GridWise
Musings from the GridWise Architectural Council, Orlando, 2010
After a week at the AHR show, and meeting with ASHRAE, and sitting in on B2G (Building to Grid) summit, I was back in the building zone as I sat in on day one of the GWAC meeting. The GridWise Architectural Council (GWAC) is a voluntary organization of people concerned with the future of energy. The Department of Energy sponsors meetings of the GWAC, a commitment that keeps the group in meeting rooms, coffee, and pastry...
Too many of the scenarios for electric cars on the smart grid talk only about the relationship between the single car in the home and the grid. These relationships are not the most important ones, and will not determine the successful integration of millions of electric vehicles into the grid. The relationships that matter are those between the cars and their drivers, their family plans, and the other cars in the household. Car software will be even more important than car performance...
Distributed generation is a big part of the anticipated new grid. Distributed generation refers to having many small sources of power on the grid. A traditional power company can own distributed generation or someone else, perhaps the building owner, can own it.
Wayne Longcore has described distributed generation today as akin to the early days of personal computing. The big centrally managed power plants have the role of the mainframe, the site where all real power generation occurs. Pocket generation plants, including solar generation on household roofs, are akin to the poorly networked early microcomputers, only able to get on-line with great difficulty, and unable to...