smart meter

An innovative use for the planned intelligence of the electrical distribution network will allow new methodologies in balancing the demand of electricity with the supply.

In general, there is more demand for electricity during the day then there is in the middle of the night. Naturally, the electrical generation system needs to handle day time peak demands, while at night they run in tick-over / idle mode (wind/wave power generation systems and coal burning power stations are good examples of this).

Rather than having all of this power generation capacity running in tick-over / idling mode this energy could be utilised by the next generation of electric cars, carbon capturing, being fed back into the grid or by other loads, for example:

Governmental non-critical locations which hold computers and that have renewable energy sources will find at times they will generate more power than that can be utilised on site. Rather than waste this potential, this excess energy could deploy computers (if available) as a load.

Similarly, so can businesses and households. A lot of computer number crunching can be achieved in this time especially if you take into consideration that in most organisations the computers are only used half of each working day, scarcely at weekends and rarely during the holidays.

So what should this electrical load compute on? For examples please link externally to www.worldcommunitygrid.org

Most computers are not worked to the end of their full economic lifespan but to the end of its new software handling and or storage ability. Thus, when a new computer is purchased the old is cast to one side considered as junk, rubbish or landfill. If you consider your old computer as junk then please donate the remaining computing economic life to a good cause.

Page updated 18/10/2009, page 1 of 2