Volume 2, Issue 7
August 30, 2007
Appliance controller "friendly" to the electricity grid
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory engineers are designing smart chips that would be fitted into household appliances and would continually monitor fluctuations in the power grid.
A technology developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently won a Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for its friendly approach to America’s electrical grid. Aptly named the Grid Friendly™ Appliance Controller, the device senses conditions on a power grid by monitoring the frequency of the system and then provides an automatic response in times of disruption by reducing the demand. The response provides no disruption to the consumer’s everyday life.
The controller is essentially a simple computer chip that can be installed in regular household appliances like dishwashers, clothes washers, dryers, refrigerators, air conditioners, and water heaters. The chip senses when there is a disruption in the grid and turns the appliances off for a few seconds or minutes to allow the grid to stabilize. The controllers also can be programmed to delay the restart of the appliances. The delay allows the appliances to be turned on one at a time rather than all at once to ease power restoration following an outage.
Consumers will not notice interruptions in the function of their appliances because the appliance will not shut down completely. For example, the heating element on a clothes dryer will turn off while the tumbler continues to run or the compressor on a refrigerator shuts down but the light stays on.
Controlling the power used by household appliances also can save consumers money in their power bills. Researchers at PNNL recently teamed with the folks at Whirlpool, Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy to install the controllers in hundreds of homes throughout the Northwest. Homeowners were given a printout of what their normal electricity bill would be and a second bill that showed the amount saved by having the Grid Friendly™ Appliance Controllers in their homes. At the end of the testing period, homeowners were given a check in the amount of their savings.
The Grid Friendly™ Appliance Controller is ready for licensing and installation in the next generation of appliances. PNNL is currently working with appliance manufacturers and utilities to use Grid Friendly™ in a variety of test-bed and demonstration projects.
For more information go to http://gridwise.pnl.gov.