The Last Mile: The Ignored Threat to an Electric World

Imagine having a system in your home, controllable with a local Interface or most of your smart devices, coupled to your utility provider which can reduce the impact a blackout can have on your life, allows for scalability for newer energy using technologies, and oh yes, integrates your broadband service, would you buy it?

Wait, would you buy it if it cost 70% less than other comparable and arguably less capable systems?

Examine the light coming from a lamp. It is the light and the warmth from the light we consume yet that light can come from multiple sources such as solar panels, wind turbine, a generator, or a battery, because it is powered by electricity. The source debate is as trend specific as it is ideological and as a result, we stop talking about the warmth and light we rely upon from a lamp. I know this is a philosophical argument though I believe it is worthy to pull people aside from only fighting a battle of relevance, sustainability, revenue generation, and ideology for energy generation and have them focus on what is truly at stake, the consumer’s use of energy.

At the consumer level, we may see a wind turbine, solar farm or thermal generation power plant and we certainly see power lines. What we are seeing is the primarly battlefield for investment and ideological arguments. What we know is something different entirelely. Look again at a light bulb. Yes, it is not a mental leap to see the light being powered by a complex electrical grid.

When electricity comes into your home or office, it goes through an electrical meter and circuit breaker box. These two devices are points of failure to the ideal of a mostly electrical society and nobody is talking about this. Nobody is breathlessly haranguing policy makers demanding action on this problem. Yet global market and policy trends are pushing industries and consumers to embrace an all-electric, carbon neutral world and not giving any consideration to the gaping hole on the side of the Titanic.

What We Can Do

As consumers, we cannot directly engage in the energy generation debates because we are the end users, those who are at th

e end of the last mile of energy distribution. While we may want sustainability, clean air, and clean water, we essentially want the lights to come on when we flip a switch, the A/C to come on when it is hot, and the heat to come on when it is cold.

Instead of fighting battles where we have little or no control, imagine having a system in your home which is coupled to your electricity provider and provides high speed internet and multi-media access. A system that tells you how much power you are using and where it is being used. A system that allows the utility to let you know what is happening and when. A system that allows you to keep your critical circuits on instead of turning off the whole house when the utility needs to reduce load.

Policy Debates

During the 2021 winter storm in Texas, millions of the state’s residents were faced with a survivability problem. There was no heat and with Texas’s minimally insulated homes and pipes, there was flooding in people’s homes from bursting frozen pipes. Families could not cook and in many cases, water and sewage treatment systems were offline. Legislative attention, somewhat appropriately, was applied to regulators and grid operations with the characteristic response of “heads will roll.” Promises were made to the public that utilities would winterize so a repeat was unlikely. We’ll see if those policy decisions fixed the problems though I am doubtful. The same promises were made 10 years earlier during another winter storm.

The great debate which ensued at the state and national policy levels, fixated on blame, hyperbole, fact, some wishful narratives, and investments. Hey, it happens, money and relevance are at stake. Blame was applied to thermal generators and companies which supplied those generators with fuel and blame was directed to renewable energy systems. I believe we can all find agreement that there is plenty of blame to go around and the blame game quickly consumed debate without the development of real solutions. We made it through the Texas Summer, but winter in Texas is approaching, and we are just as likely to be wearing shorts on Tuesday and a parka by Tuesday night. The question is, will we have blackouts?

While the problems of the winter storm were policy, infrastructure management, and generation oriented, a great deal of mitigation at the last mile could have softened the blow on many consumers. Yet, we’re busy pointing fingers and encouraging brow beating by elected officials who want to be re-elected. To be honest, these same people are not looking at electricity holistically. They are only looking at it from the generation

Weak Links

There are a couple of weak links in the system, and they do not involve gas powered thermal generators or wind turbines, at least not directly. If you own a home, take a look at your circuit breaker panel. It might be on the side of your house, in a closet or hallway, or perhaps in your garage. Chances are you have never opened the door or had to flip a tripped circuit breaker. Now, take a look at your electric meter. It is likely on the side of your home exposed to mother nature and over time, the electronics begin to be less reliable.

I know, these pieces of equipment are not very exciting, and are not top of mind, but they should become so as we further comprehend an all-electric energy system. A breaker panel and your electric meter are important to you sustaining your quality of life especially when the weather is severe, although, as they are today, they are archaic, do not work as promised, and can expose you and your family to risk when, not if, the next blackout occurs.

These two devices are the weakest links for a country fervently running toward an all-electric energy system.

Antique Systems in a Modern World

Here is a personal example. The home in which I live was built in the early 1960s, was remodeled in the mid-1970s and had to be repaired in 1979 after a tornado. The circuit breaker panel is filled with circuit breakers which are not made any longer and while I have not measured the total power which the breaker panel can accommodate, there is a limit to the amount of power which can be run through the home. We are limited by the number of circuits and amperage allowed for each one. In 1979, there weren’t the computers constantly running, network routers, flat screen televisions, a multitude of smart devices, which all consume energy on top of two HVAC systems, appliances, pool equipment, and lighting. That is a lot of power if you think about it.

What happens to electrical capacity of the house when there are one or two electric vehicles being charged? On average, a car charging systems draws as much power as the rest of the house, about 29kwh. Will I be able to charge my electric car and my spouse’s car while running two HVAC systems, drying a load of clothes, and running the dishwasher all while watching Netflix and playing Call of Duty? It is a great question and in case you haven’t already figured it out, I do not know the answer?

What happens when there is another blackout? The car will not charge, the water will not heat, and forget about maintaining a survivable climate indoors. We need a power system in homes and businesses which is not based upon 1970s technology. We need that same panel to be integrated with the meter and the utilities. We need the ability to prioritize what systems in our home are necessary for life and those systems which are not.

Upgrading our evolving electrical generation breeds ideological and scientific debates which influence policy decisions. However, when those debates or policies end up being resolved, we are going to find out very quickly we are operating a submarine with screen doors.

During the 2021 winter storm, smart meters were intended to allow utilities to cut power at a residence or meter without impacting entire grids. The problem was, many of those same meters had exceeded their useful life and the concern from utilities was if you can turn off the power at the meter, can you turn it back on remotely? Shutting down entire grids was a more secure alternative to ensure that power could be restored. Forget about any organized rolling blackouts.

Nobody wants to lose power. It is more severe than simply being inconvenienced. What happened last winter in Texas was, I’ll say it, a colossal failure which cost hundreds of lives and caused damage to homes and businesses. If you had a choice, would you prefer to keep your heating system running while you may not be able to have lights or watch TV?

What if you have medical equipment in your home, can that be turned off or would you want that equipment to continue running if it means you cannot stream a movie? Would you rather lose your power for hours on end or just lose some of it on a cycle that works? Let’s think about this for a moment.

You can have a choice and you can coordinate with your utility about which circuits in your home must have continuous power versus those who could go dark during an emergency.

Solutions and Reality

I won’t sugar coat the subject of generation capacity because at some point, if the grid regulators and utilities punt at the expense of certain consumer circuits going dark as a means to resolve temporary outages and if they do this frequently, it is an abuse of trust between provider and customer as well as the elected member and the voter. That said, in an emergency, could you direct the utility to retain power for must have circuits versus those you could allow to go dark if it allowed the utility to retain integrity of the grid?

Let us be fair. As consumers, if we are willing to be reasonable in how power is managed during a crisis, businesses and governments can go without lit parking lots which can draw incredible amounts of electricity. Then there are solutions which do not involve debates or blame games over energy sources. Let us be far even more. Perhaps we should have some level of control as consumers about how our power use is managed rather than seeing our entire neighborhood or city go dark.

CoolWaters Technology has a developed and tested technology which does everything I just described and more. This technology, which replaces the electric panel, allows homeowners and utilities to have a more positive level of prioritized control of power use and restoration of power following an emergency with the added ability of retaining continuous power to necessary circuits such as heating/cooling or life sustaining medical equipment. The technology eliminates the electric meter as we know. That same function is integrated into the system along with, get this, the ability to create a wireless mesh network for smart homes, IoT and broadband.

The system is called The Advanced Infrastructure System and it is the game changer to mitigating broad loss of power continuity during blackouts. When there aren’t emergencies, AIS has the scalability to handle increased power demand for new technologies such as electric vehicles and smart home technology. It is less expensive than comparable systems and from the “faster, cheaper, better” mindset, it is superior. With targeted apps, the AIS can integrate other utility meters (water and gas), alternate power monitor and control, as well as Electric Vehicle monitor, control, access, and billing.

Now, we can get involved in the politics, investment interest and ideology of power generation or we can be practical and take control of what is in our power to manage. This movement and this technological direction are only emerging and it will become the difference between ensuring your warmth and safety or perhaps a costly or tragic set of outcomes if this conversation and this topic does not become a call to action.

The systems we can control in our everyday lives are in reach of our own hands. We can purchase snake oil from slick salespeople and be disappointed but, if you had a choice to soften the blow of blackouts with a more stable electric management system in your home or business, a solution is in reach.

Yes, this will take collaboration between electric utilities, electricians, home builders, broadband providers, and consumers. Even government has a dog in this hunt. If you want to go all in on electricity and believe that is the direction our country should go, we are going to quickly hit a wall because of where the debate is right now. We have to raise this alarm and work torward the solution.

We are not having a serious conversation about a huge infrastructure problem located in the last mile of electrical distribution and this one problem will limit or grossly impede all of the grand ideas and investments of an all-electric ecosystem.

Michael R. Terry is the Principal of GSLP Texas LLC, a Texas based government affairs and ventures strategy firm www.gslptexas.com