Energy demand management

If we get it right smart metering will pay for itself quickly and do much to improve the economic use of power

In recent articles and public debate on power generation (including the interesting article on cryogenic energy storage in PE, October), there has been far more emphasis on increasing generating and storage capacity than on managing consumption. Currently, beyond a small variety of tariffs, that do not reflect random or short term cyclical changes in availability and load, little is done to control demand. With increasing capacity from natural, and therefore erratic, sources, supply and demand would be much better matched in a commodity market where the retail price could fluctuate instantaneously to reflect the immediate cost. The development of smart metering presents a golden opportunity to achieve this and thereby manage consumption far more than is possible at present. Given the right market incentives, load spikes would be capped as domestic consumers learnt to wait a few minutes after the end of "East Enders" before putting on the kettle and long time-constant industrial processes, such as cold storage for example, could exploit the market by switching off briefly at heavy demand periods during, say, television commercial breaks.

Pricing would be local to reflect local supply and transmission conditions. Automated controllers would interface with smart meters to switch disposable loads automatically at pre-set price thresholds.

The technology to provide price information at the point of use, and remote, time integrated, consumption monitoring is available but needs integrating into a standardised smart meter. If we get it right smart metering will pay for itself quickly and do much to improve the economic use of power. If we get it wrong we will be encumbered with a system that will not be replaced for decades. We need a creative public debate on this subject to optimise load management and smart meter functionality. I hope other contributors will develop these ideas further.

David Livingstone, Heydon, Royston

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