Larry,
I am in total agreement with
you. Further to your point, how would you configure all these isolated devices
to do what you want? Would you go to each individual device and set them up
individually? What if you are not home? Does this then mean that each
device/appliance should have a user interface? Should all be schedule aware? Should
they be able to communicate amongst one another? If so, what is the minimum set
of communications constructs?
When EISA talks about Zero Net,
one has to also consider alternate sources of energy and thus it would be quite
a daunting task to have independent devices act in unison (and based on
customer preferences) to achieve such goals.
With kind regards,
********************************
Michel Kohanim,
C.E.O
Universal
Devices, Inc.
(p)
818.631.0333
(f)
818.436.0702
http://www.universal-devices.com
********************************
David,
Thanks for the observations. For fun, let’s suppose you have
several of the items mentioned below: AC, pool pump, dryer, hot water, and
oven, and some friends are coming over for dinner. You might say:
- The cake must
finish cooking.
- I must get my
clothes dry in time
- I’ll take
a cold shower
- The house should
be cool when they arrive
- And nobody will
be swimming
Seems to me hard for any automated system to do, let alone an
isolated appliance with limited computational abilities.
But if I had a home EMS, I could tell the EMS provided the
appliances used U-SNAP or another method of communication to the EMS to receive
instructions rather acting in ignorance.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
Larry
All,
I attended the EPRI “DR-Ready Appliance
Workshop” yesterday in Knoxville, and the discussion ranged around
appliance communications and action for demand response.
Basic agreement on what “smart grid ready”
means:
·
Can shed
·
Can shift
·
Can communicate
·
Can understand SEP (or, as
I observed, some standard data syntax and semantics and transport)—EPRI
and U-SNAP are pushing for a standard connector that would allow plugging in an
external comms chip. But you still need the app layer.
·
Security
Other observations:
·
Of course, how you
accomplish the above for specific device classes (in different regions, see
below) might need some definition when it comes time to do compliance testing.
And what kind of signal are you going to feed an appliance to prove it can
shed/shift, and how much? Maybe you need a standard forward price curve
representative of different kinds of typical peaks. Maybe you need a standard
forward mode signal, similar to what the DRAS feeds to the Simple Client in
OpenADR.
·
Another model that was
advocated (not by the appliance manufacturers nor by me) is having more/most of
the intelligence at some EMS and passing a simpler signal to the appliance. To
me, this requires communications from the appliance to the EMS (at least a
standard energy profile) plus it requires a standard EMS.
·
I realized that there are
perhaps limits on how universal appliances can be. DR programs have very real
differences in different utility territories due to very real weather and
regulatory differences. AC is all that matters in Phoenix (besides turning off
pool pumps)—hot water is not an issue because water comes into the house
hot. That won’t be the case in some other places. This came up relative
to the question of whether appliance loads really matter. But a dryer and oven
draw more power than the AC. And a refrigerator only draws 70W on average, but
I have 3 and they run 24/7. So, how much does the regionality issue affect
energy management algorithms for appliances? A rep from Daikin says they ship
products that can go anywhere, just need the right software update to get tuned
control algorithms.
·
Appliance manufacturers
want to hear what it is worth to the grid. I can give you 5kW for 15 min, 2kW
for an hour, 1 kW for 8 hours. What’s it worth to you? The appliance
manufacturers haven’t gotten this data yet.
David Holmberg
NIST Building and Fire Research Lab
301-975-6450