THE 8th ANNUAL YEAR IN IDEAS; Smart Grids.
In: New York Times Magazine, 2008-12-14, S. 72-72
serialPeriodical
Zugriff:
In March, Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based power utility, announced plans to build the country's first city-scale ''smart grid'' in Boulder, Colo. It's a response to what economists would call a tragedy of the commons: people use as much energy as they are willing to pay for, without giving any thought to how their use affects the overall amount of energy available. And because traditional power grids are ''dumb'' -- that is, there's no way to monitor power use once it leaves the station -- utilities err on the side of oversupply, which wastes energy and harms the environment. Enter Xcel's $100 million initiative, called SmartGridCity, a set of technologies that give both energy providers and their customers more control over power consumption. It relies on a network of fiber-optic cables, high-tech meters and sensor-laden transformers to provide power stations with real-time data on demand all along the grid, allowing them to fine-tune the electrical supply, detect failing equipment and predict overloads. Consumers, through a Web-enabled control panel in their homes, are able to regulate their energy consumption more closely -- for example, setting their A.C. system to automatically reduce power use during peak hours. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
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THE 8th ANNUAL YEAR IN IDEAS; Smart Grids.
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | CLAY, RISEN |
Zeitschrift: | New York Times Magazine, 2008-12-14, S. 72-72 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2008 |
Medientyp: | serialPeriodical |
ISSN: | 0028-7822 (print) |
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