WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.323 This video will be a little different. 00:00:02.323 --> 00:00:06.241 I’m not sure if it’s exactly correct to call this an opinion piece, 00:00:06.241 --> 00:00:10.755 but this is largely a story about my personal energy management techniques, 00:00:10.755 --> 00:00:13.028 the lessons I’ve learned from them, 00:00:13.028 --> 00:00:15.654 and how we might apply them in the near future. 00:00:15.654 --> 00:00:21.775 I’ve also been motivated to make this video by headlines that paint the technique in a pretty bad light, 00:00:21.775 --> 00:00:26.750 when in fact the horror stories have everything to do with bad management decisions, 00:00:26.750 --> 00:00:29.565 and nothing to do with the idea itself. 00:00:29.565 --> 00:00:33.337 That idea is load-side energy management. 00:00:33.337 --> 00:00:40.875 It’s gotten some nasty press lately because the way it’s used today is usually reactive and rarely proactive. 00:00:40.875 --> 00:00:44.043 As the frequency of extreme weather events goes up, 00:00:44.043 --> 00:00:51.031 we’re finding more and more instances of energy demand on the grid outstripping its ability to supply it. 00:00:51.031 --> 00:00:56.019 In those cases, grid operators often have no choice but to shed load, 00:00:56.019 --> 00:01:01.080 or shut off the power to certain areas to prevent the grid from being overloaded 00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:05.471 or in particularly extreme cases, collapsing altogether. 00:01:05.471 --> 00:01:09.921 That nearly happened in Texas in the winter storm of 2021. 00:01:09.921 --> 00:01:14.294 But shedding load by disconnecting customers in rolling blackouts 00:01:14.294 --> 00:01:16.540 is a rather blunt instrument. 00:01:16.540 --> 00:01:18.062 It sucks. 00:01:18.062 --> 00:01:24.116 For a long while electric utilities have been flirting with more precise and less disruptive load-shedding techniques 00:01:24.116 --> 00:01:26.414 called demand response. 00:01:26.414 --> 00:01:30.292 Even before internet-connected smart thermostats were widespread, 00:01:30.292 --> 00:01:36.486 some utilities including mine offered discounts if you allowed them to remotely disable your air conditioning 00:01:36.486 --> 00:01:42.087 or perhaps clothes dryer using a lockout device during peak consumption periods. 00:01:42.087 --> 00:01:46.228 That could of course lead to some mild discomfort and annoyance occasionally, 00:01:46.228 --> 00:01:48.288 but at least you still had power. 00:01:48.288 --> 00:01:50.032 And so did your neighbors. 00:01:50.032 --> 00:01:55.822 See, heating and cooling is by far the biggest energy consumer of a home or building in general. 00:01:55.822 --> 00:02:02.762 And on hot days demand can suddenly explode when everyone’s air conditioners start running at the same time, 00:02:02.762 --> 00:02:05.676 so being able to ease the total demand on the grid 00:02:05.676 --> 00:02:11.520 by temporarily shutting off a few thousand air conditioners is a very useful tool for utilities. 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:13.320 Now I know what some of you are thinking - 00:02:13.320 --> 00:02:16.534 "that sounds terrible and I would never, ever want that!" 00:02:16.534 --> 00:02:21.028 But these days, we have more flexibility than we ever have. 00:02:21.028 --> 00:02:27.108 What if the utility could turn your air conditioner ON before there was a supply problem? 00:02:27.108 --> 00:02:29.459 Now that smart thermostats are so common, 00:02:29.459 --> 00:02:32.497 utilities have plenty of customers who have installed 00:02:32.497 --> 00:02:37.274 much more sophisticated equipment than the air conditioner lock-outs of the past. 00:02:37.274 --> 00:02:43.010 And if done correctly, we can tap into a huge source of energy storage 00:02:43.010 --> 00:02:45.898 that you may have never realized we had. 00:02:45.898 --> 00:02:49.212 We often talk about the need for energy storage on the grid. 00:02:49.212 --> 00:02:54.350 Whether that’s to increase the viability of renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power 00:02:54.350 --> 00:02:57.061 or to help meet intermittent peak loads, 00:02:57.061 --> 00:03:00.847 having a reserve of energy on hand is a very good thing. 00:03:00.847 --> 00:03:05.936 In fact the idea of temporary energy storage isn’t new at all. 00:03:05.936 --> 00:03:10.359 Of course the trendy thing now is to talk about huge banks of batteries 00:03:10.359 --> 00:03:16.709 that are charged up when there’s lots of energy available, and discharged when that energy is needed later. 00:03:16.709 --> 00:03:21.899 Electric vehicles are likely to become a big piece of this strategy as time goes on. 00:03:21.899 --> 00:03:27.642 But we’ve actually been doing this for a very long time, just more crudely. 00:03:27.642 --> 00:03:31.669 For the most part we’re doing this because the load on the grid is variable 00:03:31.669 --> 00:03:34.332 and tends to peak in the afternoon. 00:03:34.332 --> 00:03:38.134 You may have heard this before but the trickiest thing about electrical generation 00:03:38.134 --> 00:03:42.678 is that supply and demand have to be equal all the time. 00:03:42.678 --> 00:03:46.572 Whenever demand goes up supply must increase to meet it. 00:03:46.572 --> 00:03:49.893 And when that’s not possible things start breaking. 00:03:49.893 --> 00:03:52.205 That’s been a challenge for the grid since the beginning, 00:03:52.205 --> 00:03:58.523 and is the reason pumped hydroelectric storage facilities exist and have for many decades. 00:03:58.523 --> 00:04:02.820 These facilities consist of two water reservoirs at different elevations. 00:04:02.820 --> 00:04:06.092 Sometimes they’re natural and other times they’re engineered. 00:04:06.092 --> 00:04:08.538 When supply is greater than demand, 00:04:08.538 --> 00:04:12.812 we use that spare supply to pump water to the higher reservoir. 00:04:12.812 --> 00:04:16.139 That makes a store of gravitational potential energy. 00:04:16.139 --> 00:04:19.180 Then, when demand starts to outpace supply, 00:04:19.180 --> 00:04:23.675 we just let the water fall back down and capture its kinetic energy as it does so 00:04:23.675 --> 00:04:28.659 in turbines which generate electricity, thereby helping to meet the new demand. 00:04:28.659 --> 00:04:31.240 It’s just like charging and discharging a battery, 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:34.222 except the battery is made of water and gravity. 00:04:34.222 --> 00:04:38.351 The biggest problem with this technique is that it is very geography dependent 00:04:38.351 --> 00:04:40.823 and tends to be ecologically destructive 00:04:40.823 --> 00:04:45.121 unless you get a really lucky pair of lakes on a mountainside or something. 00:04:45.121 --> 00:04:47.909 In the case of pumped hydro and other storage, 00:04:47.909 --> 00:04:52.954 we’re taking care of demand fluctuations entirely on the supply side. 00:04:52.954 --> 00:04:54.871 That’s pretty much how it’s always been done, 00:04:54.871 --> 00:04:59.282 and that seems to be the framework that many people are still thinking in. 00:04:59.282 --> 00:05:04.669 There are lots of clever ideas floating around to make energy storage more viable and scalable, 00:05:04.669 --> 00:05:07.556 from towers stacking concrete blocks, 00:05:07.556 --> 00:05:10.102 to molten-salt and flow batteries, 00:05:10.102 --> 00:05:12.759 to massive spinning flywheels. 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:19.760 All of these strive to be a place to put excess energy when we have more or perhaps cleaner generation available 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:22.631 so that it can be used later when we don’t. 00:05:22.631 --> 00:05:26.930 Now of course we don’t have as much storage on the grid as we’d perhaps like, 00:05:26.930 --> 00:05:33.440 so many utilities offer (or in some cases require the use of) tiered rate-structures. 00:05:33.440 --> 00:05:35.959 Again, that’s not a new idea. 00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:37.956 Just ask any British person. 00:05:37.956 --> 00:05:41.941 But in my particular case, I’ve volunteered for an hourly rate 00:05:41.941 --> 00:05:46.543 that’s set based on the cost my utility pays for energy in real-time. 00:05:46.543 --> 00:05:52.380 They offer this to encourage shifting demand away from high-stress periods which cost them more, 00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:57.360 and you could argue they’ve almost gamified it which, honestly, is kinda fun. 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:00.919 This is what a typical summer day looks like on this rate schedule. 00:06:00.919 --> 00:06:07.028 This varies from day to day, and on milder days it often doesn’t even go above 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. 00:06:07.028 --> 00:06:10.485 You can actually see, too, that on particularly windy days 00:06:10.485 --> 00:06:12.737 the rate’s pretty cheap all day. 00:06:12.737 --> 00:06:14.866 We’ve got a lot of wind power around here. 00:06:14.866 --> 00:06:17.851 Now, this isn’t the actual rate I end up paying - 00:06:17.851 --> 00:06:22.065 there is a fixed cost of about 4 cents per kilowatt hour so realistically 00:06:22.065 --> 00:06:25.980 this bottoms out at about between 5 and 7 cents, something like that. 00:06:25.980 --> 00:06:31.768 But that’s still a lot cheaper than in the afternoon where the cost can easily be more than double that. 00:06:31.768 --> 00:06:34.846 Anyway, demand is lowest in the middle of the night 00:06:34.846 --> 00:06:41.897 and at least with today’s energy mix that’s when it costs the utility the least to purchase electricity from its suppliers. 00:06:41.897 --> 00:06:43.865 That’s because with this low demand 00:06:43.865 --> 00:06:48.513 cheap and efficient baseload generation is the only supply that’s needed. 00:06:48.513 --> 00:06:52.309 And, so that I can take advantage of these low rates at night, 00:06:52.309 --> 00:06:58.069 I use a roughly 16 kilowatt-hour battery that I just happen to have lying around. 00:06:58.373 --> 00:07:01.560 I charge it up overnight starting at 10 PM on the dot 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:04.690 and it’s done charging usually by 3 or 4 in the morning. 00:07:04.690 --> 00:07:07.341 I keep it topped off until around 7:00 00:07:07.341 --> 00:07:09.247 and then I start using it during the day 00:07:09.247 --> 00:07:12.675 and it doesn’t need to be recharged again until the evening. 00:07:12.675 --> 00:07:16.547 Now, the reason I just happen to have that battery lying around 00:07:16.547 --> 00:07:19.833 is because that battery is my house. 00:07:19.833 --> 00:07:21.375 Confused? 00:07:21.375 --> 00:07:26.429 Well, who’s to say a battery needs to store electricity? 00:07:26.429 --> 00:07:28.349 Now, before I explain this, 00:07:28.349 --> 00:07:32.259 let me acknowledge that this is somewhat situational and I get that. 00:07:32.259 --> 00:07:34.560 Not every building will be able to do this, 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:37.376 but efforts to make this possible for more people 00:07:37.376 --> 00:07:44.341 could go a long way to providing a massive source of energy storage right now. 00:07:44.341 --> 00:07:46.100 This house is about 10 years old, 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:49.021 is well-insulated, features low-E windows, 00:07:49.021 --> 00:07:51.840 and is shaded by trees in the morning and evening. 00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:54.931 All that means that even on sweltering hot days, 00:07:54.931 --> 00:07:59.024 it takes many hours for the indoor air temperature to rise. 00:07:59.024 --> 00:08:02.446 On a typical summer day, between 6 AM and 10 PM 00:08:02.446 --> 00:08:06.065 the air temperature only goes up by 7 or 8 degrees Fahrenheit, 00:08:06.065 --> 00:08:08.307 or about 4.5 Celsius. 00:08:08.307 --> 00:08:11.727 So, I just don’t cool my home during the day. 00:08:11.727 --> 00:08:13.056 At all. 00:08:13.056 --> 00:08:20.053 I don’t need to, because I charged the battery that is my house by overcooling it at night. 00:08:20.053 --> 00:08:24.684 Sure that might sound odd, but it’s not like I’m living uncomfortably. 00:08:24.684 --> 00:08:26.601 Quite the opposite, in fact. 00:08:26.601 --> 00:08:29.887 For how I like to sleep, which is nice and cool, 00:08:29.887 --> 00:08:32.085 this works out perfectly. 00:08:32.085 --> 00:08:36.005 And even with no cooling from 6:30 AM to 10:00 PM, 00:08:36.005 --> 00:08:39.743 it’s rare that it ever gets above 74 degrees in here. 00:08:39.743 --> 00:08:42.003 That’s 23.3 Celsius. 00:08:42.003 --> 00:08:47.507 This is even on sunny days and with heat from using the stove and oven for cooking. 00:08:47.507 --> 00:08:49.737 If I cool the house off at night, 00:08:49.737 --> 00:08:53.867 I simply don’t need any cooling again until the following evening. 00:08:53.867 --> 00:09:00.000 The worst it has ever gotten in the nearly two years I’ve been doing this is 76 degrees. 00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:03.064 Here’s what my thermostat schedule looks like. 00:09:03.064 --> 00:09:04.190 And before I go on, 00:09:04.190 --> 00:09:09.358 I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting everybody should have this particular strategy. 00:09:09.358 --> 00:09:12.901 I’m just explaining my tactic which is based on pricing. 00:09:12.901 --> 00:09:16.825 However, if you’re in an area that is prone to rolling blackouts, 00:09:16.825 --> 00:09:22.580 you might consider being similarly strategic with when your air conditioner runs during heatwaves. 00:09:22.580 --> 00:09:28.367 Anyway, at 10 PM the set point drops to 70 degrees and the air conditioner comes on. 00:09:28.367 --> 00:09:32.897 On a milder day the air conditioner may be able to satisfy that within three hours, 00:09:32.897 --> 00:09:34.307 giving it a short break. 00:09:34.307 --> 00:09:37.388 But at 1:00AM (which is technically the next day) 00:09:37.388 --> 00:09:42.207 the set point drops again to 66 degrees or 19 Celsius. 00:09:42.207 --> 00:09:43.894 That may seem excessively cold 00:09:43.894 --> 00:09:49.281 but remember my goal here is to offset my entire cooling need of the day. 00:09:49.281 --> 00:09:50.560 And this works! 00:09:50.560 --> 00:09:54.572 I’ve turned this house into a battery, a thermal battery. 00:09:54.572 --> 00:09:57.904 Although since it’s cooler than the outside it’s a negative battery 00:09:57.904 --> 00:09:59.720 but the concept is the same. 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:03.072 Because my utility has provided me with an incentive to do so, 00:10:03.072 --> 00:10:06.945 and since my home is designed and sited well enough to make it possible, 00:10:06.945 --> 00:10:14.255 I’ve successfully shifted all of my cooling demand exclusively to off-peak hours in the middle of the night. 00:10:14.255 --> 00:10:16.700 And I do mean all. 00:10:16.700 --> 00:10:24.000 At 6:30 in the morning the set point goes to 70 before going up to 77 (that’s 25 celsius) at 11. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:27.213 I’ve done that just in case there’s an unusually hot evening 00:10:27.213 --> 00:10:29.699 and the temperature rises quickly in the morning, 00:10:29.699 --> 00:10:35.630 but I’ve yet to encounter a day where the AC actually comes back on between 6:30 and 11:00. 00:10:35.630 --> 00:10:38.582 The indoor temperature just doesn’t rise that fast, 00:10:38.582 --> 00:10:43.700 meaning that all my cooling happens between the hours of 10:00 PM and 6:30 AM. 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:48.553 Here’s what that usage looks like according to my thermostat over a variety of days. 00:10:48.553 --> 00:10:53.488 On July 6 and 7 the temperatures were near 90, or 32 Celsius 00:10:53.488 --> 00:10:57.313 and didn’t drop below 70 or 21 Celsius at night, 00:10:57.313 --> 00:11:00.901 yet just over 7 hours of cooling in the middle of the night 00:11:00.901 --> 00:11:07.284 kept the indoor temperature from ever getting above a comfortable 75. (24 C). 00:11:07.284 --> 00:11:10.472 Of course, it’s not like this doesn’t have any downsides. 00:11:10.472 --> 00:11:13.369 Mornings are pretty chilly in here, 00:11:13.369 --> 00:11:18.801 and when it’s humid enough outside I wake up to windows that I can’t see out of 00:11:18.801 --> 00:11:21.558 because they’re all fogged up on the outside surface. 00:11:21.558 --> 00:11:25.900 This also means I don’t get any dehumidification except overnight, 00:11:25.900 --> 00:11:29.966 although I’ve always needed to run a separate dehumidifier in the basement 00:11:29.966 --> 00:11:32.903 because it’s just so forking humid here. 00:11:32.903 --> 00:11:36.571 And although my HVAC system won’t cool during the day, 00:11:36.571 --> 00:11:42.471 I do have it run a fan schedule so it circulates the air around for 15 minutes every hour. 00:11:42.471 --> 00:11:49.240 That, combined with the dehumidifier, keeps indoor humidity below 60% even on rainy days. 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:52.481 And because I’m a Midwesterner through and through, 00:11:52.481 --> 00:11:57.413 the dehumidifier is on a timer which will disable it during the worst of the peak hours, 00:11:57.413 --> 00:11:59.700 between 1 PM and 8 PM. 00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:03.282 I mean the pulls 500 watts and that’s not nothing! 00:12:03.282 --> 00:12:06.932 That timer probably saves me $0.40 a day. 00:12:06.932 --> 00:12:11.169 But honestly, it’s not just the cost savings that motivate me to do this. 00:12:11.169 --> 00:12:16.909 I mean, it’s certainly fantastic that even with an electric car and plenty of cooling 00:12:16.909 --> 00:12:20.121 my power bills rarely go over $150. 00:12:20.121 --> 00:12:24.436 And that’s also with a conventional electric water heater and clothes dryer 00:12:24.436 --> 00:12:26.497 (heat pump units coming soon). 00:12:26.497 --> 00:12:31.847 But sentimental me simply enjoys the knowledge that when the power grid is working its guts out 00:12:31.847 --> 00:12:36.089 to meet the demand of my neighbors, I’m not making that any worse. 00:12:36.089 --> 00:12:41.147 For most of the day the biggest consumer of power in this house is the fridge. 00:12:41.147 --> 00:12:43.201 And the dehumidifier... 00:12:43.201 --> 00:12:45.296 But not between one and eight! 00:12:45.296 --> 00:12:50.286 Now I know that one idle air conditioner among millions isn’t doing anything. 00:12:50.286 --> 00:12:53.852 But that’s why the utility offers this rate plan. 00:12:53.852 --> 00:12:57.505 They hope they can get some of the more adventurous people to sign up for it, 00:12:57.505 --> 00:13:01.195 shifting demand away from the times it can be hard to meet. 00:13:01.195 --> 00:13:05.206 If you do it like I’m doing it, you're creating energy storage! 00:13:05.206 --> 00:13:07.836 I said my house is a 16 kilowatt-hour battery. 00:13:07.836 --> 00:13:13.874 Here’s how - my 2.5 ton air conditioner consumes about 2.2 kilowatts when it's running. 00:13:13.874 --> 00:13:18.469 Over 7 and a half hours that’s just shy of 16 kilowatt hours. 00:13:18.469 --> 00:13:23.706 I used all of that energy in the middle of the night so that I wouldn’t need it during the day, 00:13:23.706 --> 00:13:28.188 and as far as I’m concerned that’s the same exact idea as energy storage. 00:13:28.188 --> 00:13:32.276 Pulling energy now when you have it so that you don’t need it later. 00:13:32.276 --> 00:13:36.963 So now let’s tie this back to the idea of load-side energy management. 00:13:36.963 --> 00:13:42.097 Utilities are increasingly offering schemes similar to the AC lockouts of the past, 00:13:42.097 --> 00:13:44.470 but utilizing smart thermostats. 00:13:44.470 --> 00:13:46.984 For some sort of discount or other incentive, 00:13:46.984 --> 00:13:52.973 you can grant your utility access to your thermostat remotely so they can shed load when necessary 00:13:52.973 --> 00:13:56.703 without entirely shutting off the power to your neighborhood. 00:13:56.703 --> 00:13:58.976 I mean that alone is good, 00:13:58.976 --> 00:14:02.032 but the trouble is that’s a reactive approach. 00:14:02.032 --> 00:14:08.720 And when you see headlines like this, loudly shouting that the utility raised your thermostat temperature ohmigod, 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:12.134 well of course that’s gonna make people leery of the idea. 00:14:12.134 --> 00:14:13.859 But here’s the thing. 00:14:13.859 --> 00:14:19.040 We can forecast electrical demand because we can forecast the weather. 00:14:19.040 --> 00:14:24.030 That also means we can forecast generation output of renewable sources. 00:14:24.030 --> 00:14:26.661 I mean, this flexible rate structure that I’m on? 00:14:26.661 --> 00:14:29.799 Those prices are determined a day ahead. 00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:33.338 We like to make fun of meteorologists for getting stuff wrong 00:14:33.338 --> 00:14:38.476 but you gotta admit we’ve got the next day pretty well figured out at this point. 00:14:38.476 --> 00:14:42.932 And rather than simply shedding load when the grid gets close to capacity, 00:14:42.932 --> 00:14:48.890 a smarter idea is to proactively take on loads before that even happens. 00:14:48.890 --> 00:14:55.805 What these energy management programs should do is recognize when there will be a lack of supply in the afternoon, 00:14:55.805 --> 00:14:57.692 and in the time leading up to that, 00:14:57.692 --> 00:15:02.610 they should remotely *lower* the thermostats of the people who are signed up for them. 00:15:02.787 --> 00:15:06.876 That will store some energy exactly how I’m doing it now. 00:15:06.876 --> 00:15:10.328 I’m not saying they should set the thermostat as far down as I do, 00:15:10.328 --> 00:15:12.959 and besides that won’t make cooling happen faster - 00:15:12.959 --> 00:15:15.302 you’re limited to the system’s capacity. 00:15:15.302 --> 00:15:20.445 But lowering it a few degrees in the hours leading up to a forecasted energy shortfall 00:15:20.445 --> 00:15:26.183 can buy a few hours of time where no cooling is needed by those customers, 00:15:26.183 --> 00:15:31.179 or at the very least lessen the felt impact of a period with restricted cooling. 00:15:31.179 --> 00:15:34.011 And of course we can apply this tactic to heating as well, 00:15:34.011 --> 00:15:36.186 assuming your heat source is electric. 00:15:36.186 --> 00:15:37.872 Heat pumps for the win. 00:15:37.872 --> 00:15:40.450 If it’s looking like there’s gonna be an energy dry spell 00:15:40.450 --> 00:15:42.074 thanks to lack of wind output 00:15:42.074 --> 00:15:47.537 or even something as simple as everyone getting home and starting to cook dinner in the same three hour window 00:15:47.537 --> 00:15:50.661 (that’s a large part of why this time is so expensive), 00:15:50.661 --> 00:15:54.891 well just bump the thermostat up a few degrees an hour or two beforehand, 00:15:54.891 --> 00:15:58.759 and store that energy in the form of deferred need. 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:03.240 And now that is literal energy storage - in the form of heat energy. 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:07.389 This could be a lot smarter than how we manage energy right now. 00:16:07.389 --> 00:16:12.070 Take for example the very idea of programmable thermostats. 00:16:12.070 --> 00:16:14.963 They’re great at saving energy for the individual 00:16:14.963 --> 00:16:18.983 by altering the setpoints when nobody’s at home or in the office. 00:16:18.983 --> 00:16:23.645 But a huge portion of us all leave home and return at similar times, 00:16:23.645 --> 00:16:30.610 so utilities have to deal with millions of air conditioners all starting back up in the same hour. 00:16:30.610 --> 00:16:34.319 Actively tweaking the set points based upon available energy 00:16:34.319 --> 00:16:38.029 could do an awful lot to ease these challenges of the grid. 00:16:38.029 --> 00:16:42.871 And, in case you haven’t already realized it, this is a great way to take advantage 00:16:42.871 --> 00:16:46.598 and increase the practicality of wind and solar power. 00:16:46.598 --> 00:16:50.370 One particular issue with solar power is the duck curve. 00:16:50.370 --> 00:16:53.965 This is what we call the challenge of solar output falling to zero 00:16:53.965 --> 00:16:56.779 right as energy demand starts to peak. 00:16:56.779 --> 00:17:00.269 A large criticism of solar power is this very problem - 00:17:00.269 --> 00:17:04.437 without storage other plants will need to start up to take on this load, 00:17:04.437 --> 00:17:06.663 many of which are natural gas. 00:17:06.663 --> 00:17:11.372 But what if we simply ran everybody’s AC when the sun was abundant? 00:17:11.372 --> 00:17:15.679 Assuming the buildings are somewhat modern, well-insulated, and have good windows, 00:17:15.679 --> 00:17:18.324 there’s some energy storage right there. 00:17:18.324 --> 00:17:20.940 Cool it now so that when people get home, 00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:23.418 it’s a few degrees colder than what they set it to, 00:17:23.418 --> 00:17:26.933 and they won’t need to run the air conditioner for a few hours. 00:17:26.933 --> 00:17:32.408 And in fact some utilities are already doing this sort of planning ahead and not simply reacting to 00:17:32.408 --> 00:17:34.602 "oops we’re running out of juice!" 00:17:34.602 --> 00:17:36.223 And good for them. 00:17:36.223 --> 00:17:38.294 And here’s the best thing. 00:17:38.294 --> 00:17:42.825 Because so many of us have already installed smart thermostats of our own accord, 00:17:42.825 --> 00:17:46.178 this is possible at scale NOW. 00:17:46.178 --> 00:17:50.399 Sure, some people aren’t gonna be thrilled with the idea for various reasons, but 00:17:50.399 --> 00:17:52.945 they don’t have to participate if they don’t want to. 00:17:52.945 --> 00:17:55.761 And besides, if this is managed well-enough, 00:17:55.761 --> 00:17:58.225 you might not even be able to notice it. 00:17:58.225 --> 00:18:02.712 If my utility offered something like this I would definitely sign up for it, 00:18:02.712 --> 00:18:07.828 but as it is I’m able to offset the entire day’s cooling need to off-peak hours 00:18:07.828 --> 00:18:10.389 and I’m very pleased to continue doing that. 00:18:10.389 --> 00:18:14.796 Our local energy mix still favors shifting demand to the middle of the night, 00:18:14.796 --> 00:18:22.105 and that ends up utilizing a fair bit of nuclear power so in theory the carbon emissions from my air conditioning are fairly low. 00:18:22.105 --> 00:18:23.797 Which feels nice. 00:18:23.797 --> 00:18:28.390 Now of course, this is not “The One Thing That'll Fix the Grid!” 00:18:28.390 --> 00:18:31.884 A heatwave like the pacific northwest just experienced 00:18:31.884 --> 00:18:35.298 is gonna make everybody’s air conditioners run constantly. 00:18:35.298 --> 00:18:39.598 Well, the people who are fortunate enough to have one in the first place. 00:18:39.877 --> 00:18:43.492 And we’ll run into the same problems in extreme cold. 00:18:43.492 --> 00:18:48.315 But I think this idea has a lot of potential and that we should be using it. 00:18:48.315 --> 00:18:53.479 With such granular control over some of the largest loads present on a power system, 00:18:53.479 --> 00:19:00.625 we can optimize for just about any situation all without impacting individual comfort beyond a few degrees. 00:19:00.625 --> 00:19:07.177 And frankly if you can’t tolerate your thermostat being bumped up or down a couple of degrees for the benefit of your neighbors, 00:19:07.177 --> 00:19:10.104 well I don’t think we’d be very good friends. 00:19:10.104 --> 00:19:15.244 It’s worth pointing out that although this idea may not work in many older homes and buildings 00:19:15.244 --> 00:19:19.317 (for example it certainly would not have worked where I used to live) 00:19:19.317 --> 00:19:23.219 retrofitting these structures with better windows and more insulation 00:19:23.219 --> 00:19:27.559 will do a heckuva lot to reduce our energy needs in the first place 00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:31.799 in addition to making them better candidates for this energy storage idea. 00:19:31.799 --> 00:19:36.477 I’d also like to point out that my parents are utilizing the same strategy that I am, 00:19:36.477 --> 00:19:39.530 in fact they’ve been doing it for nearly a decade, 00:19:39.530 --> 00:19:42.521 and their house isn’t nearly as shaded as mine. 00:19:42.521 --> 00:19:44.076 Plus it’s a little older. 00:19:44.076 --> 00:19:46.875 Yet the idea still works for them. 00:19:46.875 --> 00:19:52.639 They’re only limited by the fact that their home’s air conditioner is a little bit undersized, 00:19:52.639 --> 00:19:59.066 so even starting at 8 PM it sometimes can’t get the house down to even 68 by the next morning. 00:19:59.066 --> 00:20:03.904 But the time it takes to rise back up is pretty much the same as in my home, 00:20:03.904 --> 00:20:07.871 even though their house is in direct sunlight for many hours daily. 00:20:07.871 --> 00:20:10.533 Insulation is pretty neat stuff. 00:20:10.533 --> 00:20:17.321 In fact better building design with concepts like the passive house are also great areas of interest. 00:20:17.321 --> 00:20:19.854 However, that’s a different topic altogether. 00:20:19.854 --> 00:20:23.618 This is about more wisely using what we have now. 00:20:23.618 --> 00:20:28.451 I also want to touch on the fact that if we decide this idea is worth pursuing, 00:20:28.451 --> 00:20:34.199 we probably should reevaluate how we determine HVAC system capacity. 00:20:34.199 --> 00:20:39.609 An ideally-sized system won’t be able to drop or raise the temperature quickly. 00:20:39.609 --> 00:20:42.297 In the case of air conditioning this is on purpose 00:20:42.297 --> 00:20:48.502 because short-cycling can reduce the life of components and doesn’t provide much dehumidification. 00:20:48.502 --> 00:20:54.331 But these sizing guidelines are all based on more-or-less constant thermostat set points, 00:20:54.331 --> 00:21:00.684 so 3 hours of continuous cooling may only drop the temperature by 3 or 4 degrees. 00:21:00.684 --> 00:21:04.360 With the advent of multi-stage and variable capacity systems, 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:07.362 we can have the best of both worlds these days, 00:21:07.362 --> 00:21:13.883 and so if we are going to start using a building’s thermal mass as a source of energy storage at a large scale, 00:21:13.883 --> 00:21:17.563 oversizing HVAC systems might be wise. 00:21:17.563 --> 00:21:21.170 We’re probably going to want to do that anyway with these deadly heat waves we’re getting 00:21:21.398 --> 00:21:22.724 for some reason. 00:21:23.332 --> 00:21:26.862 We should also discuss, because I’m sure I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t, 00:21:26.862 --> 00:21:31.182 ideas such as storage heaters and ice storage air conditioning. 00:21:31.182 --> 00:21:36.822 These are technologies that allow us to store heating and cooling energy but with a bit more control. 00:21:36.822 --> 00:21:42.959 Ice storage air conditioning involves freezing a large volume of water into a giant block of ice 00:21:42.959 --> 00:21:45.745 when electricity is cheap and/or available, 00:21:45.745 --> 00:21:55.372 and a series of pipes traveling through this ice block slash water bath reject heat picked up in a building’s air handlers and put it into the ice. 00:21:55.372 --> 00:22:01.230 Over the course of a day it melts providing active cooling while using very little energy. 00:22:01.230 --> 00:22:06.477 The biggest benefit, of course, is that you retain most or all of the temperature control 00:22:06.477 --> 00:22:08.575 while using minimal energy. 00:22:08.575 --> 00:22:13.202 Typically these systems are only found in large commercial buildings, however. 00:22:13.202 --> 00:22:15.205 Then there are storage heaters. 00:22:15.205 --> 00:22:17.239 These have been around for a long time, 00:22:17.239 --> 00:22:22.030 with notable use in Britain during the Economy 7 energy tariff period. 00:22:22.030 --> 00:22:24.725 During overnight hours when electricity is cheaper, 00:22:24.725 --> 00:22:29.950 electric heating elements heat up something like a stack of bricks in an insulated box. 00:22:29.950 --> 00:22:36.110 Then during the day, the box is opened allowing the heat from the hot bricks or whatever to escape. 00:22:36.110 --> 00:22:38.726 Stupidly simple yet very effective. 00:22:38.726 --> 00:22:41.396 Though some may say inelegant. 00:22:41.396 --> 00:22:46.570 But anyway, the point is there are a lot of ways we could be implementing energy storage 00:22:46.570 --> 00:22:52.230 on the grid that don’t actually involve storing energy on the grid itself. 00:22:52.230 --> 00:22:56.482 The biggest consumers of electrical energy will always be pretty predictable, 00:22:56.482 --> 00:23:02.720 and although some of the energy technologies we’re likely to rely on as the decade progresses are intermittent, 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:05.280 they are pretty predictable, too. 00:23:05.280 --> 00:23:08.369 While I certainly think there’s a lot more work to be done, 00:23:08.369 --> 00:23:12.780 I hope that this video has made you a little more optimistic about the future. 00:23:12.780 --> 00:23:17.414 There’s more we can do right now than perhaps you ever thought. 00:23:17.693 --> 00:23:19.232 Thanks for watching. 00:23:20.034 --> 00:23:22.777 ♫ proactively smooth jazz ♫ 00:23:24.374 --> 00:23:26.104 (weird mouth noises) 00:23:26.104 --> 00:23:27.443 This is going pretty well. 00:23:27.443 --> 00:23:32.400 This is what happens when you actually rehearse by reading the script beforehand. 00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:36.527 And if done correctly, we can tap into a huge amoun... 00:23:36.527 --> 00:23:37.817 shoot! 00:23:37.817 --> 00:23:40.473 That probably wasn't audible, but whatever. 00:23:40.473 --> 00:23:43.023 My.. my toe, it clicked. 00:23:43.023 --> 00:23:44.968 ...doing this for a very long time. 00:23:44.968 --> 00:23:47.034 Just more crudely. 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:48.230 Crood-i-lee. 00:23:48.610 --> 00:23:49.157 Crood-i-lee. 00:23:49.157 --> 00:23:50.724 Did I say it like that? 00:23:50.724 --> 00:23:54.044 Well I'm not sure so I'm gonna record it again! 00:23:54.044 --> 00:23:57.211 I charge it up overnight starting at about 10:00P - no! 00:23:57.211 --> 00:23:57.711 It's not "about!" 00:23:57.711 --> 00:23:59.221 Stop it! Stop it! 00:23:59.474 --> 00:24:03.806 ...sentimental me simply enjoys the knowledge that when the power grid is working. 00:24:04.541 --> 00:24:06.099 Its guts out. 00:24:07.392 --> 00:24:07.892 PBBBTTPT 00:24:10.065 --> 00:24:12.197 So, neat idea, huh? 00:24:12.197 --> 00:24:14.193 Oh I bet the comments will be interesting. 00:24:14.193 --> 00:24:17.477 "I'D NEVER LET SOMEONE WHO ISN'T ME MAKE MINOR ADJUSTMENTS TO MY INDIVIDUAL COMFORT 00:24:17.477 --> 00:24:23.531 THAT'S AN AFFRONT TO MY GOD-GIVEN CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO LIVE UNCOOPERATIVELY AS IF SOCIETY ISN'T REAL AND INTERCONNECTED" 00:24:23.531 --> 00:24:48.419 Stuff like that.