Smarter Electric Grid Could Save Power

Wired has a timely story about putting more of the automated and non-automated decisions behind the use of electrical power into and around households. From the summary: "If the electric grid stops being just a passive supplier of juice, consumers could make choices about how and when to consume power. Power providers and tech companies are working to redesign the grid so you can switch off your house when high demand strains the system, or program your house or appliances to make that move." A similar story is featured right now on PhysOrg, highlighting a particular pilot project involving "smart meters" in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

Re:Ripple control ++

[sapphire wyvern]

[Tankless water heaters] are more expensive, but they heat the water real-time through a series of small tubes.

I didn't know you could use the Internet to heat water.

Re:All of this is possible now

[icebike]

True.
It takes money to save money.

In Washington State, power companies (Puget Sound Energy for example) paid for all the CFL bulbs you could carry away as long as you paid the sales tax on the bulb.

These things are do-able today, without major changes to the grid, or the buildings, or anything else.

Of course, CFL bulbs are not without a down-side, namely the mercury in side. Power companies are also stepping up to recycle those, but I bet most end up in the trash.

Re:Duh...

[Mike89]

This is really old technology. We have separate wiring to these appliances.

How does the wiring know whether to be live or not?

Re:Duh...

[mspohr]

It's turtles all the way down, sonny.

Re:Ripple control ++

[Spy der Mann]

I didn't know you could use the Internet to heat water.

At first i thought "rofl!" but then I realized that this is precisely what watercooling does. Maybe one day someone will create a water heater for your coffee using your CPU's heat.