Will the smart grid outsmart itself?

David Zalubowski / AP

In this file photo Gary Kawano installs a new meter outside a home in Boulder, Colo., as part of the smart electrical grid system being put into place in the university city.

By John Roach, contributing writer at msnbc.com.

As smart meter technology does what it is supposed to do ? persuade us to do our laundry, wash our dishes and recharge our cars in the middle of the night when electricity rates are lowest ? it's possible the smart grid will outsmart itself, according to a new study.

That's because electricity rates are cheapest in the middle of night now precisely because everyone is asleep while electricity is generated that needs to be used. But if we all become night owls (or program our devices to turn on when energy rates drop), demand for electricity ? and prices ? will suddenly soar and, in a worst-case scenario, actually bring down the power grid.

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Realistically, this isn't going to happen, Mardavij Roozbehani a member of MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems and a lead author of a paper presented at a recent meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers that examines how price controls can prevent huge swings in demand, told me Monday.

"We, as scientists and systems operators, are going to come up with a solution that prevents that kind of response," he said, but added it is the type of scenario planners need to be thinking about now as smart grid technologies roll out across the country.

One idea is to give consumers not-exact real time pricing, he said, in effect shielding them from the wild swings that take place in the marketplace. Such solutions, though, inevitably come at some cost to the efficiencies real-time pricing is meant to provide.

For example, "when you need an aggressive response from the consumers ? say the wind drops ? you're not going to get it," Roozbehani noted in a news release.

More on the smart grid:

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John Roach?is a contributing writer for msnbc.com.

Source: http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/08/7307292-will-the-smart-grid-outsmart-itself

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