The Smart Grid and Energy Efficiency

NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0 (Pages 17-18)

“2.2 Importance to National Energy Policy Goals

…A DOE study found that the idle capacity of today’s electric power grid could supply 70 percent of the energy needs of today’s cars and light trucks without adding to generation or transmission capacity — if the vehicles charged during off-peak times.

Over the long term, the integration of the power grid with the nation’s transportation system has the potential to yield huge energy savings and other important benefits. Estimates of associated potential benefits include:

• Displacement of about half of our nation’s net oil imports;
• Reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by about 25 percent; and
• Reductions in emissions of urban air pollutants of 40 to 90 percent.

While the transition to the Smart Grid may unfold over many years, incremental progress along the way can yield significant benefits… In the United States, electric-power generation accounts for about 40 percent of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. If the current power grid were just 5 percent more efficient, the resultant energy savings would be equivalent to permanently eliminating the fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from 53 million cars.

In its National Assessment of Demand Response Potential, FERC estimated the potential for peak electricity demand reductions to be equivalent to up to 20 percent of national peak demand – enough to eliminate the need to operate hundreds of back-up power plants.

President Obama has called for a national effort to reduce, by 2020, the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions to 14 percent below the 2005 level and to about 83 percent below the 2005 level by 2050. Reaching these targets will require an ever-more capable Smart Grid with end-to-end interoperability…”

NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0 (Pages 17-18)

See Commerce Secretary Unveils Plan for Smart Grid Interoperability for the press release on the 24th of September announcing the release of this document.

The ambitious targets that the US have declared for reducing greenhouse gas emissions must have been arrived at through realistic modelling. They are achievable. If the United States has developed the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through new Smart Grid technology, you can be sure that every new extreme weather condition will be used to add pressure for other nations to adopt these Smart Grid technologies in their energy infrastructures – and it won’t be cheap.