Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Smart Grid, a step toward cloud electricity.

By cloud electricity I don’t mean generating electricity from clouds. I mean something similar to cloud computing, where we share, resource and computing power. So will be in a few decades the case to electricity and the first step is smart grid. Smart grid uses information to make decision on how to distribute energy, rate energy and also retrieve energy. I won’t go into details on what a smart gird is, rather I will try to explain why I think this is a step towards cloud electricity and what made me think so. Cloud computing as I said is a way to optimize software use and its resource. Similarly smart grid , also tries to do the same. It will transmit energy, whenever its required, and store when not. This will reduce transmission loss, energy theft etc. But what really made me think it as a cloud was the receiver will also act as a generator. Say you have a hybrid car, which is plugged into your home. This car might have excess of energy, hence during peak hours like evening, the smart gird, will take energy from your car and supply it to your home and where its required. What do you think about that?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

see.... if the the concept of wi-fi electricity could be associated with it.

Deba said...

there is wireless electricity using resonance, which will reduce loss, not sure if in power distribution its feasible, Nikola Tesla also tried it , you can google about it

Unknown said...

The storage of power in the grid would be a problem to surmount. I like the idea of continual distribution rather... and a feedback loop to the generation side for anticipated peak demands.

Right now, data storage in cloud computing environments is somewhat addressed (GVFS and such other filesystems).

Also that you talk about Tesla, watch the movie "The Prestige". Might like it...

Deba said...

@biswa, where else did you think i first heard about Tesla's, wireless elec. Yup i did like the movie :-). Also instead of storing electricity, how about reducing the generation. I know storing has always been a problem. These are thoughts though, let see how far i can go, i mean accenture does consulting in this domain, maybe i can get in this sector, lets see, i doubt this will happen

Unknown said...

Yep, reducing generation would be the key... that is why and anticipatory feedback loop from the distribution entity to the generation entity would be necessary.

But here the distribution grid would span all circuits connected to the grid!! Would be a mammoth challenge to design that feedback system!! :-)