California panel removes proposed mandate for utility-controlled thermostats - Bowing to public pressure, the California Energy Commission has removed its proposed mandate for utility-controlled thermostats from its 2008 energy efficiency building code. A hearing on that code is set for Jan. 30.
NOTE: The article link expires on: 02/17/2008).
Under EWPC, PCT qualifies as one great business model innovation. As such, it should be open to competition with others business models in the making or that will emerge worldwide as the market evolves. The point is that PCT should not be allowed as a monopoly business model.
Customer choice should be enabled to a new level by introducing federal competition at the retail level. The remotion of the mandate by the Califonia panel is a strong signal of the end of the utility monopoly as we know it. Today's utilities have two main components: the grid and the enterprise. The enterprise as a state retail monopoly should be replaced by retail competition at the federal level of the U.S.
The grid is evolving to the smart grid utility to offer ultraquality transportation only electricity services, but the monopoly enterprice is acting as a restraing force on its progress.
Open Transmission Access is to evolve to Open Transportation (integrated transmission and distribution) to be developed at least costs under a controlled smart grid market to enable maximum welfare in the open retail and wholesale markets, as envisioned under EWPC market architecture and design.
Joseph Somsel, a former utility engineer who opposes the [original PCT] plan, said he was pleased to hear of the official change of heart at the commission.
"I'd call this a victory in the first battle since they've shifted venues in strategic retreat -- but a victory nonetheless," said Somsel, who raised awareness of the plan's mandatory nature in the Jan. 4 issue of the American Thinker, an online magazine.
However, Michael Shames, executive director of San Diego's Utility Consumers' Action Network, a critic of the plan's mandatory nature, wasn't impressed with the energy commission's statement.
"Most of the announcement is garbage," Shames wrote in an e-mail. "For us, the most important part of the announcement was the last line: 'Technology can be a powerful tool in managing our energy use. However, it is of utmost importance that consumers make their own energy decisions.'
"It is my plan to use this sentence again in the future when the next CEC or some other agency attempts to use good (remote energy services) for evil (non-overridable remote commands)," Shames wrote.
"Emerging advanced energy services will only be embraced by consumers if they have confidence that these technologies will not be used against them. It appears as though the CEC got that message this time around. We'll see if the message sticks," he wrote.
The other day one fellow asked me how to finance the best wind projects which are located far away from load centers in the Dominican Republic (Len Gould also asked a similar question earlier to make a decision about transmission for wind parks). He wanted to forgo nodal pricing for those resources to enhance the investment opportunity. I think that is like a drunken man trying to find a key in the middle of the night under a lamp post away from the door where he dropped it.
As I wrote earlier "Don, Fred [, Len, Ed] and others keep confusing 'the functioning of the parts for the functioning of the system.' I am perfectly happy with those people, even if I claim that their opinion about economies of scale of a part is unnecessary in the generative dialogue."
Dick is begging the question of the smart grid and EWPC ultraquality (integrated transmission and distribution) transportation, when he writes "But those functions [T and D] are generally separated in utilities, so we need some reorganization [such as EWPC] before we can tackle this issue in a manner that makes it worth the effort. A recent experiment on the Olympic Peninsula demonstrated that with 21st century technology much can be done on the customer side of the meter to optimize the cost and reliability of connectivity. In short, what is needed is not a transmission strategy but a new customer service strategy for the industry that redefines the role of transmission in connecting customers to the grid."
21st century technology is due to a test at California at the end of the month. Recalling The BIG California LIE, California has another opportunity to reorganize the industry by opening it to business model innovations on the customer side, as suggested in the article PCT One of Many Business Model Innovation. That LIE was enabled by the debating system, in which the highest leverage rest under vested interests. Now that customer choice is the BIG issue once again, I suggest that the debating system be replaced by a generative dialogue to enable the "customer service strategy" as Dick called it to emerge.
In his response to Dick, Don seems to be spelling the operation of a power system after generators are already committed under security constrains. To help Dick's case, under EWPC committing load (including distributed resources) changes (additions and reductions) helps minimize system operating costs. For example, dispatching a 1,600 MW nuclear station when only 200 MW are needed to be committed is better served if long run demand response (energy efficiency) is available to be developed as nukes take a long period of time to come on line. It is the paradigm shift from "Once upon a time," that is missing in Don's opinion, which he can certainly change without doing any harm to himself as an intelligent and important person.
The above is the result of also missing that "Once upon a time," long run planning meant to consider the single sum of all investment, operation, maintenance and customer's interruption costs to expand the power system under least costs and not the minimum costs of the parts by themselves. It is that previous decision in which the location of generation and transmission were and are made to further maximum social welfare, and not later on. That is exactly where there is no way to confuse "the functioning of the parts for the functioning of the system" to understand that a new 1,600 MW nuke wasn't needed in the first place in the above example. That is also why "I claim that their [Don, Fred, Ed and others] opinion about economies of scale of a part is unnecessary in the generative dialogue."
By integrating demand to power system planning, operation and control, both demand side and supply side options will be getting a good hearing when the time is right to develop the proper generation, transportation and distributed demand resources mix, under a controlled transportation market and an under an open competitive wholesale and retail market.
Jose,
Numbers, please. Once again all I find is, as Len has noted, flowery , unsupported fluff.
"Once upon a time," discourse was just about debating.
Is "the functioning of the parts for the functioning of the system," still "unsupported fluff? Readers should know better now that the "economies of scale of a part is unnecessary in the generative dialogue."
In order to learn as a group of people there is a need for a balance between debate and dialogue. But maybe dialogue is not possible in this media, as defensive routines are key elements to the debating system. That is why I suggest that groups, companies, states, countries and country unions, get involved by themselves in generative dialogues to find out what is emerging.
Bright people like you, Fred, Len, and others can hide (maybe even without being truly aware) in your positions, when the world is in the process of developing fresh and emergent insights, as EnergyPulse would want. Until your views, like mine, are suspended and inquired, this medium will prove to be very ineffective to further progress.
Plus the mistaken idea that a system cannot be modelled before it is built.
Yes many systems can be modelled before thay are built. However, that may be done in the company vs. company phase. There is no need for detailed numbers to get to a shared vision withing "groups, companies, states, countries and country unions," as they "get involved by themselves in generative dialogues to find out what is emerging."
Dick,
"The first step in developing a vision for the future of electric transmission [transportation] is to develop an understanding what it should do," is right on. Your personal vision seems to be aligned with my EWPC personal vision. Maybe we could start to develop a shared vision with other people interested in doing it.
For that reason, don't forget to read my post above, where I use the word transportation instead of transmission, since transmission and physical distribution are just the two means of transportation. In effect, as the power system needs to offer ultraquality service, that need is retained by the transportation system under a controlled market to be able to expand the transportation system at least costs while enabling maximum social welfare (as explained in the same above post) in the open and competitive retail and wholesale market. If you need more detail, please consider the EWPC article Free Market and Central Planning, Under R1E2 ( http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2007/9/2... ).
Also, don't forget to read the post PCT One of Many Business Model Innovations (see above) about the proposal for "Programmable Communicating Thermostats," or PCTs, which is "not dead. It has been shifted to the commission's "load management" agenda, according to a statement placed on the commission's Web site Tuesday." Under EWPC, we need not know the new emerging business model innovations, and thus no "numbers available," which will be enabled in the future as customers' perceptions' will necessarily shift and as new technologies become available and improve.
Please notice that Joseph Somsel is a nuclear activist, which was debating against PCT, operating under the mental model "The common sense alternative is to build new power plants so that power shortages don't occur."
Two points, Jose. They are in the form of questions.
1. Is an omnipotent visionary like you familiar with the "Principal of Optimality"? What does it tell you about a system and its parts?
2. What does being a nuclear engineer have to do with recognizing when the individual rights of a person have been violated by misuse of "emergent technology"?
The answers, of course, are probably an indication of how far out on that left tail I mentioned in an earlier string you really are.
This is what I understand to the best of my knowledge, which is open to inquiry by persons willing to do the same. Maximum social welfare is not necessarily an optimum to everyone, but to society as a whole. EWPC is about enabling such idea, which is left to people perceptions' to approach it. No complex system can be optimum to all parties concerned, nor all functions optimized. If the open market is well set up, without monopoly power being exercised in the current case by one "business model innovation," called it PCT or IMEUC, customers will be able to exercise their choices not only initially, but also later on.
Somehow, the agenda of that nuclear engineer is that "The common sense alternative is to build new power plants so that power shortages don't occur." It negates the opportunity to develop the resources of the demand side, which is the key issue to integrate demand.
Believe it or not, my vision is not negative as an anti-nuclear, is it just positive as pro EWPC. If nuclear power can prove its case, it will be better off under EWPC than under today's unstable markets that need to be financed by costly financial capital, while EWPC will enable stable markets to be financed by reasonable production capital.
To understand emergence, please recall the "Law of the Situation: the railroads did not understand,"
"Some people [California IOUs for example] still believe there's a divine dispensation that their markets are theirs - and no one else's - now and forevermore. It is an old dream that dies hard, yet no businessman in a free society can control a market when the customers decide to go somewhere else [under EWPC for example]. All the king's horses and all the king's man are helpless in the face of a better product. Our commercial history is filled with examples of companies that failed to change in a changing world, and became tombstones in the corporate graveyard."
In addiiton to the above post, the progressive people of California should also forward this post to the California Energy Commission (CEC) and to the media at large interested in CEC "Load Management" agenda and in the state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency, known as Title 24.