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Subject: RE: [energyinterop] RE: Error Condition Re: Re: [energyinterop] Observations from the Appliance workshop
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David, Great discussion. Let's go back to the last point in your initial email: "Appliance manufacturers want to hear what it is worth to the grid. I
can give you 5kW for 15 min, 2kW for an hour, 1 kW for 8 hours. What’s it
worth to you? The appliance manufacturers haven’t gotten this data yet. " Appliance manufacturers may not yet think of it this way, but the simplest
and only way to convey this information
is in terms of the current and forward prices of electric energy. This tells the
appliance exactly what it will cost to run the appliance for any scenario. And as Sec. Steven Chu said, "the simplest way to communicate consumer
preferences is a green button and a red button on the thermostat, dryer, etc." The red button says I am willing to pay
a lot for comfort / convenience and the green button says I will give up
comfort to save money. Given the current and forward prices of power a very simple device can
figure out how much is saved by extending the drying cycle to get a lower price later or letting the
air temperature rise above or below the air conditioner set point based on the
differences between current and forward prices. Based on which button is set, (red or
green ) the device can decide how to operate. The actual set point on the
thermostat can based on manual setting, occupancy, iphone
control, etc. independent of price.
The prices and the consumer preference button will determine the variability
in room temperature about the set point. Using prices it is clear in most cases that there is no customer economic
benefit to coordinating the use of appliances at least in the US residential
markets where there is no demand charge. Note that the prices can reflect both transmission and distribution system
limits and overall energy costs on the grid.. And the prices can change as system conditions change and such changes broadcast
or transmitted to all of the devices. Prices will be communicated to devices as a vector of prices. Some devices will only use the current
price, other devices will use the current price and the price 5 min from now or
an hour from now and other more intelligent devices such as air conditioners
with ice storage or electric vehicles may look a vector of prices over several hours Such price vectors can be determined by tariffs, supply or demand or can be reliability
prices ( critical peak prices) imposed over short periods during emergencies or
peak demand response. Comments welcome. Ed Edward G. Cazalet, Ph.D. 101 First Street, Suite 552 Los Altos, CA 94022 650-949-5274 cell: 408-621-2772 From: Michel Kohanim [mailto:michel@universal-devices.com] Hi David, I think what’s missing from your argument is the pivotal
role of customer comfort and his/her preferences. If we remove the customer
from the equations/use cases, then you are 100% correct: some preliminary
configurations on the device and that’s it. Now, if you add alternative sources of energy in addition to
customer comfort/preferences, then you will either have to have smart devices
that can communicate with one another and with other sources of energy and then
decide what to do OR you could have a higher level of intelligence (ESI) that
implements/orchestrates these scenarios. In short, I posit that it all depends on how much importance is
given to customers’ comfort and preferences. With kind regards, ******************************** Michel
Kohanim, C.E.O Universal
Devices, Inc. (p)
818.631.0333 (f)
818.436.0702 http://www.universal-devices.com ******************************** From: Holmberg, David
[mailto:david.holmberg@nist.gov] All, I am thinking of EISA and their interest in collaboration among
appliances, versus EMS central control, versus independent appliance operation.
The Whirlpool rep at the workshop mentioned the need for the washer to talk
with the dryer, and expressed some concern for collaboration between appliances
to limit demand peaks inside the house (although I don’t see why that
matters in the US residential market now, yes for Europe, yes for commercial).
From the grid perspective—who cares what the peak is in your house since
it all gets averaged out over a thousand homes? So, what is the business
imperative that would support all the effort needed to get some distributed
mesh appliance collaboration standard? For EISA, I guess it’s the
commercial market. Thanks Larry for the observations. Let me comment on that. ·
The cake must finish cooking. The oven will not shut off if the
price goes up, unless I tell it it’s worth it to me in general to turn
off the oven in the case of very high prices. But a smart oven will know that a
peak is coming and recommend waiting and give you the option to save money or
turn on the oven now. ·
I must get the clothes dry. So, the dryer defaults to smart
saver mode and would normally delay load start or ask if it can delay. I say
NO, or hit the start button TWICE to tell it I mean NOW. ·
I’ll take a cold shower. So, take one. The smart water
heater could learn your normal usage patterns. We even discussed pre-heating of
hot water tanks with safety features to prevent scald. Maybe even Daikin in
doing this already. ·
The house should be cool when I get home. So, I program the
thermostat. And I have some app on my iPhone that can allow updating it from
work if I’m early/late, if I’m nerdy enough. ·
Seems to me that pool pumps are like the defrost on the
fridge—run it off peak anyway, always. In each case, the interface is at the appliance, or default
built into the appliance. EISA sees a reason for collaboration among
appliances, but I don’t see it really. I see the need for appliances to
get power use off peak, either by shed or shift. But what does the EMS bring to the table? A single interface to
collect general home preferences maybe. Also, the potential for requiring less
smarts in the individual appliances. But my contention is that removing smarts
from the appliance depends on developing energy profiles for different
appliance classes that somehow communicates all the nuances of how that
appliance could shed or shift or store energy by different amounts in different
combinations for different future price curves. Am I missing something? I guess
EISA members are focused more on the commercial market and have given
significant thought to the sweet spot for energy profiles (amount of detail). I
look forward to getting more details on that. This gets to John’s input
below (sorry—John Who (?) since it bounced, and apparently on
energyinterop list as well). Thanks, From:
b2g_interop@nist.gov [mailto:b2g_interop@nist.gov] Hi, If I may I would like to add a few comments to this thread.
If we make the assumption that all of these "smart, communicating
devices" are thrown into the application (our homes) without any
preparation for response models then I agree it would be daunting to achieve
the use case that started this thread. But here is where standards could
greatly contribute. If we develop a model for typical "smart grid event
types' (that list would not be that long) and a model for logical actions that
devices should take in response to events they may be informed of, (which would
be defined by the equipment mfg based on their knowledge of their equipment and
an understanding of the events) we can create the kind of orchestrated response
described. All that would need to be communicated to the devices would
be event types or "scenarios" that group events together. Devices
would not have to be in direct peer to peer communication with each other
(although they could be), and the user would not have to be involved in complex
configuration or programming. As an example, when the dryer was installed a
simple menu would be used to select the responses (a short list) that it should
make in response to a defined list of smart grid events. This could include
pricing, or more likely pricing would be abstracted into levels of response
communicated by the defined events. With this type of a model defined, the communications could
be very compressed binary format capable of being consumed by simple devices
with limited CPU power and using limited bandwidth on low energy networks.
Equipment mfg could implement this model in their devices without ever having
to be aware of the details of any specific end installation. John On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 2:05 AM, Michel Kohanim <michel@universal-devices.com>
wrote: Larry, I am in total agreement with you. Further to your point,
how would you configure all these isolated devices to do what you want? Would
you go to each individual device and set them up individually? What if you are
not home? Does this then mean that each device/appliance should have a user interface?
Should all be schedule aware? Should they be able to communicate amongst one
another? If so, what is the minimum set of communications constructs? When EISA talks about Zero Net, one has to also consider alternate
sources of energy and thus it would be quite a daunting task to have
independent devices act in unison (and based on customer preferences) to
achieve such goals. With kind regards, ******************************** Michel Kohanim, C.E.O Universal Devices, Inc. (p) 818.631.0333 (f) 818.436.0702 http://www.universal-devices.com ******************************** From: Larry
Lackey [mailto:llackey@tibco.com]
David, Thanks for the observations. For fun,
let’s suppose you have several of the items mentioned below: AC, pool
pump, dryer, hot water, and oven, and some friends are coming over for dinner.
You might say:
Seems to me hard for any automated system
to do, let alone an isolated appliance with limited computational abilities. But if I had a home EMS, I could tell the
EMS provided the appliances used U-SNAP or another method of communication to
the EMS to receive instructions rather acting in ignorance. Thoughts? Thanks, Larry From:
Holmberg, David [mailto:david.holmberg@nist.gov]
All, I
attended the EPRI “DR-Ready Appliance Workshop” yesterday in
Knoxville, and the discussion ranged around appliance communications and action
for demand response. Basic
agreement on what “smart grid ready” means: ·
Can shed ·
Can shift ·
Can communicate ·
Can understand SEP (or, as I observed, some standard data syntax and
semantics and transport)—EPRI and U-SNAP are pushing for a standard
connector that would allow plugging in an external comms chip. But you still
need the app layer. ·
Security Other
observations: ·
Of course, how you accomplish the above for specific device classes (in
different regions, see below) might need some definition when it comes time to
do compliance testing. And what kind of signal are you going to feed an
appliance to prove it can shed/shift, and how much? Maybe you need a standard
forward price curve representative of different kinds of typical peaks. Maybe
you need a standard forward mode signal, similar to what the DRAS feeds to the
Simple Client in OpenADR. ·
Another model that was advocated (not by the appliance manufacturers nor
by me) is having more/most of the intelligence at some EMS and passing a
simpler signal to the appliance. To me, this requires communications from the
appliance to the EMS (at least a standard energy profile) plus it requires a
standard EMS. ·
I realized that there are perhaps limits on how universal appliances can
be. DR programs have very real differences in different utility territories due
to very real weather and regulatory differences. AC is all that matters in
Phoenix (besides turning off pool pumps)—hot water is not an issue
because water comes into the house hot. That won’t be the case in some
other places. This came up relative to the question of whether appliance loads
really matter. But a dryer and oven draw more power than the AC. And a
refrigerator only draws 70W on average, but I have 3 and they run 24/7. So, how
much does the regionality issue affect energy management algorithms for
appliances? A rep from Daikin says they ship products that can go anywhere,
just need the right software update to get tuned control algorithms. ·
Appliance manufacturers want to hear what it is worth to the grid. I can
give you 5kW for 15 min, 2kW for an hour, 1 kW for 8 hours. What’s it
worth to you? The appliance manufacturers haven’t gotten this data yet. David
Holmberg NIST
Building and Fire Research Lab 301-975-6450 |
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