see how much pressure the programming cost puts on the rates you pay for cable. Just last month, one of Glasgow’s favorite channels, Fox News, increased their fees by 300%! And you thought the oil companies were greedy?
Before the end of this year we will get a chance to strike back against some of the programmers, the broadcast stations to be specific, as they all have to decide if we can carry them on our cable system for the next three years and what that privilege will cost us. You can actually participate in this decision as it will be made right here in Glasgow and we will do what the majority of our customers demand. Should we continue to roll over for the likes of WBKO and WNKY and the many other broadcast stations we carry out of Nashville and Louisville, or should we get tough and drop them if they cannot control their greed? We have until the end of the year on these decisions, so you have time to think about it and get back to us. Could we live with only one ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox station? Must we have duplicates from Nashville and Louisville? Could we live with an ABC from Nashville instead of WBKO in Bowling Green? Here is your chance to be empowered. What will you decide?
The biggest expense we have in providing your television service is what we pay for the programming you enjoy, and that big expense is getting so big that it can no longer be ignored. When we started our cable service in 1988, we charged $13.50 per month for classic basic cable. In the next twenty three years we increased the price we charge for classic basic by just over 100% while the programmers increased their fees 650%! You do not have to be a financial wizard to see how much pressure the programming cost puts on the rates you pay for cable. Just last month, one of Glasgow’s favorite channels, Fox News, increased their fees by 300%! And you thought the oil companies were greedy?
Before the end of this year we will get a chance to strike back against some of the programmers, the broadcast stations to be specific, as they all have to decide if we can carry them on our cable system for the next three years and what that privilege will cost us. You can actually participate in this decision as it will be made right here in Glasgow and we will do what the majority of our customers demand. Should we continue to roll over for the likes of WBKO and WNKY and the many other broadcast stations we carry out of Nashville and Louisville, or should we get tough and drop them if they cannot control their greed? We have until the end of the year on these decisions, so you have time to think about it and get back to us. Could we live with only one ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox station? Must we have duplicates from Nashville and Louisville? Could we live with an ABC from Nashville instead of WBKO in Bowling Green? Here is your chance to be empowered. What will you decide?
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Let's Review Glasgow's Relationship to Nuclear Power
Since the cable television side of our business is presently delivering a steady stream of news about the disasters in Japan, it is only fair that we talk about the electric side of our business and how it is impacted by the total failure of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. We all want to know what this means for us here in Glasgow, and we think there are a few outcomes which are certainly possible.
While we have no idea how things will play out from here with the doomed plant in Japan, and we don’t know anything about the potential health effects for us here in Glasgow from that plant so far away, we do know a bit about the TVA operated nuclear units. TVA has six working nuclear units today. They are: Browns Ferry (at Wheeler Reservoir in North Alabama), Sequoyah (near Chattanooga, TN), and Watts Bar (at Spring City, TN). TVA is also working on a new reactor at the Watts Bar site which will bring them up to seven units total. None of these sites is ever going to be affected by a tsunami, but a well placed tornado or two, even an earthquake, might cause some issues.
The attached video was produced this week by TVA to address many of the questions that area residents might have about their units and what they are doing in the wake of the failure of the plant in Japan. We encourage you to watch this video.
In the longer term, we need to discuss what happens if this disaster causes widespread dissatisfaction with TVA’s use of nuclear power. That is the real issue which we think will impact us in Glasgow. The truth is, there really is no way to generate large amounts of electric power without negative impact on our water, air, soil, and our health. For the last several decades, we, as a people, have been content to trade the comfort and convenience offered by relatively cheap electric power for the health issues created by producing that cheap power. While this is a fact, when one puts that in a sentence it is really unbelievable. We have been trading our health for cheap electric power? And we did this of our own free will? Amazing. What is wrong with us?
TVA has been recognizing the health and environmental issues associated with coal-fired generation of late and they have been moving toward more nuclear generation, and a half-hearted effort to reduce electric power demand, to replace the aging coal-fired fleet. Until this week, it was a consensus opinion that this was a good move, even though new nuclear units are frightfully expensive and TVA’s coming Time Of Use electric rates offer little incentive to get folks motivated to reduce demand. This week, no one knows if that consensus will hold. One this is certain though; Glasgow EPB’s preparation for converting to infotricity is still a viable solution and it will not have any negative impact on our health or environment.
We still believe that there is a vast reserve of electric power available through using the product wisely. We believe our electric network, broadband network, and other technologies can, with the cooperation of our customers, orchestrate a system whereby water heaters, thermostats, and major home appliances can work together in one system to live on ever smaller amounts of electric power generation capacity. We believe it makes much more sense to spend the money that would be spent on new nuclear generation, on better technology, smart appliances, and thermal storage HVAC devices for our homes and businesses. The net effect would be the same additional capacity for the electric grid, but it would be distributed across the region with investments made in millions of homes, instead of just at one address where new reactor vessels and containment buildings would rise.
What scenario will actually unfold as a result of the Japanese tsunami? You get to decide. Will you demand to maintain your home at the same temperature, winter and summer, as you have for the last fifty years? If so, you are voting for the “just build more expensive generation plants” solution. If you are willing to modify the way you have been using power and adapt to our infotricity concepts, you are voting for moving away from the solutions of the past and embracing a future which may be more wonderful than we can even imagine. How will you vote?
Monday, March 7, 2011
The Plunge
The EPB took the plunge last Saturday! Well… Maybe we should say one brave soul did. Check out this video footage from the 2011 Penguin Plunge, where EPB Engineering Tech. Chris Smith braved the rain and plunged into the ice cold water, to help raise money for Junior Achievement!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)