The grid. For most of us it’s more of a weird idea than a real thing—a sort of they, as in “they made me do it.”
A huge labyrinth of long wires, lumbering power plants, and ancient technology, all most of us know about the grid is that when it doesn’t work our modern world slams to a halt—just as it did in August 2003, when the most widespread blackout in history shut down power to more than 50 million people in eight U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario. But speakers at Friday’s Rocky Mountain Institute’s RMIQ lecture in Denver said that despite that abstraction—that weird place the big, bad grid holds in our lives—consumers are ultimately in control: via the products they buy, via the people the vote for, via the way they conduct their day-to-day lives.
As RMI Chief Scientist Amory Lovins put it, millions of tiny bad choices turned into millions of tiny good choices could change the world in terms of our climate future, energy security issues, and energy costs for the consumer.
“This is a consumer-led innovation,” added Michael Brylawski, VP of RMI’s Mobility & Vehicle Efficiency (MOVE) Team. “Consumers don’t just have a chance to play a role here, they have [a responsibility] to play a role here.”
Lovins and Brylawski, along with Tom Dinwoodie of SunPower Corporation, Roy Palmer of Excel Energy, and Dave Bewster of EnerNOC, Inc., (along with moderator Stephen Doig of RMI’s Energy & Resources Team) were responding to a picture of what the future could hold, painted earlier in the evening by RMI Principal Kitty Wang, an expert on the grid—and all its shortcomings and possibilities. Wang had simply explained what could be, and yet, in our new digital age, how society likes a certain type of (currently very dirty) energy more than any other: electricity. Clean, grid energy (electricity) is achievable, she said, via grid management through things like demand response, the use of renewables, energy efficiency, smart metering, and other activities and systems, but, she noted, changing the grid, a 80–100-year-old system, is “not as easy as one might wish.” Indeed.
No Apology for Technology
The technology is available, noted Dinwoodie, who has been involved in solar photovoltaics (PVs) for many years, and while PVs are the most expensive path in terms of renewables, the technology can be an important component in the mix with wind, efficiency and other options. What’s needed, Dinwoodie said, is “consistency in policy, markets…and to basically grease the skids.”
To achieve Kitty’s vision, added Brewster, there needs to be a commitment from policy and regulatory bodies. “We need regulatory constructs that really promote what we’re trying to do,” he said.
Brewster, whose firm delivers demand response solutions, said his big clients are often completely unaware of how much energy they’re using, for what, and when, and that the way the power industry works is “completely broken.”
But getting end-users to pay attention to energy use is key. We have, as a society, great programs and business models and technologies available, but a “lot more needs to be done,” Brewster said.
Roy Palmer, the kind of guy RMI really likes to roll up its sleeves with (he works for Excel, a big “traditional” utility, as he called Excel) explained that “risk is beaten out of utilities” in terms of the business model. That said, he noted, consumers are starting to pay attention to price, and that environmental issues are becoming a concern for utilities.
One of the big challenges, he said, is that Excel (like most utilities) has little idea about how most people use their power—just as most consumers have no idea how they use their energy. He also said he would soon be meeting with the FERC folks (Federal Energy Regulatory Committee) to coach them on advanced grid notions. Despite his “very traditional” industry background, Palmer favored letting “the free market flourish” and letting “consumers be creative.” He expects consumers will drive plug-in electric hybrid vehicles for what they offer in terms of price, first and foremost.
Brylawski, one of RMI’s “car gang,” explained the situation that cars, oil, and the grid are now in. Cars, obviously, use oil. Meanwhile, only 2 percent of U.S. electricity comes from oil. Electricity comes from coal—here, at least. Vehicles and the grid are totally separate systems. “We are about to see two completely separate entities come together,” he noted. The conjunction lies in the excellent energy resource that wind is: power at night that can charge [fully or partially electrified] vehicles at extremely low electricity prices—vehicles that can the be drained of their power throughout the day, depending on what the utility is buying its electricity back for.
Brylawski was pretty enthusiastic about the recent announcement by GM about its new VOLT vehicle. What concerned him, though, was the role the batteries would play, and how the U.S. is about to trade importing Mid-East oil for importing batteries (to power cars) from East Asia.
Lovins pointed to the positive solutions available that involved all sectors: automobiles, power generation, the grid, and the consumer.
Regardless of the different views and perspectives offered by tonight’s panelists, tonight’s discussion is just a small step in advancing the notion of a Next-Generation Utility, and RMI’s Smart Garage concept.
