The Most Overlooked and Glaring Problem About Energy

With 176 wind turbines to be built 27 miles off of Virginia’s coast, the expectation is this project will provide power to 660,000 homes. Significant, right? Just south of Virigina, in the Carolinas, one energy company is, in effect, doubling down on nuclear energy. Across the globe, there are debates about the use of natural gas, coal, solar, nuclear, geothermal, and other forms of electric generation. These debates are fierce among activists, investors, regulators, legislators, utilities, and opportunists all seeking an outcome which they hope solves a problem and feeds business.

What about the consumers?

We can talk about renewable energy and electric vehicles all we want, but that conversation has not really included the consumer. Oh sure, consumers will buy EVs but we don’t talk about the problem of putting more electrical load onto a home power panel designed in 1972. We just believe our old system works because it worked with our new microwave oven. Clark Griswold put power to 25,000 Christmas lights in a movie and we can see that result. That was a movie though. Reality is more frightening.

Consumers, you know, the people who are providing for their families, raising their children, or hopefully enjoying their golden years, remember them? We, with the grand electricity debate, do not talk about consumers even as we think we do. Sure, governments can offer tax credits for this or that though generally, these energy debates are not truly inclusive of consumption and utilization of energy other than saying consumers will need to sacrifice. No, we don’t talk about consumers until regulators and operators make the call to consumers to cut their usage because demand is compromising the supply of energy.

There is the problem with the great energy debate. Providers and regulators believe that transformation of energy generation to something newer, higher tech and bold but they, in effect, look past how this brand new system is being connected to a relic of the 20th century. Think of it this way, we’re now trying to tow a mega yacht with a Ford Model A, and we’re okay with this. What could go wrong?

Failing Consumer Infrastructure

In 2021, Texas saw what could go wrong. The second most populous state in the United States ground to an icy halt when an ice storm took hold of a power grid and people died. Elected leaders were quick to point fingers and people lost their jobs. The Texas legislature vowed to “do something” and something was done which has yet to be tested by another similar event. Firing leaders is not necessarily going to solve the problem, especially if the new people hired are no better than the ones fired.

Sure, there were problems with judgment and generation though instead of powering off, so called smart meters by home, entire grids were powered down leaving thousands or more without power for days. No water, no heat, and subzero temperatures with homes insulated for triple digit temperatures.

These smart meters were supposed to be able to power off and back on remotely, but the meters’ useful life have been surpassed and as a result, utilities knew they could power up a grid more efficiently and effectively than they could power up thousands or millions of individual meters. Grid operators and utilities hedged a decision on what they knew would work versus what they were not sure would work because of an archaic system. Again, we are putting an advanced system on top of a very old infrastructure. The consumer infrastructure, in Texas, has not changed since the devasting storm of February 2021. That same infrastructure is part of a continuum from power generation to charging your iPad. Regardless of what has or has not been done with generation, grid management and distribution, consumer infrastructure remains as weak and fragile as it was before a snowflake fell on Texas.

This underscores a point beyond this not being a Texas specific issue. When we are having arguments over methods of generation and ignoring a technologically ancient consumer infrastructure, we are ignoring the weakest link in the chain.

Infrastructure is not remotely interesting. It isn’t. Yet, it is critically important to get the consumer side of the electrical grid absolutely correct when utilities and others are transitioning power generation. That is not happening, and we can yell and point fingers of blame at grid operators or power generators when this happens again, and it will, but if we as a society are not resolving the consumer side infrastructure, we have only ourselves to blame.

The Solution

CoolWaters Technology designed, developed, and tested its Advanced Infrastructure System (AIS) to better and more effectively couple supply and demand through metering, circuit-level submetering, circuit level control prioritization, and integration of broadband systems into a replacement for the old smart meters and archaic circuit breaker panel all while being programmable to scale all at a price which is comparable to legacy system replacement. Okay, so what?

Here is “so what.” Had AIS been installed in Texas homes, grid operators would have been able to control usage by circuit rather than across entire grids. Now, nobody wants their home to be dark but if we are facing the likelihood of a forced blackout in subzero weather, would you be more receptive to having lights off and still having a working furnace, water heater, stove, and water supply? Wouldn’t you rather have your life sustaining durable medical equipment operating than it being turned off or going on short-term battery backup? AIS would have saved lives. We can argue about wind, solar or natural gas energy production, but grids still have to be managed and let’s be smart as we’re doing so.

Perhaps you have or can afford a permanent power backup system. For many people, that solution is not practical, possible or within their financial reach. Those systems, installed, can cost upwards to $15,000. By investing in and fixing the consumer infrastructure, power backup systems may not be necessary and at minimum, they could augment power distribution all while still having the back up control system also integrated into AIS.

AIS brings another solution to a problem. Broadband providers struggle with the last mile expense in rural areas. The expense is not really any less in urban areas, but AIS can be used as a broadband network linking a broadband source then to consumers across a neighborhood or community. AIS reduces the expense of the “last mile” and business partnerships can be formed between broadband providers and utilities to bring improved services to consumers while opening new revenue generations for the providers and utilities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is often attributed as the source of the quote “if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” Perhaps he wrote those words or perhaps he didn’t, but in a world where we are so busy reinventing technologies with venture capital and governments, could any of you identify a better mousetrap if you saw it?

AIS, is the better mousetrap. It is the solution to blackouts and brownouts. AIS is the technology which couples a more technologically diverse system of generation and transmission with broadband integration to the consumer.

To learn more, let’s talk.

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