Talk:Smart grid

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Its about efficiency, not the monitoring

I have heard a lot of talk against the Smart Grid on the basis that it is merely a way for our government to keep tabs on how much energy we are using. I believe these people are missing the main point of a Smart Grid, whose primary goal is to use energy efficiently, not to monitor and throttle usage based on a function of their consumption, how much the wind is blowing, etc.

"Improved energy efficiency could cut the rapidly growing rate of energy consumption by more than half over the next 15 years, according to the McKinsey Global Institute." From: [1] Ionate (talk) 21:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me Smart Grid is mainly about this, "Modernization is necessary for energy consumption efficiency, real time management of power flows and to provide the bi-directional metering needed to compensate local producers of power." NOT about smart metering and monitoring of individual appliances in a consumers home so the government knows when they are using their computers. I thought I had heard that most power grids are not capable of receiving power from localized smaller power sources, which could be really cool.

As far as smart metering is concerned, if peak-hour power consumption is a significant problem, and it is possible to charge more during peak hours, I wonder why more consumers wouldn't just use something like a UPS or home battery-storage appliance that could charge during off-peak hours.

--Golden Eternity (talk) 18:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it is about efficiency, but also about flexibility, which requires monitoring. A main driver for Smart Grid is the building consensus about man made global warming. Take for example the European Union’s 20/20/20 commitment, where the target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, improve energy efficiency by 20%, and ensure 20% share of renewable energy production by 2020.

Smart Grid technology can contribute towards achieving such targets. Renewable energy sources are intermittent in nature, and this poses some challenges. The power grid needs assistance in compensating for this intermittency when a very large portion of our energy consumption comes from such sources. This requires increased flexibility on the consumption side, and this is where both monitoring and automation technology comes in.

For example, there might be times when all consumers in a municipality cannot be served simultaneously. A common way to deal with such situation is to deploy rolling blackouts until enough energy sources are available. One of the Smart Grid visions is that monitoring and automation technology can enable homes and businesses with low priority / cheap electricity contracts to disconnect just enough power to avoid such rolling blackouts. Hot water and electricity heating can be shut off momentarily without causing damage. AlbLeir (talk) 22:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Current power grids are capable of receiving power from localized smaller power sources such as solar, wind, natural gas engines, etc. Specialized electronics are required, to properly add power back into a power grid, but entirely possible and not particularly complex.

In a situation where say, a building with many solar panels creates more power than it uses, is able to sell excess power back into the system for credit. The building then uses power from the power grid at night when the solar panels are inoperable and uses the credits earned during the day. Power companies seem to be fine with attaching these remote power generating buildings to their grid, and are happy with the additional power, however they are not willing to pay the owners for these buildings should they contribute more power than they use.

From experience, demanding money for excess power contributed to a power grid will lead to power companies threatening to have this theoretical building listed as a power company like themselves and requiring the regulations and additional processes involved with being a power producer. --Mkodama (talk) 12:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Uncited Funding Discrepancy

"Smart grids received further support with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which set aside $11 billion for the creation of a smart grid."

Curiously, the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 has no specific mention of $11 billion for smart grid development. While there are several other figures relate to utilities, the only explicit allocation of money for "electricity delivery and energy reliability activities to modernize the electric grid" is for $4.5 billion--not $11 billion as claimed. This information is located on page 24 of the document here: [2]

Can this copy of the investment act be used as for citation? Ricojonah (talk) 19:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Gridwise

In the US a concept called Gridwise is known, it looks like Smart Grid. Ref.1: Main Gridwise pages: [3] Ref.2: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: [4] Ref.3: Architecture Council: [5] Bouwhuise (talk) 21:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

GridWise is a specific research initiative being led by the Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory (PNNL) promoting research and development of smart grid technologies. The PNNL led much of the early research and founding studies on the benefits of a smart grid.Mhellin (talk) 02:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Advertorial

This needs a complete rewrite to turn it into encyclopædic content. If it were not for the fact that it meets WP:V, it would almost be a speedy candidate. Adrian M. H. 21:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The NPOV tutorial will be reviewed and the article will be re-written accordingly. Any advice on what else needs to be changed to turn it into encyclopædic content would be greatly appreciated.

Mahoneychar 14:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with Adrian M. H. This reads like PR copy for someone selling products for smart grids. I took an axe to some of the breathless prose and vacuous zip words intended to mystify rather than explain. Much more needs to be done to bring this up to WP standards.-J JMesserly (talk) 10:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; this article reads like corporate white paper skewed blatantly in favor of a single smart grid philosophy. It barely offers lip service to issues of security, privacy, consumer rights and the established role of public utilities, especially in the U.S. Jbl74 4-21-09

Shouldn't this page be rename to Smart Power Grid? User:ChardonnayNimeque 22:49, 10 December 2007 (GMT)

Just as a reminder to myself, but also to collect data for improvement of the article. Some features of the smart grid are already present in the dumb grid.

• E.g. the mechanism to adjust the price of electricity according to the supply and demand is present in a large percentage of the houses in the netherlands. A high price during 5-23.00h at a reduced price, one-third, between 23.00 and 5.00h. Special measurement equipment (see photo!) exist.
• Possibility for users to not only draw current but also to deliver current from your own generator (solar cells) to the grid. This is however allowed for small amounts of energy in the 'dumb' grid. Larger amount as proposed in the 'hydrogen economy' (Jeremy Rifkin) required dedicated stability control.

Now with picture.

Electrical energy counter with double index

ChardonnayNimeque (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The purpose section should contain a shortdescription of the driving forces:

• Safety/uptime (black out and so)
• Decentralized power generation (private power generation via solar/windmills)
• Flexibility (supply and demand)

ChardonnayNimeque (talk) 22:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was support for move and in keeping with WP:UCN.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

I'm not sure why it's been named "Smart power grid" when the term "Smart grid" is becoming the standard terminology being used by industry. There's no other "smart grid" that I am aware of that might cause ambiguity. In any event, I would suggest that the top section be trimmed down to make it more of an abstract. As well, it's also probably worth mentioning that the meaning of the concept itself is somewhat contested and a definition is only slowly beginning to take hold. My view is that it's really sort of an industry catch-all to describe an end state, ie: a grid that is smarter (more responsive, reliable, integrated and efficient) than the traditional grid. The smart grid is made possible by applying telecommunications devices to points throughout the dx and tx system that communicate information about grid condition to system users, operators and automated devices, making it possible for them to dynamically respond to changes in grid condition.Mhellin (talk) 00:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed about name. WP article naming guidelines state that the term that has dominant use should be first choice for article name. 300,000 hits for smart grid, and 6K for smart power grid. Before this, I have never read the term "Smart power grid". I propose "smart grid" rename back to dominant term. The move template wants a section called requested move so I am taking the liberty of inserting it as a subsection before Mhellin's response. I don't see any big rush on this, so I'll let this sit a while to give a longer period for responses before posting the move request at the requested moves page. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, someone removed the template today because the move request was not posted, so I guess my proposed extended discussion period is not procedurally correct. It seems non controversial at this point givent he dominance of the term "Smart grid" so I will submit the post. It will be up for the change in 5 days unless there is any comment. -J JMesserly (talk) 16:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Overview

I have such a problem with this section that it motivated me to get involved: Smart Grid is an enormous concept, that is frequently oversimplified, perhaps simply to match any one actor's POV, but possibly to highjack the bandwagon for preferred interpretations. Here, this Overview takes a REAL, but excessively narrow, interpretation of Smart Grid and offers it as something "simply and clearly stated". In doing so, it tends to polarize this along some very parochial lines, that is not helpful to understanding the big picture. I also believe that the Overview uses some perjorative language. If of interest, I can start work on some suggestions to correct this, but I am unsure of the protocols. XAmazy (talk) 00:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC) I believe this material was added by this effort:

09:10, 21 February 2009 (hist) (diff) Smart grid ‎ (→Consumer participation: Added a bit of balance to decrease hype level.)

This REALLY does need to be modified or simply reverted. It is VERY bad. Amazy (talk) 01:14, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This section, in its current state, attempts to whittle down the smart grid concept to demand response, which the editor is evidently strongly against. In truth, demand response is only one aspect of most smart grid proposals. In any case, an encyclopedia article shouldn't carry such a negative tone.

I added a few words on intermittent generation sources. Overall, this article lacks structure and significant work is needed to improve it.AlbLeir (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Architecture question

Europe's SuperSmart Grid and Gore's continental Unified Smart Grid have the architecture that implies a semantic distinction between a local smart grid and the national interconnection layer which also has intelligence but should not be confused with local smart grids. This seems to conflict with some passages in the current smart grid article.

The Supersmart grid paper[6] by Battaglini et al associates the term "smart grid" with local clusters (page 6), whereas the intelligent interconnecting backbone provides an additional layer of coordination above the local smart grids.

There is not just semantic but physical separations. Decentralization means the national interconnection backbone could go down but the local smart grids would be able to function independently.

However, in some passages of the article as of the date of this post, "smart grid" is used to refer to a national grid, for example in the context of the mention of the 2007 energy bill.

It seems to me, if smart grid is used in an unmodified form, the dominant sense should be of a local network that has implemented smart grid features.

Does everyone go along with that way of looking at it, or is the national/ transcontinental interconnect layer simply another feature of a smart grid? If so, there would have to be some authorities on the architecture/ robustness questions that naturally arise when discussing the relation of local nodes to the global structure. Since the Supersmart grid and Unified smart grid proposals are at best sketchy at this time, attempting to fold the interconnection layer into the description would be impractical. -Mak (talk) 08:22, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

This issue is far from settled; in fact, it may prove to be one of the most fundamental and problematic issues, as it may impact underlying issues of ownership and control. While the existing grid consists of a 2-3 -level hierachy of (mostly) radial distribution lines, supported by a 2-3 -level hierarchy of (mostly) networked transmission lines, the grid of the future will almost certainly be more highly networked; and, although still "voltage-layered" for practical reasons, it may possibly be far less hierarchical, control-wise, as control schemes become more sophisticated and flexible. The new, lower-level networks are becoming identified as "microgrids" with the remainder of the traditional system (with or without "smart" improvements) as the macrogrid. As important as it is (perhaps the most significant engineering undertaking of the next quarter-century), we are very, very early into a rather long (15-25 years) developmental phase for this concept. While the technology of the so-called "low-hanging fruit" may be of techie interest, and the sociological issues of privacy and control may have some cultural interest, I believe that there will be more long-term encyclopedic value in tracking the developmental discussions of functional objectives and the "architectural" technical issues, as these will drive regulatory, legal, financial, and sociological impacts. Amazy (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Interwiki watch

As a note to watchers for articles in other languages to make interwiki links to, I am listing here equivalent terms in other languages:

• fr: réseau électrique intelligent

-Mak (talk) 20:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful woman on the radio problem: need for good Case studies

Apart from bragging rights controversy from various cities regarding who is on top with smart grids, there is significant information regarding the practical details of how these various smart grid technologies are integrated. I cleaned out a lot of the self promotion statements and links to vacuous press releases. Practical illustration of real smart grids probably are necessary for good coverage of a catch all technology term like "Smart grid" that can mean many things to many people. However, the volume probably requires a separate article. Without looking at actual implementations, we may have a "beautiful woman on the radio" problem- where everyone has a significantly different picture from everyone else. -J JMesserly (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Deployments and attempted deployments: Can be massively updated.

Indeed, I also found the "Deployments and attempted deployments" section lacking, and I'd be happy to contribute many more examples of deployed smart grids. Would this help address the "beautiful woman on the radio" problem? I think it would. Bdamm (talk) 23:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

gov policy section

In a speech today[1/8], Obama linked the smart grid to his plans for a stimulus/innfrastructure package. Great idea as this a way to spend large money with a high likelihood of ROI.

back when he was still vieing with Hilary for the Dem nomination, his energy plan read in part:

"... our energy grid is outdated and inefficient, resulting in $50-$100 billion losses to the U.S. economy each year. The 2003 East Coast blackout alone resulted in a $10 billion economic loss ... Obama will invest federal money to leverage additional state and private sector funds to help create a digitally connected power grid. Creating a smart grid will also help insulate against terrorism concerns because our grid today is virtually unprotected from terrorists. Installing a smart grid will help consumers produce electricity at home through solar panels or wind turbines, and be able to sell electricity back through the grid for other consumers, and help consumers reduce their energy use during peak hours when electricity is more expensive."

A US national smart grid seems headed for the fast-track, perhaps this merits a mention?Bustter (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree this a hot topic right now, especially with the economy and the opportunities for technology to help us through this time. Take a look at The Digital Road to Recovery: A Stimulus Plan to Create Jobs, Boost Productivity and Revitalize America for some good stuff to cite! Turb0chrg (talk) 20:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC).

It is not just local to the US, and without trying to turn WP into a crystal ball, there is information we can provide that would help illuminate people regarding the opportunities that are out there regarding Smart grid technologies. In the US and Europe, there is growing political perception (in the US especially with the new leadership) of the great need for realignment or energy infrastructure towards energy independence/ CO₂ reduction. The downside is it costs a lot. There is a fortuitous co-occurrence with the recession because there is also a great desire to use fiscal stimulus to kickstart the economies of Europe and the US. From this POV, the problem is what to spend all the money on. The matching criteria questions revolve around how quickly the money can be spent. EG: Obama's question: Is the project shovel ready?

Smart grid technologies are ready, but our article could assist the process by pointing out which ones could pump lots of money into local economies. For example, retrofitting water heaters to be smart would require the wiring up of a device to sit between the mains and the heater. Training is pretty simple too, so this could employ lots of local jobs. There is growth potential, because the retro fitter could upgrade their skills for installing solar panels. There are probably lots of other examples of stuff that can generate lots of jobs quickly, and we should probably enumerate them for the reader. -J JMesserly (talk) 21:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Puffery

With all the news about smart grids being vulnerable (starting with the front page of the Wall Street Journal last week), should the section on how they are 'resistant to attack" be modified to say that there are very serious concerns over the security of smart grids, and that most smart grids constructed to date are inadequately secured? Gaintes (talk) 14:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Can Smart-Grids better manage solar flares?

In 2012 it is said Earth is likely to move into a period of increased solar flares. Ofcourse these can inflict havoc on electrical grids, space satelites, and other electronic devices. Can Smart grids mitigate or better recover from issues like this? CaribDigita (talk) 04:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes and no but mostly yes.

No, a smart grid wouldn't help space satellites or any devices it breaks.

Yes, a smart grids would help recovery if we had a disaster on our electric grid. Implementing smart meter in ones home can be connected to device that generates electricity as well as store electricity, making a new electric grid easier to create. If our electric grid completely failed a smart grid would be cheaper, faster and easier to do.

Yes, a smart grid may also help mitigate its effect on our electrical grid. Solar flares effect on transformers is damaging where as a smart grid can shut down all utilities in ones home to avert most damaging effects. Masaki83 (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Overview- a smart grid 's function is to prod consumers?

The section on functions of a smart grid states it must:

1. Be able to heal itself
2. Motivate consumers to actively participate in operations of the grid
3. Resist attack
4. Provide higher quality power that will save money wasted from outages
5. Accommodate all generation and storage options
6. Enable electricity markets to flourish
7. Run more efficiently

The wording of the overview assumes a smart grid's purpose is primarily #2. That is a myopic summary of this topic. The transmission grids of Europe and the US require much more intelligence to be able to handle #1 and #2, and these have nothing to do with conservation.

It is exceptionally difficult to give a good overview of a nebulous topic as this, but the current treatment ignores the 7 other functions of the smart grid. -J JMesserly (talk) 01:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The treatment of #4 in the articel is abyssmal to say the least. In its current form it is just a polemic statement about following standards for dumbgrids and has nothing to do with smartgrids whatsoever. I can't fix this since I don't know enough about smartgrids, but someone should.

Autonomous reinforcement learning controllers

The self-healing section now has material on 'autonomous reinforcement learning controllers'. What are these? This sounds like gibberish. - Crosbiesmith (talk) 16:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The article is presently biased towards commercial entities looking to promote their existing products of customer curtailment as being the smart grid, when in fact much scientific research is needed for a truly intelligent smart grid. Start reading how science will actually transform the grid and you will bump up against NSF's Cyber-physical system and the use of learning algorithms such as reinforcement learning. Read about discoveries at Columbia University's Center for Computation Learning Systems.~ Chebuske (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC).

encryption security, ect.

What about disadvantages of these systems? Risks from hacking ect.? Or about how ( for some meters ) the signals are encrpyted for remote turnoff and reporting? Smithsoni0201 (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Public information is likely to be scant at this point, since the smart grid companies, customers, and vendors will all be working under NDA. It seems likely that there will be public information as a result of government audits and standardization processes. As for the risk of hacking, it seems that while hacking does occur on the Internet, the overall benefit from the technology is so compelling that the detraction due to hacking is not enough to prevent its use. It could be argued that without robust technology such as widespread use of SSL some uses of the Internet would not have been compelling, such as online banking. Indeed many banks are moving to further reduce the incidence of electronic fraud. I'd expect smart grid companies would be using technology such as SSL, so I'd argue that this line of thinking applies to the smart grid as well. Bdamm (talk) 22:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Wireless ,NDA's, remote management of household electronics – surely there's some research into the security part of these technologies. Greatder (talk) 13:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

NPOV Rewrite to Remove Puffery, Promotional Efforts, Newspeak, Buzzwords, and Hype

To remove puffery, shameless promotional efforts, newspeak, buzzwords, and hype, I'm proposing the following rewrite of the article, using this text:

The so called "smart grid", hereinafter referred to as the Spy Grid, is simply an effort by free-market fundamentalists, Washington spies, Enron fraudsters, government central-planners, and head-in-the-sand wind-power and massive-ignorance deep greens to import Enron, electricity commodity markets, EMP vulnerability, and computerized mumbo-jumbo into consumers' electric meters, and to use that computerized mumbo-jumbo to export tremendous wads of cash out of consumers' pockets by massive fraud disguised as renewable energy, nothing more, nothing less.

The Spy Grid has the following 5 goals:

1. Soaking home users with time of use rates using Enron-inspired market fraud and dump and pump scams. You want to use your air conditioner when it's hot? That'll be $100 per kilowatt, upfront! You want to keep your kids from freezing? Then prepared to pay out of your ***! That's how Kenny Boy likes it!
2. Providing government agencies like the DEA and the FBI the ability to spy on consumer electric use. You know they have all those databases, and one of the advantages of the Spy Grid is that appliances will identify themselves to the State Central Planning Department for control and transmission of data. You can bet that this high-quality intelligence on citizens will be going into the massive spy databases of Washington, probably using the power company as a proxy, who will then hand the data over to government spies on a silver platter, sufficiently laundered. Every cell phone call made in the United States is already recorded in full and stored on the NSA storage area network for later analysis and transcription by the Main Core database, the largest database on Earth, that uses advanced voice-recognition transcription software to turn your phone calls into searchable text, which is then stored in Main Core - forever. Do you really want the channel you're watching on your television to be known by the DEA? (Are we watching few too many "Weeds" reruns?) Or perhaps the boys down at the power company - and with the power company - the FBI/NSA spies in Washington - want to know how many kilowatt-hours were used by your Hitachi Magic Wand last month? Perhaps you'll oblige them. Just buy into this Spy Grid nonsense.
3. Providing government or private central planners with the ability to turn off parts of your electrical system without your acceptance or approval. Prepare to have the contents of your refrigerators and freezers go bad, your heating systems to shut down in the dead of winter, your grandparents oxygen concentrators to turn themselves off, and your computers - when you're writing your dissertation - to instantly shut down because Central Electricity Planning saw the wind speed decrease, and the proletariat in Sector 13 or City 17 had insufficient carbon credits procured.
4. The Spy Grid will be massively vulnerable to EMP, due to digital technology used in it. All it takes is some terrorist with a nuke and a rocket, if they launch into orbit, and detonate it, it's lights out for whatever country is below - forever, as all the electronic equipment in the power grid will be insta-fried. Resiliency? My buttocks. All this Spy Grid hype is probably a plot by some 13th-century Islamist cartel to be able to knock out the Great Satan with just one nuke.
5. The reason why deep-greeners like the Spy Grid is that it is the only way an intermittent power system, like wind power, can work. If the wind doesn't blow, then wind power doesn't work; if the sun don't shine, neither do solar panels. So what's the goal here? By pushing rates massively upwards because the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, you can force people to change their behavior and not use energy when the power system (that they're trying to break) isn't working. In reality, though, people won't change their behavior, they'll just swallow the rates, until they become outrageous...and then the greeners get thrown back to whence they've came, and some power plants that don't produce greenhouse gasses and actually work all the time (e.g. hydro dams and nuclear plants) get built. But in the mean time, the little guy gets soaked with exorbitant rates, and the country gets swindled for hundreds of billions by their free-market lackeys who laugh all the way to the bank where they get cashed out by their bankster buddies.

The Spy Grid is the biggest scam since the Church of $ci... well, we won't get into that. But it's time this article actually called a spade a spade and stopped using buzzwords, newspeak, and endless commercial hype to put lipstick on the pig that the Spy Grid proponents stand for.

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Now how's that for a fresh start? 96.236.121.127 (talk) 23:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

+1 for a fresh start. I don't know how much of the above spy story can be documented, but reading it conveys what a Smart Grid if feared to be --and by contrast what it claims to be-- more quickly and effectively that any comparable amount of writing. ale (talk) 15:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

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What about net metering and V2G technologies that the Smart Grid can help to promote ?. --Nopetro (talk) 07:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Net metering is all well and good, and I'd encourage it for those who are interested in renewables, but the rest of us aren't very interested. As for V2G, that's shameless hype, as a car can power one house, at most, if one is lucky. Not many other people are interested in ruining their car's engine to turn it into an electrical generator. Car engines only have a lifetime of 30-90 days of continuous use, interestingly enough.74.106.71.103 (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

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Assuming this is what the neutrality dispute is over, then this is definitely not the rewrite. What you have written is much more loaded.Ninja Auditor (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Loaded? Probably. But definitely more realistic. Need to tone it down and get lots of references. Greatder (talk) 13:31, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

US government aid

Many American power companies have applied for massive funds for smart grids from the 700 billion dollar crisis aid package that was approved by Congress last spring. Decisions are still pending as to who will get anything and how much. It would be great if this article could at least mention this fact, and keep information up to date about its further development. --dunnhaupt (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Tone

I can't even find the words to describe how un-encyclopedic this article is. It's not just the lack of NPOV - this whole article reads like it has been transplanted from some poorly-written speculative essay. Adding {{Inappropriate tone}}. Zak (talk) 22:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly. I came here looking for a decent article on the topic and this is a complete train-wreck. --Gamecat42 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC).

OMG:"Over the past 50 years, electricity networks" have been oblivious to cyber attacks! Weren't they following the developments of the Internet, which was hitherto unconnected to anything to do with the "electricity networks" for the greater majority of those 50 years? This article is really a mess.--Jelsova (talk) 01:26, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Dumb grids

All power grids today are not smart grids and most can never be. This article appears to be about something real when it is in fact about an illusion that has never been built and may never be. If it was, it might get hacked but it is not so there is nothing to hack. Something should be added to indicate there are no smart grids in existence today and may never be. This article qualifies for inclusion in Genre Science Fiction. Scottprovost (talk) 00:03, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

There are companies successfully deploying the "Smart Grid". It is not science fiction, it is reality, today! Some of the companies doing this work are cited in the article, although some of the information in the article about these companies is inaccurate. I work for one, so I can't say more due to NDA. It is very much reality, and utilities are moving to the new technology. Bdamm (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I must disagree with both contributors: The "Smart Grid" is NOT an actual thing which either does or does not exist, but a CONCEPT, that can be --and, indeed, is-- implemented in practice, to one degree or another. Most current "Smart Grids" being "built" are very tentative, very incremental, very "thin," very "RD&D," and very expensive, but are not necessarily without real value. The problem lies is not confusing real and valuable, but very small, first steps with the enormous potential whith will necessarily take a very long while to fully understand, much less fully realize. Amazy (talk) 20:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

It might be the case that most "Smart Grids" are thin, tentative, and incremental. However, there are certainly cases now of "Smart Grids" that are not thin. As of today, we have large deployments that are servicing a majority of given utilities districts. The industry has begun and we can point to specifics. Bdamm (talk) 04:43, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Organization

Rather than try to summarily rewrite this mess of an article and, perhaps, losing interesting tidbits in the mix, I propose to simply add more organization and formal citations, beginning at the beginning, so to speak, with the actual definition of "Smart Grid" (at least, in the U.S.). I'll wait to see if anyone cares enough to contribute other definitions from other jurisdictions or authorities before I consider any global definition. As there as a many definitions of "Smart Grid" as there are customers who are unhappy with their utility service or salesmen with something to sell, I propose sticking to authoritative sources.Amazy (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

DNV Kema

Perhaps that DNV Kema Energy & Sustainability can be mentioned. Appearantly they developed some devices (ie washing machines) that can be set to start washing at a specific time when the load on the mains electricity grid is low (and thus when the electricity is cheapest). 91.182.178.137 (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

COI Contributions

I have a financial COI with Honeywell in that they’ve recruited me to help them navigate through Wikipedia and COI Best Practices. I have a few content suggestions for consideration by impartial editors.User:Corporate Minion 16:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

OpenADR

I would like to add OpenADR to the Standards section:

OpenADR is an open-source smart grid communications standard used for demand response applications.

I would also like to suggest adding OpenADR implementations. My intention is to inform Wikipedia's readers on implementations Honeywell was involved in, in particular for those that used public funds. My proposed copy is in the collapsed section below.

Additional Implementations

OpenADR Implementations China The smart grid market in China is estimated to be $22.3 billion with a projected growth to $61.4 billion by 2015. Honeywell is developing a demand response pilot and feasibility study for China with the State Grid Corp. of China using the OpenADR demand response standard. The State Grid Corp., the Chinese Academy of Science, and General Electric will work together to develop standards for China’s smart grid rollout. United Kingdom The OpenADR standard was demonstrated in Bracknell, England, where peak use in commercial buildings was reduced by 45 percent. As a result of the pilot, the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) said it would connect up to 30 commercial and industrial buildings in Thames Valley, west of London, to a demand response program. United States In 2009, the US Department of Energy awarded an $11 million grant to Southern California Edison and Honeywell for a demand response program that automatically turns down energy use during peak hours for participating industrial customers. The Department of Energy awarded an $11.4 million grant to Honeywell to implement the program using the OpenADR standard. Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) is implementing a two-year pilot project to test the ability of an ADR program to respond to the intermittence of wind power. Hawaii has a goal to obtain 70 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. HECO will give customers incentives for reducing power consumption within 10 minutes of a notice.

Feedback from other editors

The above text seems unbiased and it is well referenced. I therefore approve the editor to make the edits: 1292simon (talk) 08:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm going to wait a little while before implementing, because North had some possible objections, but said he would let another editor decide, so I'll wait and see if anyone else comments. User:Corporate Minion 13:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I've been sitting back on this, having already given some input at my talk page. I'd be happy to actually put this in but I would modify it while doing so. I'd be a bit more explanatory on OpenODR. I'd still mention Honeywell but probably a bit less less on highlighting them. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. User:Corporate Minion 16:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I put in as I was comfortable with. Others please feel free to change. North8000 (talk) 18:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Justification

We have a large Obstacles section. Would it be ok to balance it out with a Justification section? User:Corporate Minion 05:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Justification

The driving forces to modernize current power grids can be divided into four, general categories. Increasing reliability, efficiency and safety of the power grid. Enabling decentralized power generation so homes can be both an energy client and supplier (provide consumers with an interactive tool to manage energy usage, known as net metering). Flexibility of power consumption at the client side to allow supplier selection (enables distributed generation of solar, wind and biomass). Increase GDP by creating more new, green-collar energy jobs related to renewable energy industry manufacturing, plug-in electric vehicles, solar panel and wind turbine generation and energy conservation construction. A large 2007 survey in the U.S., Germany, Netherlands, England, Japan and Australia found that: 83% of those who cannot yet choose their utility provider would welcome that option Roughly two-thirds of the customers that do not yet have renewable power options would like the choice Almost two-thirds are interested in operating their own generation, provided they can sell power back to the utility

I think that an encyclopedic listing of benefits would be good. I consider using poll data in Wikipedia to be problematic 99% of the time so my opinion would be to leave the poll data out. North8000 (talk) 18:28, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Works for me. My hope is primarily just to get the section started. Ideally Justification would be as long as Obstacles some day.

I also noticed (just now) that the Obstacles and Opposition sections need substantial cleanup. I make the comment generally and not as part of a request edit or as my part of my work with Honeywell, rather it's the kind of thing I would cleanup routinely, but won't while supporting a major producer of smart grid tech. User:Corporate Minion 18:47, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that the "obstacles" section is kind of a mish-mash. There's the "opposition" which primarily centers around smart-METERS and the things enabled by them (time of day rates, remote control). The smart meter folks kind of create this problem by always hiding the term in the broader smart-grid term. Then there are the other usual challenges which I would call challenges or factors, not obstacles. North8000 (talk) 22:10, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe pair "Justification" and "Opposition" into a single "Reception" (find better name) section, then pair implementation examples with obstacles, would be a good way. In this way, one section would present all views (for and against), while the other presents challenges and successes. It would take a lot of work to really get the article to that point, but a bit of quick and dirty editing could at least set the framework. My quick thoughts. User:Corporate Minion 23:58, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

That framework is sort of built around the concept that there is a big debate about smart-grid as a whole. In reality it's just about smart-METERS and then things enabled by them. North8000 (talk) 00:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, now I get why METERS was in all-caps above. Makes sense. Didn't mean to take us off-topic, but my take would be to go with "Challenges" rather than "Factors." Even if the section was cleaned up and we don't want to portray it as a debate, "factors" seems a little too washed down. On the other hand, I'm looking at the article more closely, the critical section isn't any worse off than the promotionalism, external links in the body, etc. This is the kind of article I would normally chop in half, however as a COI my charter for a topic like this will most often be to improve only one section and my COI will forbid me from making other changes, except through burdensome Talk page processes. So I will instead devote my time to articles I don't have a COI with. User:Corporate Minion 03:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

My opinion is take your COI-interest hat off, put your Wikipedia hat on and edit the article based on the goals of Wikipedia. Since you've declared your COI, we'll keep an eye on you and give you a whack if you lose your goals-of-Wikipedia hat.  :-) But plan A is to guide yourself to pursue the goals of Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 19:46, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to try to reorganize and edit those sections based on the above. Here goes. North8000 (talk) 19:46, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. Please feel free to change. North8000 (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

References

IEEE Smart Grid

My apologies if I don't have this comment placed properly here; I wasn't sure where it should go but this seems to be the most logical place. I do have a COI for IEEE, as I am a member of their PR team; please see my COI declarations on my talk page.

For the purpose of this article, I have added a minor reference about the IEEE Smart Grid Initiative to the Guidelines, standards and user groups section, as IEEE P2030 is part of the Initiative. No other information was added and I (hopefully) have it cited properly. If I've made any mistakes, please do feel free to let me know - they are not intentional or malicious in nature.

Mdrozdowski (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks OK to me. Perhaps you could update the "due out in 2011" sentence which follows it. North8000 (talk) 17:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

A separate article for Smart Power Generation?

The Smart grid article currently includes a short segment on Smart Power Generation, a concept by Wärtsilä Corporation. I work for the company, and have been tasked with looking into getting a separate article for Smart Power Generation. To that end, I already have a draft text I could send to someone to take a look at.

So, the questions: (1) would it be ok to create a separate page just for Smart Power Generation, and (2) if so, who should I send the text proposal to (or do I just copy it here)?

Kind regards, Kimi Arima Wärtsilä Power Plants

Don't create a page if you have a COI. Paste what you have here and I'll take a look at it. RyLaughlin (talk) 17:19, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Dear Ryan, thanks for the timely reply. I'll get back to you as soon as I get the final kinks sorted. -BR, Kimi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arimmki (talk • contribs) 13:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Smart Grids are smart

The "smart" in "Smart Grids" implies intelligence. Any definition of Smart Grids needs to define them in terms of intelligence. The current definition of smart grid sites U.S. Department of Energy. "Smart Grid / Department of Energy" as an authority for what it says yet that does not define what a smart grid is. It describes uses of them but not what they are. The material here is no where in the cited article. Defining something in terms of how it is used is not a good definition. It is like saying a car is something used to go places such as work and school. By that definition, a motorcycle and even a bicycle is a car.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Assessment of Demand Response & Advanced Metering defines a Smart Grid System as "A system which includes a variety of operational and energy measures including smart meters, smart appliances, renewable energy resources, and energy efficiency resources.". I will update the article appropriately. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

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IEEE edX short-course on smart grids

• IEEE edX short-course on smart grids - "Smart Grids: Electricity for the Future"
• ieeex.org: Free online courses from IEEE MaynardClark (talk) 20:29, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

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Comment on Video(Globalize)

Main problem is it's too USA centric. Greatder (talk) 11:54, 6 December 2021 (UTC)