![]() And that energy trading market is worth multiple trillions of dollars, which means billions are easily up for grabs if you can help traders increase their profits by just a few percentage points.įinally, detecting weather patterns matters not only for the grid. to detect usage (PDF report). Now Genscape is recognized as having some of the best information about the grid, and traders are buying it to make better trades. Genscape, of Louisville, Kentucky, started ten years ago to collect power supply information by placing sensors around on power lines across the U.S. There are already some data-collection companies reportedly making a killing off of the need for better grid data. ![]() Solar production, likewise, waxes and wanes with the sunlight, and could benefit from more precise forecasts. Instead, they use traditional, dirtier, carbon-based energy sources which they can turn on and off as needed.īut now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is pushing for more efficient use of renewables like wind, and so there’s now an urgent need to figure out how to predict wind patterns. The operators of central grids, called ISOs, which transmit energy across the grid to utilities, tend to play it safe - and hence shy away from such unreliable supplies. Take wind power: Even when the wind is blowing hard, no one can predict when it will suddenly die down. Right now, the integration of renewable energy into our grid is extremely inefficient. Better data will allow a cleaner response, too. It doesn’t take much to envision the future: a live Super Grid, pulsing with knowledge about how to respond to real-world conditions in real time, delivering just the energy we need at the moment we need it Everyone wins: utilities, consumers, and the environment.Īnd this is just the beginning of the data story. And sensors at our homes, perhaps hooked up to the same network as smart meters, could feed local weather data back into the grid and refine forecasts. Smart controls and dashboards at our homes and business would be programmed to respond automatically, in this case by turning on air conditioners before we come home - and gradually, rather than all at once at the end of rush hour. Is the day suddenly getting much hotter than expected? Well, if PG&E were to know that, it could send alerts to its customers immediately. ![]() This ultramodern Super Grid, as we’ve called it, allows immediate and efficient response to new information - and as such, makes the response to new data about weather even more important. Over time, this information network will grow in power and complexity, morphing from a mere smart grid into something that could put the virtual world of the Matrix to shame: Industry giants and young, disruptive tech companies are busy building it right now. PG&E, Northern California’s largest utility has been deploying thousands of smart meters a day, networking residents and businesses to its power-generation infrastructure with two-way communications. utilities have been leading the world in rolling out smarter electrical grids. Over the past couple of years, giant U.S. That startup, if it were to ever emerge, could potentially upend the opaque and confusing multi-trillion-dollar energy markets, which have long been rife with manipulation from a few well-placed insiders and traders. The innovator who manages to aggregate key data about weather patterns and then generates a killer algorithm from that data to predict weather and how it affects our grid, stands to make a massive amount of money - as do the investors who back that person.
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