Can we talk? See how GE’s smart grid communicates
In our story yesterday about the smart grid symposium hosted by GE at its Global Research Center, the focus was on a flurry of new smart grid projects — and the breakthrough in energy savings that can be achieved with the GE’s “Net Zero Energy Home” by using smart technologies in tandem. Today, we’d like to take you on a smart grid technology tour with videos that our Reporter at Large, Vivek Kemp, shot during yesterday’s event. In the first video, GE’s Juan de Bedout explains how the complex, industrial scale systems — such as those that will be used by power companies — will talk to the technologies on the consumer side. As Juan says, “The challenge here is that all of this ’stuff’ needs to work together to achieve a system level benefit.”
For most people, what will be front and center in a smart grid world will be the technologies that will become commonplace in the home. In the next video, GE’s Mark Brian — who is part of a smart grid pilot program with his local utility in Kentucky — explains how he has been interacting with smart technologies on a daily basis in his own home for the last eight months as part of the project. “What’s been a real eye-opener for me,” Mark says, “is that I quickly discovered that the dryer was the worst offender in the house, next to the HVAC system.”
In our last video, GE’s Kevin Nolan explains just how the appliances, such as those that Brian is using in the smart grid pilot program, actually translate into lower energy costs through so-called “time of use pricing.” “We want to make sure that consumers have control over their electricity bills,” Kevin says. “What we have here are appliances that will be able to know what the electricity rates are and be able to change their behavior — really, without the consumer having to do anything.”
Finally, when it comes to GE’s new zero energy home concept, the diagram below sums up just how all of the different smart grid technologies designed for home use can work together to substantially reduce energy costs.
Smartening up the place: Click on the image above to expand the view to see how everything from smart meters to small wind turbines can link up to save energy.
Check out coverage of GE’s symposium on these sites:
* GE Reports
* Cnet
* Seeking Alpha
* MIT Technology Review
* Green Tech Media
* Fortune magazine
* The Associated Press
* Reuters
* The Albany Times-Union
* The Schenectady Daily Gazette
* Learn more about the net zero energy home
* Learn more about our smart grid poll and new smart grid projects
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I’m an electrical engineer and I feel this is the way of the future. This is fantastic technology. I used to work at Maytag in the laundry appliance controller design group. I wish they pursued more of this type technology there. Keep up the great work and we’ll all get there with Net Zero homes.
I’m excited that major appliance manufacturers are starting to consider energy saving technologies for the next generation consumer products!
Energy conservation is going to play a major role worldwide as demand for energy increases exponentially due to the rising economic status of several third world nations.
As a strong supporter of technology, you can be assured that I’ll be first in line when Smart Metering and other Smart Grid technologies become available in my area!
Thank you for your continued efforts in this critical area of technology!
What happened to the fuel cell hardware and process to use natural gas to turn into electricity?
Why didnt you include the fuel cell technology using natural gas to be converted into electricity on site?
While working at Southern California Gas company in 2000, there was a fuel cell project in the technology department that would develop 11 MW of electricity using PEM procedures.
I am looking for smart meters which could detect if some tries to bridge or put a short across the meter, for the reason of stealing electricity. Also the meter should be able to communicate and inform a monitoring station, the mornitering station should be able to send a signal which can turn off the power to that particular smart meter to that only house being suppled iby that particular meter.
I’m looking for an Ernegy Meter that functions on a very economic technology and easy to use ,for customers that have been by passing Pre paid meters and thereby revenue losses incurred ,basically we want a meter that will revive revenue and be impossible to by pass