Introduction
Since the earliest utilization of electric power in US cities, the demand for electric power has only grown. With this demand the infrastructure to generate and transport electricity to homes and businesses across the country has grown adequately to meet the demand for energy. But, the demand for electricity is growing faster as technology and our nations economy develops. I fear our power grid may soon become too meager to sustain a power hungry nation such as the US. The technology is becoming obsolete, and this shortcoming may stifle future economic growth. It seems that it would be in the nations best interest to invest time and money today to create an energy infrastructure that can support the growth of tomorrow.
Your grandfather’s grid
The rapid expansion of the electricity grid during the 20th century has made for an odd and overly complex power grid. Power plants and transmission networks that bring electricity to your home have developed very inconsistently, because they have been shaped by both government and private companies over the years. As a result, there is no national power grid in the sense that the system is not uniform. Power networks are indeed categorized and regulated, by state, region, and so on, but this only complicates the issue of complexity and inefficiency in the electric grid. The biggest shortcomings of the energy grid that has been operating for the 20th century is the following:
Scarce information- The many different layers and patchworks of transmission jurisdiction across the country renders the gathering of big data on our country’s energy usage very difficult. In addition, the consumer is not able to track the fluctuating prices of electricity by the hour, preventing the option of informed power use to cut individual cost. This is because the wide majority of household electric meters lack the sensory ability to gather information on how energy is used.
Inefficiency- Because our grid is composed of mostly generation and transmission mechanisms, energy that is produced must be transferred instantaneously from the plant to the utility that draws the electricity. According to Daniel Snyder, “…today’s network is designed to always operate at peak capacity. Yet peak loads are only required about 5 percent of the year.” This presents a clear issue of inefficiency in how the electric power plants allocate power.
Blackouts- Often times it is this poor allocation that causes many blackouts, because when too much power is drawn in a short period of time, a power plant will fail due to the unattainable amount of power that is demanded. To exacerbate the problem, the complexity of the transmission grid will often cause a much larger blackout than necessary in the case of an overload or natural disaster.
The solution
The smart grid is today’s technological solutions to the increased need for information and efficiency in the power grid. The smart grid system would be an installed power grid that is uniform and consistent across the country. But what makes the “smart grid” smart? The main upgrade in the smart grid is a built in computer that not only distributes electricity but also gathers information. Digital sensors in the standard residential or commercial electric meter allows for the gathering and two way transmission of information between both the consumer, and the power distribution center. This allows for informed consumption of energy, and informed distribution of energy. It is essentially the information revolution brought to our power grid. Like the internet, abundant information will be available for more efficient allocation, and power grids will not have to run at maximum capacity at all times.
However, the task of replacing the entire nations energy grid is incredibly large, and costly. Like any investment, there will be risk, and a major cost. So it would be wise to analyze carefully these costs and risks, as well as the benefits, before we conclude whether a nationwide smart grid would improve our country’s well being.
Costs and Risks
The most glaring cost of this would be the revenue required by the government to fund a project of this scale. The majority of the grid would be paid for by American taxpayers, and if not, we would further burden the national debt. Then once the grid is installed, there would still be a large federal operations sector to be paid for to keep the grid working. Furthermore, the standardization of a national grid would present a great risk for our future. Technology is advancing quickly, which means eventually the smart grid will be obsolete. But will that day come too soon? If a technological breakthrough does render the smart grid inefficient in comparison, the cost of revamping the energy grid again will likely be even more costly than the goals we have set today. This raises the question of whether we are wiling to accept that long term risk, and put real faith into one, standard energy system for the benefit of the foreseeable future.
Benefits
That being said, as of today the benefits do indeed seem to outweigh the risks. The smart grid effectively solves all the issues that I have mentioned with our nations current energy grid. Not only does its efficiency save large amounts of energy from being wasted, but it also creates a more stable, safe, and secure power grid with today’s digital communication technology. This would mean lower electric prices, less emissions, and faster recoveries in blackouts. A uniform system of jurisdiction would eliminate today’s confusion, and comprehensive power distribution would be able to adapt to the rising energy demand in the future. Overall, the smart grid would make our life for the foreseeable future much easier and better, and this is why the smart grid is a good investment in our country.
Works cited