The problem with the “smart highway” analogy is that every car on that “smart highway” is able to make their own choice - ie, your analogy that people are shopping at 0200.
The various different loads on a “smart grid” power system aren’t going to be that smart. Not even remotely. They’re going to be programmed to shed load based on marginal costs of power, and economics of electric power is going to work pretty much the same way for lots of folks (eg, office buildings are going to bring their HVAC systems online at largely the same times, and drop them offline at largely the same times to conform to the business day) so we’re not going to see lots of little choices made, we’re going to see large numbers of similar or identical choices made.
In the power grid, the grid operator and power generator have three variables:
Voltage, frequency and available current capacity.
Of those three variables, the grid operator can control two: the voltage and frequency.
The customer(s) control the current demand vs. current capacity. The only way that the operator can control this last variable is to shed load - the “rolling blackouts” are one example of the operator shedding load to make the load fit within their ability to supply current at a specified voltage and frequency.
Even now, we see these eggheads starting to discuss allowing the frequency on the grid to wander outside previously established parameters:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-06-24-power-grid-appliances-electronics_n.htm
This is stupid, in the extreme. Allowed to wander far enough outside parameters, this is going to result in some costly damage somewhere, because we EE’s have been able to make some pretty well-founded assumptions about the stability of the US power grid frequency for decades. We have had amazingly well regulated frequency. Now these eggheads realize they have only three variables they can change, and they can’t lower the voltage enough to shoehorn their idiotic ideas into reality, so they’re going to play with the frequency.
My choice is the same as yours: Build sufficient power generation and transmission capacity (and the latter should have good redundancy), and put peaker plants near large load areas (ie, cities) for use when the demand exceeds the transmission capacity into an area.
You clearly know too much and have too much sense to ever be “Green” (in the collectivist sense) about power issues.
Me, too.
“The problem with the “smart highway” analogy is that every car on that “smart highway” is able to make their own choice - ie, your analogy that people are shopping at 0200.”
Actually, I agree with your post...but I suspect that rich people (like Al Gore), or politically-connected companies (like GE) will ‘find’ ways around the nightmare world of the Smart Grid and thus exacerbate this backwards world even more on us helpless people.
But others, with enough money, will likely be able to buy their way out...but as power becomes more and more scarce, it will be very expensive to do so...and so you will end up with ‘choice’ as in smart highways, but only the top 1% will really have that choice...as the other 99% will be affected.