As they try on the organic cotton sweatshirts and search for just the right canoe paddle, shoppers at Mountain Equipment Co-op in Burlington, Ont., may not realize that they are wandering around within an example of the future of electric energy. But with its rooftop solar panels capable not only of feeding power to the store, but also back into Burlington Hydro Inc.'s electricity system, this store is connected to the evolving smart grid.
Burlington Hydro's bid to provide more efficient, more reliable and greener energy to consumers by making it more intelligent began three years ago, said CEO chief executive officer David Collie.
"We took a section of about 4,000 customers and automated it with intelligent switches. It's a self-healing grid. When there's a power outage in that area, it actually knows where exactly the power is out, isolates that little piece and keeps all of the [other] customers on."
What's more, it does so in a matter of seconds.
"We, and a number of other utilities, see this as a natural progression in our territory," added Mr. Collie, a member of the Ontario Smart Grid Forum.
"You'll see more of that intelligent switching taking place."
The smart grid will revolutionize energy throughout the province, and eventually throughout North America. It is, according to Duncan Stewart, director of technology research at Deloitte & Touche, a global phenomenon, one worth anywhere between $50-billion to $75-billion a year. "The progress we are seeing in the smart grid is real," he said. "It's happening today."
That the current electrical grid is antiquated and vulnerable became apparent during the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003, when more than 50 million people lost power.
The blackout happened after a high-voltage line brushed against a tree in northern Ohio, tripping a subsequent cascade of failures. A network of lines and electromechanical devices heavily reliant on human intervention, it is a one-way system moving the power generated by dams and nuclear, gas and coal-burning plants to substations where it is converted to lower voltages, and on to the average consumer's electrical outlet. If there is a breakdown anywhere along the way, the local electric utility typically sends a crew out to find the source of the outage.
What's more, at times of peak use, utilities must resort to either their most environmentally harmful generators, such as coal, or to buying extra power somewhere else, which is more expensive.
Most consumers are only marginally aware of that, as they switch on their lights and appliances.
The smart grid changes this in a number of ways. At the consumer end, so-called smart metres show how much energy their business or household is using at any given time, and how much it is costing them. While 2.3 million customers in Ontario have smart meters already, in towns such as Newmarket and Milton they are also being offered time-of-use pricing.
As Mr. Stewart put it, "If I knew it cost me 25 cents to turn my dishwasher on in the afternoon but 2 cents at night, I'd wait a little while. But I can only become conscious of that cost saving to myself if I have the information. So the smart grid will give me not just the ability to do it, but the information that motivates me to do it."
The smart grid is not only more efficient and reliable, it is also a two-way system, collecting, sharing and acting on information to manage the flow of electrons. As such it will allow producers of renewable energy, such as wind and solar, to feed power into the system, doing away with the need to keep the more polluting sources of energy on tap for peak times.
