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Subject: Gale Horst - Comments on the AHAM White Paper Released 14-Dec-2009


This link should take you to the AHAM white paper:    http://www.aham.org/smartgrid

 

AHAM and the industry they represent should be congratulated for taking the effort to review the issues and clarify their position via this white paper.  As a consumer-focused industry that is independent from the energy industry, this is a bold step and represents a level of commitment to the development of a smart grid.  As you know, I spent the greater part of 8 years building a perspective for the appliance industry with a charter to see how appliance design should (or will) be impacted by changes envisioned in the energy industry. Below I commented on several points AHAM seems to be making in the white paper.  Note that these are my personal observations and don’t necessarily represent those of any particular organization:

 

  1. Regulatory impact:  Page iii states “existing residential tariffs and rate structures do not provide sufficient economic incentive to spur maximum consumer participation in the use of Smart Grid technologies”.  Page 10 continues this thought with “tariffs that would encourage widespread adoption of these practices are currently not in place” and “The pricing structure must allow manufacturers to build devices or appliances that are capable of managing this benefit and provide consumers with the proper incentives.”

 

  1. Appropriate consumer electricity pricing will be the key driver to motivate development and consumer acceptance:  Combine the regulatory issue AHAM raised (see #1 above) with several other statements in the document regarding “the consumer as the decision maker” it leads to a conclusion that AHAM feels appropriate pricing is the appropriate the motivator for manufacturer and consumer acceptance.

 

  1. Scalability and flexibility in the appliance path to the smart grid:  The document spoke of appliances that could receive messages from the smart grid (or meter), but in the future be reconfigured to receive their messages from a home energy management system (EMS).  This was referred to as ability to support varying levels of sophistication (p 12).  If we loose track of this aspect we will limit the number of devices that can participate.  On page 12, AHAM points out the need for a “communication standard that allows seamless upgrade of the energy management inside the home.”  If done properly, we can eliminate the need to upgrade the appliance to switch from a prices-to-devices model to a home energy management system model.  This is also one of the concepts that tends to support the simple connector that Brian Seal is leading.  If the appliance shifts from taking input from the utility, via AMI for example, and now takes it from an EMS, only a simple external interface could be changed if necessary.

 

  1. Clear boundaries of control:  This could be considered as a method to minimize issues with privacy, security, safety and consumer acceptance and perhaps one of the more key positioning statements in the document.  Several issues mentioned on pages 13 - 15 may be viewed as contrary to some current paths in the smart grid roadmap today.  For example “In all cases, the Smart Appliance will retain control of the appliance response to a signal from the utility company” was a statement I expected but perhaps one that carries differences with certain industry approaches.  The paper also clarified that AHAM members do not support an emergency comment to stop and appliance without the ability for a consumer to override.  The AHAM paper goes a bit further with the statement that “The boundary of the utility’s reach should end at the smart meter”.

 

  1. One-way communication: ensures consumer and appliance safety, privacy, and security issues.  Several statements to this effect include “the smart meter should appear to the residence as a one-way, read-only device to provide pricing, usage, and requests for load reduction”.  Although the AHAM document did not tie all the issues addressed by one-way together, in summarizing and considering this issue it does seem logical that if the communication is only one-way, the issue of invasion of privacy is dramatically reduced.  Regardless of one’s position in the one-way vs two-way debate, we have to consider that the consumer privacy issue could be managed to a significant degree by limiting to one-way.  Another factor is that the cost of two-way may still need economic justification from the consumer and manufacturer perspective represented by these AHAM position statements. 

 

A statement in the AHAM document that stands out as, perhaps, a summary of the position statements is The simplest and most straightforward way for the utility to verify that its message was received and the load was reduced is to read the meter.  Perhaps AHAM is saying that the summary of their work indicates that if you have the ability to motivate (pricing / tariff) and send a cost-effective signal (one-way) and have focused attention on a smart meter able to be read at any point in time, we have enabled the majority of the benefits.  The AHAM perspective is that a simple signal followed by verification at the meter should tell us what we need to know and that perhaps additional technology only adds cost and risk.

 

Gale

 

 

 

Gale R. Horst

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
942 Corridor Park Blvd.
Knoxville, TN 37932
Office: 865-218-8078

Mobile: 865-368-2603
ghorst@epri.com

http://www.smartgrid.epri.com

 



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