The "Smart Grid"

[TEG]

http://www.brattle.com/_documents/Up.../Upload966.pdf

Will Smart Prices Induce Smart Charging of Electric Vehicles?...

[Adm]

China's State Grid and BYD Launch World's Largest Battery Energy Storage Station

This large utility-scale project, located in Zhangbei, Hebei Province, combines 140 Mega-Watts of renewable energy generation (both wind & solar), 36 Mega-Watt-Hours (MWh) of energy storage and a smart power transmission system.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chi...ion-2011-12-30

[Johncho]

Wow, that's massive...

[TEG]

Lets hope that have a way to quickly stop any fires that could start in those battery arrays someday.
It would be horrific if that many batteries burned in a chain reaction.

[VolkerP]

Chinese chain reactions are nothing new: Banqiao Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In the linked incident, the Chinese engineer that pointed out the design flaws leading to catastrophic chain reaction failure, was removed from the project - before things happened like he said. In spite of better knowledge, they went the wrong way. Here is hoping that someone learned that lesson, though.

[Robert.Boston]

Yep. I had been thinking about posting how, in the wholesale power industry, standards are so high that we needn't worry about such problems, and that is true (IMO) in the U.S. and western Europe. As Chernobyl, Fukushima and Banqiao Dam demonstrate, however, these same high standards aren't followed everywhere.

[dpeilow]

Smart meter SSL screw-up exposes punters' TV habits • The Register

This sets my BS meter off. I mean, what is the temporal resolution of the data they are logging? Yet alone transmitting?

[Robert.Boston]

The meters supplied by the firm log power usage in two-second intervals.

That's truly excessive. 5-minute data is as granular as is useful for any purpose I know of.

[Doug_G]

Last week, Chevy announced that it was teaming with GM's OnStar subsidiary and with PJM Interconnection LLC to create a service that would manage the Volt's recharging, depending on how much renewable energy is available on the grid. In the service, which hasn't been officially introduced, OnStar would grab PJM's renewable energy forecast off the OnStar cloud and use it to direct the car's recharging process.

"Owners wouldn't have to do anything," OnStar spokesman Adam Dennison told us. "They would just get a notification, either through a mobile app or through email, saying that the renewable energy is now available."

Because the service is sure to have great appeal to environmentally conscious consumers, it's likely that other automakers will follow suit. Still, there's that big question: Is it meaningful?

Design News - Captain Hybrid - Chevy Volt: Chargeable With Renewable Energy?

[Robert.Boston]

Still, there's the big question: is it meaningful?

No, it isn't. If instead OnStar grabbed the day-ahead price forecast and the real-time price stream, it could charge at the cheapest period. That would be meaningful. Electrons don't get little tags, like internet packets, that can be routed to your car. Nor does this proposed system send more money to renewable generators to encourage them to build. It's just a fake feel-good program.