New Grid Balancing Technology Makes Blackouts a Thing of the Past

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The power grid is a finicky thing. There’s supply, there’s demand, and the two don’t always meet in the middle. Battelle scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found an efficient way to balance the ebbs and flows of energy supply by increasing or reducing the demand that household appliances place on the grid at a given time. A synergistic pairing of Department of Energy (DOE) and privately developed intellectual property gave Battelle, DOE, and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) a path for bringing a solution to American households for real-world testing.

The Grid Friendly Appliance (GFA) Controller is an electronic circuit board, built into appliances, that continually monitors fluctuations in available power through alternating current (AC) frequency signals at residential wall outlets. When it detects stress on the grid, it automatically tells appliances to alter operations for a short period, usually around a minute, but ranging from a few seconds up to ten minutes.

Normally when supply falls short, the risk of a blackout increases. Blackouts are extremely costly, both financially and in terms of their impact on consumers’ lives. On the other hand, when supply exceeds demand, power plants start shutting down, thus requiring other plants to quickly increase output to fill the gap, and potentially compromising grid stability. The GFA Controller acts as a shock absorber for such disturbances by signaling appliances to either reduce or increase energy consumption based on grid activity, helping reduce or prevent the impact of potential power outages.

The changes are so small that consumers don’t even notice, much less feel inconvenienced. However the cumulative effect of millions of hot water heaters, refrigerators, and air conditioners changes demand enough to maintain grid stability while operators address the problem.

In 2007, the GFA Controller was demonstrated in 150 clothes dryers in the Pacific Northwest, an effort facilitated by utility providers BPA, Portland General Electric, and PacifiCorp. The demonstration showed that the device, which can be retrofitted into commercially-available appliances, responds to electricity fluctuations almost instantaneously, without interrupting the daily lives of homeowners.

The success of this effort led to additional funding from BPA to make improvements to the technology, including cutting its size in half and increasing its ability to respond to fluctuations in both frequency and voltage.

For more information: http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/technology.asp?id=61.