The Department of Energy has just wrapped up a fascinating experiment in Washington State in which it provided both homeowners and their appliances with tools that can sense stress on the power grid. Homeowners who made use of the tools saved money—approximately 10 percent on their electric bills—and the grid was more stable, too.

There were two projects, both of which were run by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory over the last year. In the Olympic Peninsula project, 112 homeowners used new electric meters, thermostats, water heaters, and dryers that were all connected to specialized home gateways. Using software designed by IBM, the homeowners in the study could tell their appliances to react to the changing cost of electricity throughout a day by changing behavior—lowering the temperature of the home or water heater, for instance.

Not only did the system save users an average of 10 percent on their monthly electric bills, but it also reduced peak distribution loads by 50 percent on many days.

"The tools used in the study gave consumers the chance to be active participants in managing the electric grid," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton.



PNNL-built screensaver charting frequency of AC power

The second project, the Grid Friendly Appliance Project, put special circuit boards into appliances in 150 homes in both Washington and Oregon. The circuit boards detected stress on the electric grid by monitoring its frequency; anything more than a tiny variation from the 60Hz US standard indicates the presence of unusual activity on the grid.

The circuit boards responded by switching off electricity to high wattage items like a dryer's electric heating element. The lab found that this simple change can "reduce electricity consumption enough to stabilize the balance between supply and demand on the grid without the need to turn on inefficient gas-turbine generators," and without building more plants to cope with peak loads.

In effect, such technologies make both the machines and their human owners into members of what the lab calls "a collaborative, distributed, commerce-driven 'society'"—some of the same terms used to describe the many "Web 2.0" destinations. In this case, though, the purpose isn't to create the Internet's most tech-savvy collection of minds (see the Ars OpenForum for that) but to create a "shock absorber" for the national power grid; saving money for consumers is simply a byproduct of that process.

Utilities are already starting to roll out such technology to consumers. Here in Chicago, ComEd now runs the first-in-the-nation Residential Real-time Pricing Program (not by choice; it was mandated by the Illinois Commerce Commission). That program allows customers to see rates throughout the day and get billed according to the changing costs. It requires a new electric meter, but for those who are able to save major appliance usage for the early mornings and after-work hours, it can save some decent cash.

ComEd also runs a program targeted specifically at air conditioners, devices that put high stresses on the electric grid during the summer. The company offers a yearly credit to consumers who allow ComEd to switch off their condensers (the fan remains active) for up to 30 minutes at a time when the grid is under strain.