191–200 of 218 posts
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Do you trust the software industry to keep others' from turning off your refrigerator for the lulz?
Sensible price conscious refrigeration control would just be different temperature targets based on the price, not turning off the system. If l33t d00dz wanna make my milk one degree warmer, it's not a big deal.
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> And that need standards for things like communication protocols. All that is needed is a way to get the spot price of electricity from the internet, similar to how I can get the current temperature in Anchorage. Devices don't need to talk to the power grid.
Moving electricity is "hard" so effectively there are many marketplaces in which the spot price is different. A natural design that's been considered/proposed is to get that info directly from the power utility itself.
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> And that need standards for things like communication protocols. All that is needed is a way to get the spot price of electricity from the internet, similar to how I can get the current temperature in Anchorage. Devices don't need to talk to the power grid.
If you're going to be billed by the minute, presumably you won't be taking meter readings manually, so your meter will be connected to some sort of communications network anyway. And if you're /not/ getting billed by the minute, what's in it for the buyer to choose an AC that sometimes turns itself off?
Of course, the power company having billing by the minute will then create the incentive for such an A/C. That's the whole point!
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It's a different beast. The price is high during those 15 minutes because of supply and demand. If you implement a smart grid that regulate load, you upset the supply and demand balance and the power might become so cheap that new self regulating systems are not worth the initial cost.
Once the smart-device interface is properly defined and the software is written, the hardware cost should not be a problem. You will end up with some kind of "smart device" router that connects to your internet/home network to talk to the power company, and uses a commodity wifi interface to talk to your smart devices. The cost of an ESP8266 is already sub-$7 at hobbyist volumes, you can expect the additional hardwar…
Musk really does seem to be following his pattern of maximally engaging government contracts and subsidies. (That's not necessarily a criticism, just an observation, and one others have made before.)
More corporate welfare for the Corporate Welfare Queen.
Southern California Edison is a subsidiary of a publicly traded energy company.. Where exactly is the subsidy here?
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Sensible price conscious refrigeration control would just be different temperature targets based on the price, not turning off the system. If l33t d00dz wanna make my milk one degree warmer, it's not a big deal.
You overestimate programming ability; people will find a way to fuck up.
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Because the world we live in has certain types of people -- politicians, lawyers, business executives -- that don't solve problems for the world as in, "what is the most efficient way to accomplish this;" rather, they solve problems as in, "what is the most efficient way I can enrich myself. I guess it's maybe rational in a self-interested way--no longer do we live in a world of many competing tribes advancing oursel…
> certain types of people -- politicians, lawyers, business executives I forgot how altruistic software engineers, web developers and IT consultants were.
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Moving electricity is "hard" so effectively there are many marketplaces in which the spot price is different. A natural design that's been considered/proposed is to get that info directly from the power utility itself.
If I can get the temperature online for my neighborhood (I can), then how can it be hard to get the local spot electricity price online? I don't see anything unnatural or difficult about this. No infrastructure changes are needed.
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This was brought up in a Fresh Air interview I listened to recently. Nowadays most of our devices use DC, and our grid is also on the verge of becoming much less centralized. You could reap some easy efficiency gains by omitting the DC-AC-DC conversion of a solar panel powering a house that charges a laptop.
DC sucks for transmission over more than a few meters. I'm thinking, even in a house, you still want AC in the walls.