Smart Grid
Arisen within the technology, energy or clean tech industry in recent years the term Smart Grid. What is behind this buzzword really smart grid?Smart Grid: The Internet of Energy
The Smart Grid will be something like the "Internet of Energy" - ie, smart power grids will continue to provide for a meaningful sharing of power consumption, more in line with the production of electricity. Only then will the renewable energy can actually be integrated into the grid. Because: The wind just blows when it blows and not when 20 million German must go into the halftime break of the World Cup finals to the refrigerator and there light tackle.
In the U.S. the Smart Grid is still much greater than in Germany - there is the reliable power for years due to lack of investment in infrastructure is a real problem. In Europe, or at least in Germany, however, we have little or almost never fight with a power outage.
World governments and energy companies are investing billions of current in order to lay new cables and operate new power networks such as the Internet. In the future it will no longer be one-way communication from the power plant to provide energy, but a two-dimensional communication, where the refrigerator or the smart meter communicates with the power plant.
Benefit for consumers: variable electricity prices
Thanks to the Smart Grid in the future, electricity prices vary depending on how much electricity is available now to the Net - the wind blows strong and is fed so much power, it will drop the current price of electricity. Intelligent appliances will recognize this example, the dishwasher and then running when the electricity price is very favorable. Thus, the load can be distributed and power plants such as nuclear power plants, which serve merely to ensure a possible peak, can be turned off.
Insight into their own power
Until now we hardly get to how much electricity we actually consume, and which devices in the home or in the company really are the central electricity consumers - with smart meters and intelligent appliances, for example, this will change in the future. Different software vendors are developing solutions that show us brutally, at which points in the budget can be a massive energy savings.
The introduction of smart meters (smart meters) is in Europe from 2010 in part to the requirement - at least for new construction and major renovation. These smart meters are the connection path between the budget and the Smart Grid. It is significant that they allow the two-way communication. Ultimately resulting efficiency incentives, which we will use in future, all to save money.
For example, the electric car that is loaded in the home carport, cost to be charged over night and not during the day and therefore less able - at the same time the electric car can also serve as a kind of buffer
Start-ups and corporations compete for billions of Smart Grid
Large corporations such as Cisco, Siemens or General Electric is currently bringing to the market of billions in smart grid position. But many young start-ups that are partially supported with public funding millions gotten to a part of the pie. These include Tendril, SmartSynch, Econitor, Echelon or the Power Plus Communications. It is interesting that have recognized the former IT giants like Microsoft, Cisco and Google now a new market.
Problem: Privacy
Criticism is also available on the smart grid and smart meters in the household or the procedure that makes the energy transparent. Abuse seems possible, therefore extremely high demands are placed on the data transfer.
For more information: Cleanthinking.de
The marketing blog www.cleanthinking.de regularly reports on the latest developments in the field of Smart Grids.
