From Andrew Colin
Much could be done to mitigate the problem of intermittent energy sources,
since some uses of power are more urgent than others. At one extreme,
life-support machines, air traffic control systems and so on need uninterrupted
power. At the other extreme you’d hardly notice an outage of several hours in a
domestic storage heater.
Wind power suppliers could vary the price of energy inversely with the amount
currently available: windy days would mean cheap power, calm days would mean
expensive electricity. With the changing price transmitted minute by minute to
your home, you would be in a position to choose which of your devices to
run.
In practice, your electricity meter would be replaced with a small computer
that received the cost information as digital signals on the power line, and
could switch devices on and off as required. Equipment could be separated into
categories with rules like “keep running at any cost” or “switch off when the
cost rises above x pence per kilowatt-hour”.
Intelligent and informed use of power could do much to bring supply and
demand better into line with each other, and reduce the need for back-up
supplies.
Advertisement
Glasgow
