Laminar control is drawing a lot of attention from utilities today, and it may just clear the way be the basis for distributed transactive energy (TE). The problem of smart grids boils down to adapting to intermittent power sources while reducing the operating margin. In power distribution, the operating margin is the amount of “extra” power available at any time. It is the operating margin that protects power delivery from unanticipated power consumption....
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The Human Side of Energy Micromarkets
The Human Beings must have a say, or any model for transactive energy is doomed to failure. No model based on satisfying The Computers or The Grid will acheive prominence in the market. If optional, people will opt out. If mandatory, people will work around. The market is not a model for decision making, it is a pattern for interactions. In the abstract, semiotics does not determine meaning, only how meaning is conveyed. The interaction patterns do not determine the value of energy used at a particular place and time, they only determine how it is negotiated and conveyed.
DER systems in the house and small business
The purpose of an energy management system (EMS) or building management system (BMS) in a home or commercial is to serve the owner or occupants of the home or building. Only secondarily is its purpose to “serve the grid”—and then only to the extent that it is rewarded for doing so in a way that supports its owners or occupants.
Every system in a house or building is a legacy system from the moment it is installed (manufactured, actually). No matter what standard we may posit for future use in home systems and home integration, most systems managed by the EMS or BMS will be...
Paths to Transactive Energy
his post begins a series of ruminations based on conversations last spring that started in the OpenADR Alliance, and continued off-line with David Holmberg (NIST), Michel Kohanim (Universal Devices), and Gale Horst (EPRI). As usual, while people offer me wisdom, my mistakes are my own.
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