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GreggBadichekFirstEssay 10 - 07 Apr 2017 - Main.GreggBadichek
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> | Revision 10 is unreadable | |
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Smart Grid Technology and Privacy: Where to Look and Where to Begin
-- By GreggBadichek - 04 Nov 2015
Introduction
Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumers; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and, as "Internet of Things" architecture, would contain information similar to that sent out by the average American "smart phone" thousands of times daily.[1] The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household. That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, promoting consumer control over energy;[2] but what of consumer control over information?
Economics of the Smart Grid
Smart grids will severely reduce demand at the retail level. Utilities selling energy on a smart grid will thus need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss in hourly power sales. Utilities will need to shift from volumetric kilowatt-per-hour sales to fixed monthly costs based on peak-period usage.[3] Peak-period demand rates will more accurately reflect the demand the user places on the system, allowing the utility a reasonable cost-recovery without increased sale volume. Consumers meanwhile can lessen their peak-demand with smart grid tech, ultimately decreasing their rates and the stress they place on the distribution system.
Decoupling volumetric sales from rate recovery and capital reinvestment will move utilities to performance and reliability-based rate recovery. A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with greater precision than ever before.
Current Legal Approaches
Data Control
A solution to privacy problems arising from data control would require anonymization of that data in the long-term. In other words, prohibition on storage of personally-identifying metrics that could show trends over time. That information would likely serve utilities desiring to improve their service, but would cost users privacy that they did not intend to sell. Utilities currently use volumetric data to predict trends more rudimentarily.
A legal regime would therefore either require significant disclosure to users that their information may be so retained. Currently, “internet of things” technology provides wholly ineffectual disclosures, so it is difficult to determine that smart-grid disclosures would be useful. A more successful solution might require utilities to display the precise data that it collects on a regular basis, and field consumer complaints before a fact-finding ALJ.
So long as the operative software on the smart-grid remains obscure, consumers will never be able to understand how their data is collected. As utilities are part of a regulatory compact, and this software intimately affects consumers' lives, the code should be made reviewable under government order. A greater number of reviewers will detect privacy problems and solutions more effectively than the utility alone. Thereafter legal challenges against privacy invasions will gradually create a regulatory regime.
Law Enforcement
Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, information collected via smart meter communications and retained by utility companies lacks constitutional protection against warrantless search and seizure; placement in the hands of a Third Party essentially removes the reasonable expectation of privacy underlying that protection.[4] Law enforcement officials, of course, use utility records frequently in criminal investigations. The utility to investigators of data poured into the smart grid would dwarf that of the dumb grid.
Еhe Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), indicated that the traditional distinction between reasonable and unreasonable expectations of privacy is obsolete in the digital context, where the bulk of private data is digital, and flows to countless third parties. Legal challenges to warrantless collection of smart grid data should therefore seize upon the Court’s language. The Fourth Amendment argument, specifically, would likely focus on this data’s total representation of activities in the home—the very raison d’ętre of the Fourth Amendment.
The Future
Current legal approaches are insufficient. It is a categorical error to imagine the smart grid as an unremarkable element of the "Internet of Things." The smart grid does not merely offer convenience in exchange for data. Ubiquitous dumb infrastructure on which most rely is ripe for smart reformatting, and the lack of wide-scale distributed renewable energy in the near future mean that centralized grid(s) featuring incentives such as smart metering, in conjunction with somewhat limited distributed energy generation, will appear soon.[5] Consumers will not have a say in that. Yet the legal regimes now chasing electron flows are not designed to facilitate user privacy. We must ask whether the end points, consumer homes, will serve the consumer. Serving the consumer requires consumer discretion in regards to how software absorbs and transmits their information. But this market is not like Facebook: on the one hand, providers must be able to improve the smart-grid, particularly in early stages; on the other hand, consumers cannot “opt out” of smart grid use if their service area-utility uses that technology.
Rate-return mechanisms and data-driven, consumer-owned energy routers as smart as the grid would put us on the right path. Volumetric pricing creates cost distortions, where utilities are encouraged to increase electricity sales and use consumer data to that end. An alternative is rate return based on peak-load, aggregate demand monthly, and implementation data-driven, consumer-owned energy routing machines that maintain data in the home. Consumer data could therefore serve distributed generation goals and net metering, without necessarily flowing to others on the grid. These simple steps would reveal no more user data than does the current dumb-grid regime.
[1] The Smart Grid and Privacy, Electronic Information Privacy Center. https://epic.org/privacy/smartgrid/smartgrid.html
[2] What is the Smart Grid? U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid/smart_grid.html
[3] The Future of the Electric Grid: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study, 2011 at pp. 191–92. https://mitei.mit.edu/publications/reports-studies/future-electric-grid
[4] See Maryland v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (finding no expectation of privacy in phone records “voluntarily conveyed” to a telephone company or utility records “voluntarily conveyed” to a utility company).
[5] The smart grid can be implemented with current technology, but certain endpoint features, such as wide-scale distributed generation and storage of intermittently generated renewably-sourced energy, remain in the research and development phase. |
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GreggBadichekFirstEssay 9 - 23 Mar 2016 - Main.GreggBadichek
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<
< | The Privacy Implications of Smart Grid Technology | >
> | Smart Grid Technology and Privacy: Where to Look and Where to Begin | | | -- By GreggBadichek - 04 Nov 2015
Introduction | |
<
< | Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumersz; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and, as "Internet of Things" architecture, would contain information similar to that sent out by the average American "smart phone" thousands of times daily.[1] The two-way flow of information between the energy grid and the consumer actuates the information management protocols necessary to make that grid “smart.” That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, thereby promoting consumer control over energy;[2] but what of consumer control over information? | >
> | Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumers; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and, as "Internet of Things" architecture, would contain information similar to that sent out by the average American "smart phone" thousands of times daily.[1] The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household. That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, promoting consumer control over energy;[2] but what of consumer control over information? | | | Economics of the Smart Grid | |
<
< | Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. Utilities will need to shift from volumetric kilowatt-per-hour sales to fixed monthly costs based on peak-period usage. [citation to MIT 2011 future of electric grid p. 29] This new cost-recovery paradigm will remove volumetric pricing cost distortions, where utilities are encouraged to increase electricity sales. Peak-period demand rates will more accurately reflect the demand the user places on the system, allowing the utility a reasonable cost-recovery without increased sale volume. Consumers meanwhile can lessen their peak-demand with smart grid technology, ultimately decreasing their rates and the stress they place on the power distribution system.
Decoupling volumetric sales from rate recovery and capital reinvestment will move utilities to performance and reliability-based rate recovery. A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before.
A tremendous amount of user data will be given to private entities, which will analyze the data to “improve service.” The patron is generally unaware that their information reveals far more about their behavior than they “imagine.” The developing smart grid would likely feature advancements in connectivity technologies made popular by smart phones and other "Internet of Things" machines. Each device so connected would transmit user data possibly designating its purpose, location, make, model; connectivity to the smart grid would further pinpoint time and extent of device usage. The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household.
Legal Approaches | >
> | Smart grids will severely reduce demand at the retail level. Utilities selling energy on a smart grid will thus need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss in hourly power sales. Utilities will need to shift from volumetric kilowatt-per-hour sales to fixed monthly costs based on peak-period usage.[3] Peak-period demand rates will more accurately reflect the demand the user places on the system, allowing the utility a reasonable cost-recovery without increased sale volume. Consumers meanwhile can lessen their peak-demand with smart grid tech, ultimately decreasing their rates and the stress they place on the distribution system.
Decoupling volumetric sales from rate recovery and capital reinvestment will move utilities to performance and reliability-based rate recovery. A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with greater precision than ever before. | | | | |
>
> | Current Legal Approaches | | | Data Control
A solution to privacy problems arising from data control would require anonymization of that data in the long-term. In other words, prohibition on storage of personally-identifying metrics that could show trends over time. That information would likely serve utilities desiring to improve their service, but would cost users privacy that they did not intend to sell. Utilities currently use volumetric data to predict trends more rudimentarily.
A legal regime would therefore either require significant disclosure to users that their information may be so retained. Currently, “internet of things” technology provides wholly ineffectual disclosures, so it is difficult to determine that smart-grid disclosures would be useful. A more successful solution might require utilities to display the precise data that it collects on a regular basis, and field consumer complaints before a fact-finding ALJ.
So long as the operative software on the smart-grid remains obscure, consumers will never be able to understand how their data is collected. As utilities are part of a regulatory compact, and this software intimately affects consumers' lives, the code should be made reviewable under government order. A greater number of reviewers will detect privacy problems and solutions more effectively than the utility alone. Thereafter legal challenges against privacy invasions will gradually create a regulatory regime.
Law Enforcement | |
<
< | Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, information collected via smart meter communications and retained by utility companies lacks constitutional protection against warrantless search and seizure; placement in the hands of a Third Party essentially removes the reasonable expectation of privacy underlying that protection.[3] Law enforcement officials, of course, use utility records frequently in criminal investigations. The utility to investigators of data poured into the smart grid would dwarf that of the dumb grid.
Еhe Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), indicated that the traditional distinction between reasonable and unreasonable expectations of privacy is obsolete in the digital context, where the bulk of private data is digital, and flows to countless third parties. Legal challenges to warrantless collection of smart grid data should therefore seize upon the Court’s language. The Fourth Amendment argument, specifically, would likely focus on this data’s total representation of activities in the home—the very raison d’ętre of the Fourth Amendment.
--++ The Future
It is a categorical error to imagine the smart grid as an unremarkable element of the "Internet of Things." The smart grid does not merely offer convenience in exchange for data. Ubiquitous dumb infrastructure on which most rely is ripe for smart reformatting, and the lack of wide-scale distributed renewable energy in the near future [cite to text about tech difficulties re storage and financial difficulties re investment and tax incentive] mean that centralized grid(s) featuring incentives such as smart metering, in conjunction with somewhat limited distributed energy generation, will appear soon. Consumers will not have a say in that. Yet the legal regimes following electron flows are not designed to facilitate user privacy.
We must ask whether the end points, consumer homes, will serve the consumer or the provider. Serving the provider requires utility control over data storage and personally-identifying qualities; serving the consumer requires consumer discretion in regards to how the software absorbs their information. Preventing privacy issues would call for consumer control. But this market is not like Facebook: on the one hand, providers must be able to improve the smart-grid, particularly in early stages; on the other hand, consumers cannot “opt out” of smart grid use if their service area-utility uses that technology.
[dummy] https://epic.org/privacy/smartgrid/smartgrid.html
[dummy] https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid/smart_grid.html
[dummy] See Maryland v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (finding no expectation of privacy in phone records “voluntarily conveyed” to a telephone company or utility records “voluntarily conveyed” to a utility company).
[dummy]
[dummy]
I'm not sure what future grid this represents:
not one, at any rate,
at which endpoints are prosumers pushing power from rooftop solar or
other sources back onto the grid under terms that assume two-way
flows of information as well as power.
Nor do I understand why the
assumption (that electricity distribution
systems are "natural monopolies" near the endpoints, and that
therefore the grid must be as smart as the monopolist wants) follows
from the move to renewables, the changes in storage technology, the
use of fuel cells in the built environment, etc.
The "smart grid" is more items in the "Internet of things," and the sensors here are the equivalents of other cognitive instruments in the organism we have synthesized around ourselves. What differentiates the particular class of instruments and the data they produce? Or is it a category error to perceive such a distinction in the first place?
| >
> | Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, information collected via smart meter communications and retained by utility companies lacks constitutional protection against warrantless search and seizure; placement in the hands of a Third Party essentially removes the reasonable expectation of privacy underlying that protection.[4] Law enforcement officials, of course, use utility records frequently in criminal investigations. The utility to investigators of data poured into the smart grid would dwarf that of the dumb grid.
Еhe Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), indicated that the traditional distinction between reasonable and unreasonable expectations of privacy is obsolete in the digital context, where the bulk of private data is digital, and flows to countless third parties. Legal challenges to warrantless collection of smart grid data should therefore seize upon the Court’s language. The Fourth Amendment argument, specifically, would likely focus on this data’s total representation of activities in the home—the very raison d’ętre of the Fourth Amendment. | | | | |
>
> | The Future
Current legal approaches are insufficient. It is a categorical error to imagine the smart grid as an unremarkable element of the "Internet of Things." The smart grid does not merely offer convenience in exchange for data. Ubiquitous dumb infrastructure on which most rely is ripe for smart reformatting, and the lack of wide-scale distributed renewable energy in the near future mean that centralized grid(s) featuring incentives such as smart metering, in conjunction with somewhat limited distributed energy generation, will appear soon.[5] Consumers will not have a say in that. Yet the legal regimes now chasing electron flows are not designed to facilitate user privacy. We must ask whether the end points, consumer homes, will serve the consumer. Serving the consumer requires consumer discretion in regards to how software absorbs and transmits their information. But this market is not like Facebook: on the one hand, providers must be able to improve the smart-grid, particularly in early stages; on the other hand, consumers cannot “opt out” of smart grid use if their service area-utility uses that technology.
Rate-return mechanisms and data-driven, consumer-owned energy routers as smart as the grid would put us on the right path. Volumetric pricing creates cost distortions, where utilities are encouraged to increase electricity sales and use consumer data to that end. An alternative is rate return based on peak-load, aggregate demand monthly, and implementation data-driven, consumer-owned energy routing machines that maintain data in the home. Consumer data could therefore serve distributed generation goals and net metering, without necessarily flowing to others on the grid. These simple steps would reveal no more user data than does the current dumb-grid regime.
[1] The Smart Grid and Privacy, Electronic Information Privacy Center. https://epic.org/privacy/smartgrid/smartgrid.html
[2] What is the Smart Grid? U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid/smart_grid.html
[3] The Future of the Electric Grid: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study, 2011 at pp. 191–92. https://mitei.mit.edu/publications/reports-studies/future-electric-grid
[4] See Maryland v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (finding no expectation of privacy in phone records “voluntarily conveyed” to a telephone company or utility records “voluntarily conveyed” to a utility company).
[5] The smart grid can be implemented with current technology, but certain endpoint features, such as wide-scale distributed generation and storage of intermittently generated renewably-sourced energy, remain in the research and development phase. |
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GreggBadichekFirstEssay 8 - 23 Mar 2016 - Main.GreggBadichek
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| | | -- By GreggBadichek - 04 Nov 2015
Introduction | |
<
< | Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumers; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and would likely contain information similar to that sent out by the average American smart phone thousands of times daily.[1] The true innovation of the smart grid is digital infrastructure, and the data it shepherds. The two-way flow of information between the energy grid and the consumer actuates the information management protocols necessary to make that grid “smart.” That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, thereby promoting consumer control over energy;[2] but what of consumer control over information? | >
> | Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumersz; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and, as "Internet of Things" architecture, would contain information similar to that sent out by the average American "smart phone" thousands of times daily.[1] The two-way flow of information between the energy grid and the consumer actuates the information management protocols necessary to make that grid “smart.” That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, thereby promoting consumer control over energy;[2] but what of consumer control over information? | | | Economics of the Smart Grid | |
<
< | The dumb grid technology requires bulk capacity sales at the wholesale level from generator to distributer, but the retail level from distributer to consumer requires sales of energy at hourly rates. Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. Utilities will need to shift from volumetric kilowatt-per-hour sales to fixed monthly costs based on peak-period usage. [citation to MIT 2011 future of electric grid p. 29] This new cost-recovery paradigm will remove volumetric pricing cost distortions, where utilities are encouraged to increase electricity sales. Peak-period demand rates will more accurately reflect the demand the user places on the system, allowing the utility a reasonable cost-recovery without increased sale volume. Consumers meanwhile can lessen their peak-demand with smart grid technology, ultimately decreasing their rates and the stress they place on the power distribution system.
This shift will also signify a movement from volume-based rate recovery to performance and reliability based rate recovery. A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before.
The security issues herein are similar to those associated with social media platforms: a tremendous amount of user data is willingly given to private entities, which analyze the data to “improve service.” The patron is generally unaware that their information reveals far more about their behavior than merely what they “post.” The developing smart grid would likely feature advancements in connectivity technologies made popular by smart phones. The result of this is the so-called “internet of things,” which relies on data transmission between mundane machines to presumably enhance a user’s interaction with those machines. Each device so connected would transmit user data possibly designating its purpose, location, make, model; connectivity to the smart grid would further pinpoint time and extent of device usage. The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household.
Control Issues
The increasing importance of consumer data on the smart grid means we must ask whether the end points, consumer homes, will serve the consumer or the provider. Serving the provider requires utility control over data storage and personally-identifying qualities; serving the consumer requires consumer discretion in regards to how the software absorbs their information.
Preventing privacy issues would call for consumer control. But this market is not like Facebook: on the one hand, providers must be able to improve the smart-grid, particularly in early stages; on the other hand, consumers cannot “opt out” of smart grid use if their service area-utility uses that technology. | >
> | Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. Utilities will need to shift from volumetric kilowatt-per-hour sales to fixed monthly costs based on peak-period usage. [citation to MIT 2011 future of electric grid p. 29] This new cost-recovery paradigm will remove volumetric pricing cost distortions, where utilities are encouraged to increase electricity sales. Peak-period demand rates will more accurately reflect the demand the user places on the system, allowing the utility a reasonable cost-recovery without increased sale volume. Consumers meanwhile can lessen their peak-demand with smart grid technology, ultimately decreasing their rates and the stress they place on the power distribution system.
Decoupling volumetric sales from rate recovery and capital reinvestment will move utilities to performance and reliability-based rate recovery. A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before.
A tremendous amount of user data will be given to private entities, which will analyze the data to “improve service.” The patron is generally unaware that their information reveals far more about their behavior than they “imagine.” The developing smart grid would likely feature advancements in connectivity technologies made popular by smart phones and other "Internet of Things" machines. Each device so connected would transmit user data possibly designating its purpose, location, make, model; connectivity to the smart grid would further pinpoint time and extent of device usage. The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household. | | | Legal Approaches | | | Law Enforcement
Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, information collected via smart meter communications and retained by utility companies lacks constitutional protection against warrantless search and seizure; placement in the hands of a Third Party essentially removes the reasonable expectation of privacy underlying that protection.[3] Law enforcement officials, of course, use utility records frequently in criminal investigations. The utility to investigators of data poured into the smart grid would dwarf that of the dumb grid. | |
<
< | | | | Еhe Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), indicated that the traditional distinction between reasonable and unreasonable expectations of privacy is obsolete in the digital context, where the bulk of private data is digital, and flows to countless third parties. Legal challenges to warrantless collection of smart grid data should therefore seize upon the Court’s language. The Fourth Amendment argument, specifically, would likely focus on this data’s total representation of activities in the home—the very raison d’ętre of the Fourth Amendment. | |
<
< | [1] https://epic.org/privacy/smartgrid/smartgrid.html
[2] https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid/smart_grid.html
[3] See Maryland v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (finding no expectation of privacy in phone records “voluntarily conveyed” to a telephone company or utility records “voluntarily conveyed” to a utility company). | >
> | --++ The Future
It is a categorical error to imagine the smart grid as an unremarkable element of the "Internet of Things." The smart grid does not merely offer convenience in exchange for data. Ubiquitous dumb infrastructure on which most rely is ripe for smart reformatting, and the lack of wide-scale distributed renewable energy in the near future [cite to text about tech difficulties re storage and financial difficulties re investment and tax incentive] mean that centralized grid(s) featuring incentives such as smart metering, in conjunction with somewhat limited distributed energy generation, will appear soon. Consumers will not have a say in that. Yet the legal regimes following electron flows are not designed to facilitate user privacy.
We must ask whether the end points, consumer homes, will serve the consumer or the provider. Serving the provider requires utility control over data storage and personally-identifying qualities; serving the consumer requires consumer discretion in regards to how the software absorbs their information. Preventing privacy issues would call for consumer control. But this market is not like Facebook: on the one hand, providers must be able to improve the smart-grid, particularly in early stages; on the other hand, consumers cannot “opt out” of smart grid use if their service area-utility uses that technology.
[dummy] https://epic.org/privacy/smartgrid/smartgrid.html
[dummy] https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid/smart_grid.html
[dummy] See Maryland v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (finding no expectation of privacy in phone records “voluntarily conveyed” to a telephone company or utility records “voluntarily conveyed” to a utility company).
[dummy]
[dummy] | | |
| |
<
< | I'm not sure what future grid this represents: not one, at any rate, | >
> | I'm not sure what future grid this represents:
not one, at any rate, | | | at which endpoints are prosumers pushing power from rooftop solar or
other sources back onto the grid under terms that assume two-way | |
<
< | flows of information as well as power. Nor do I understand why the
assumption pervading the analysis that electricity distribution | >
> | flows of information as well as power.
Nor do I understand why the
assumption (that electricity distribution | | | systems are "natural monopolies" near the endpoints, and that | |
<
< | therefore the grid must be as smart as the monopolist wants follows | >
> | therefore the grid must be as smart as the monopolist wants) follows | | | from the move to renewables, the changes in storage technology, the | |
<
< | use of fuel cells in the built environment, etc. The "smart grid" is more items in the "Internet of things," and the sensors here are the equivalents of other cognitive instruments in the organism we have synthesized around ourselves. What differentiates the particular class of instruments and the data they produce? Or is it a category error to perceive such a distinction in the first place? | >
> | use of fuel cells in the built environment, etc.
The "smart grid" is more items in the "Internet of things," and the sensors here are the equivalents of other cognitive instruments in the organism we have synthesized around ourselves. What differentiates the particular class of instruments and the data they produce? Or is it a category error to perceive such a distinction in the first place? | | |
\ No newline at end of file |
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GreggBadichekFirstEssay 7 - 23 Mar 2016 - Main.GreggBadichek
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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| | | Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumers; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and would likely contain information similar to that sent out by the average American smart phone thousands of times daily.[1] The true innovation of the smart grid is digital infrastructure, and the data it shepherds. The two-way flow of information between the energy grid and the consumer actuates the information management protocols necessary to make that grid “smart.” That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, thereby promoting consumer control over energy;[2] but what of consumer control over information?
Economics of the Smart Grid | |
<
< | The dumb grid technology requires bulk capacity sales at the wholesale level from generator to distributer, but the retail level from distributer to consumer requires sales of energy at hourly rates. Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. For this reason it will no longer make sense for utilities to operate on volumetric sales with guaranteed recovery of capital expenditure; they will need to shift their business model to one based on providing reliable service for a guaranteed flat rate.
We are to believe that utilities will be providing
electricity at flat rates? Whose global warming policy is
that? Why would a smart grid that can dynamically price
according to demand and perform other adaptive functions
result in the dumbest, least flexible possible pricing
structure? It may be that there are simple answers, but
they aren't obvious and it would have been helpful to back
up the observation somehow. Undefended, I think it
decreases the credibility of the argument.
A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before. | >
> | The dumb grid technology requires bulk capacity sales at the wholesale level from generator to distributer, but the retail level from distributer to consumer requires sales of energy at hourly rates. Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. Utilities will need to shift from volumetric kilowatt-per-hour sales to fixed monthly costs based on peak-period usage. [citation to MIT 2011 future of electric grid p. 29] This new cost-recovery paradigm will remove volumetric pricing cost distortions, where utilities are encouraged to increase electricity sales. Peak-period demand rates will more accurately reflect the demand the user places on the system, allowing the utility a reasonable cost-recovery without increased sale volume. Consumers meanwhile can lessen their peak-demand with smart grid technology, ultimately decreasing their rates and the stress they place on the power distribution system.
This shift will also signify a movement from volume-based rate recovery to performance and reliability based rate recovery. A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before. | | | The security issues herein are similar to those associated with social media platforms: a tremendous amount of user data is willingly given to private entities, which analyze the data to “improve service.” The patron is generally unaware that their information reveals far more about their behavior than merely what they “post.” The developing smart grid would likely feature advancements in connectivity technologies made popular by smart phones. The result of this is the so-called “internet of things,” which relies on data transmission between mundane machines to presumably enhance a user’s interaction with those machines. Each device so connected would transmit user data possibly designating its purpose, location, make, model; connectivity to the smart grid would further pinpoint time and extent of device usage. The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household.
Control Issues |
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GreggBadichekFirstEssay 6 - 13 Feb 2016 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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| | | Economics of the Smart Grid
The dumb grid technology requires bulk capacity sales at the wholesale level from generator to distributer, but the retail level from distributer to consumer requires sales of energy at hourly rates. Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. For this reason it will no longer make sense for utilities to operate on volumetric sales with guaranteed recovery of capital expenditure; they will need to shift their business model to one based on providing reliable service for a guaranteed flat rate. | |
>
> |
We are to believe that utilities will be providing
electricity at flat rates? Whose global warming policy is
that? Why would a smart grid that can dynamically price
according to demand and perform other adaptive functions
result in the dumbest, least flexible possible pricing
structure? It may be that there are simple answers, but
they aren't obvious and it would have been helpful to back
up the observation somehow. Undefended, I think it
decreases the credibility of the argument.
| | | A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before.
The security issues herein are similar to those associated with social media platforms: a tremendous amount of user data is willingly given to private entities, which analyze the data to “improve service.” The patron is generally unaware that their information reveals far more about their behavior than merely what they “post.” The developing smart grid would likely feature advancements in connectivity technologies made popular by smart phones. The result of this is the so-called “internet of things,” which relies on data transmission between mundane machines to presumably enhance a user’s interaction with those machines. Each device so connected would transmit user data possibly designating its purpose, location, make, model; connectivity to the smart grid would further pinpoint time and extent of device usage. The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household. | | | | |
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