Comments on: FERC Boss Dubs the Plug-in a ‘Cashback’ Hybrid

By: Alan Levi

Alan Levi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:16:44 +0000

I just saw this article today. It’s also about the synergy between communications and a smart grid.
http://eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RPCN3QJTNHRJ2QSNDLSCKHA?articleID=214600116

By: pfairley

pfairley — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:36:27 +0000

Very cool Alan. This may add a new set of voices and ideas to reporting I’m tackling just now on Obama’s power grid plans.

By: Alan Levi

Alan Levi — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 04:37:59 +0000

See also: http://eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QSAKPSKET030QQSNDLSCKHA?articleID=214200017
There are a lot of similarities between a smart grid and the internet. The EE Times article touches on this.

By: Alan Levi

Alan Levi — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:50:42 +0000

Here’s a related article: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22066/
Peter, in your article you describe a system in which there’s centralized control of electricity usage. In the tech review article, it talks more about a distributed network of control. These are very different approaches, but they might be complimentary in the end. If you watched the super bowl, then you might have seen the GE smart power grid commercial. The grid, the producers, and the consumers could become one super organism. I can imagine a communications protocol where an electronic device (e.g. a plug-in hybrid) is connected to the power network and requests X amount of energy within period of time T. This is similar to the ATM protocol. “ATM” stands for “Asynchronous Transfer Mode”. This was pioneered by Fore technologies in the Pittsburgh area. The difference is that ATM (as I remember it) allows requests for a minimum amount of throughput instead of a minimum total amount. The analogy in grid terms would be a request for minimum power instead of a request for total energy. Despite this difference, one might still learn something about how to implement a networked energy control system by studying the ATM protocol.