Reforming the Electricity System
I've had this idea published in the Ottawa Citizen "Letters to the Editor" pages, and it
seemed like a good idea then, and it still seems like a good
idea now :-)
The basic idea is that in order to help conserve energy, and
thus lessen the need to bring online new plants, we should have
a two-rate system that's sensitive not to the amount consumed,
but to when the electricity is consumed. I've seen this system
successfully implemented in Prague in the Czech Republic, for
example.
The idea is simple. Let's say that the peak power consumption
happens between 7 AM and 9 AM, and again between 4 PM and 6 PM.
During these peak periods, the price for electricity would be
at a premium. For the sake of argument, let's say double what
it is now. During the off-peak times, the price of electricity
would be at a discount -- again for the sake of argument, let's
say half the current price.
This will encourage people to save electricity when we need to
save it the most -- during the peaks. When electricity is conserved
during peak periods, it means that the peak usage is effectively
"smoothed out", and we won't face summer blackouts nor the need to
bring on additional capacity.
It's not difficult to implement!
The way it's done in Prague is that you have two electricity meters.
One measures peak usage, the other measures off-peak usage. I'm not
sure if there's a signal on the line, or if it's done via a timer,
but during peak periods, the electricity is routed through the Peak
Period Meter, and during off-peak periods, the electricity is routed
through the Off Peak Meter.
When your bill arrives, it indicates the number of kilowatt-hours (kWh)
used on each meter, and the total price.
A large number of homes in Prague are wired up for electric heat, but the kicker
is that the electric heat is on only during off-peak periods.
Think of how this will work during the summer.
Instead of your air conditioner running 24 hours a day, it would
run only during off-peak power times. This means that your house
would warm up a few degrees between 4 PM and 6 PM -- not a big
deal. But the savings for the infrastructure would be huge.
Another large energy user is an electric dryer -- again, it doesn't have to run during
peak power usage, it could run earlier or later.
The best part about such a system is that it could be introduced
on a voluntary basis -- you call up your local electric company and ask to
have an additional meter installed. I'm not sure what a meter costs,
but I'd be amazed if it was more than $500 to $1000 -- this can be
subsidized by the government, instead of paying more money to build
additional capacity. The savings would be up to each household
to realize. Heck, they could even have free electricity between
midnight and 2 AM to charge your electric car with :-)
As an added bonus, with clever wiring in your home, you could make it so that
large appliances would run using only off-peak power (automatically) -- when the
off-peak power meter turns on, it trips relays in your circuit breaker panel to route power to
"off-peak-only" appliances.
In case of an emergency, you could have a manual bypass switch that routes power to these
appliances during peak periods.
Doing a "back of the envelope" calculation, if you consider a central air-conditioning system consuming
say 2kW, and the rest of a typical house consuming 1kW, this means that automatically turning
off the air-conditioning system during peak times will result in a peak load reduction of a whopping 66%!
Even being unreasonable and skewing these numbers the other way, for example by saying that the air-conditioning system consumes only 1kW
and the rest of the house consumes 3kW (for a total of 4kW), would still result in an amazing 25% peak-load reduction; certainly still worthwhile!
As with any "good idea" though, the trick is to get it adopted.
If you think this is a good idea, why not contact your local utility company, and your elected representatives and pitch it to them?
If nobody does this, nothing will happen.
If everyone does it, it's a done deal.
Reality is somewhere in the middle.
Click here to read about the cost of electricity in my server room.
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