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| | | -- By GreggBadichek - 04 Nov 2015
Introduction | |
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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? | >
> | 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 | |
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< | 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. | |
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< | | | | 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’être of the Fourth Amendment. | |
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< | [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).
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< | 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 | |
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< | 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 | |
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< | 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 | |
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< | 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? | | |
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