If you liked Friday’s air conditioning cycling, you’ll LOVE tomorrow’s wind power.

Friday’s (7/22) heat wave was a wake-up call for many BGE customers in the Baltimore area.  It was then that we learned what is meant by “cycling” the electricity to our Air Conditioners. Unlike ‘rolling brownouts or blackouts’, a somewhat cyclical idea, to BGE, cycling simply means: ‘We’ll turn it off until such time as we feel we can turn it on. We will do this in order to get the maximum decrease in electrical demand in order to get the largest savings possible.”  In looking at what other electrical utilities did on the mid-east coast system controlled by the PJM Interconnection, BGE shed more demand than any of the rest, accounting for some 40% of the total! (Hancock – The Baltimore Sun, 7/26/11) Why so much?  Because they get paid for cutting back, money which in turn is used to offset the Peak Rewards program.

While I did not suffer dramatically, others did and I must admit, I too made the invalid assumption I mentioned above.  I assumed that large chucks of the distribution system would be put into an “A/C lockdown” while others would be left alone and that in a rather short period of time, i.e. 1-3 hours, the shutdown would be moved to another area and the first area reinstated.  Why not?  After all, it uses all of the newest ‘radio controlled’ technologies.  While this would obviously not have saved as much electricity, maximum savings should not necessarily be the goal. And speaking of technology, it seems that with 440,000 participants in the Peak Rewards program, receiving the intended signals presented some problems too.  But that’s OK, for in the near future we will have ‘smart meters’ which will be controlled via the WWW and I am sure there won’t be any communications problems there.

In all fairness to BGE, they were also experiencing a major substation problem in the midst of all this and it is likely that this potential failure precluded an earlier ending of the “cycle.” It would have been good to hear the full extent of BGE’s operational decisions during the day via local radio and TV news.  But, they were too busy repeating the same “health and heat alerts” ad nauseam. Additionally, it was reported that while some homes, mine included, had contracted for the 100% outage rewards program; those homes were moved to the 50% plan once the public outcry was blasting forth.  But nevertheless, it was a rude awakening to those of us who have been enjoying the rebates for some time and not suffering the consequences.

This brings me to the larger issue.  Friday was a one-in-several year’s event.  What will things be like when all those various planned wind farms are brought on-line? Charles Campbell, a retired senior vice president of Gulf Oil Corporation had a column in the Commentary section of The Baltimore Sun yesterday, 7/24/11.  He rather concisely expressed my thoughts about the whole thing and it is worth the read.  Fundamentally as I see it, we can rock the baby when the wind blows, but when it stops, home owners will be faced with one of three scenarios - 1)  resort to their own battery back-up, which typically do not exist accept in truly ‘off the grid’ homes  2) accept electricity from older, i.e. dirtier, more polluting, generators left partially on-line for such frequent (?) occurrences, or 3) be part of a demand cycling program, similar to, though hopefully better than the above.

I am not suggesting that such a demand cycling program would be as barbaric or crude, cutting time into hour-long bits.  By the time the wind and solar farms are constructed in large enough numbers to contribute any significant capacity, the Smart Meters will have been installed.  So what?  The answer to that is that homes will be increasingly equipped with computer controlled appliances that will integrate with the smart meter and through that integration one’s electrical demand may be tailored to a “supply” value.  What is a “supply” value?  It is simply my words for the opposite of a “demand” value which is how our electrical system currently works.  Now, unless you are an industrial/commercial site, you can simply draw as much electricity from the system as you want. It’s like sucking water from the ocean through a straw – take what you want. No fuss, no muss. There is plenty, you are encouraged to use it and there is no charge for taking too much because the utility is in the business of selling electricity. 

With a “supply” value based system, it is likely that you will contract with the utility for a specific MAXIMUM number of kWh over some period, i.e. an hour, a day, etc. because it then will cost the utility more money to fire up the backup systems then they can actually get from your added consumption. Let’s face it.  The “sun don’t shine” 24/7 nor does the wind blow continually.

When all of this comes together, it will be up to you, your smart meter and your computer controlled and web interfacing appliances to keep your electrical usage below that “supply” value. You and your technology will be in charge. Exceeding that agreed upon supply value will result in the same kind of thing industrial facilities experience now, a large penalty.

We shall see if this is correct in the not so distant future.

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