Most Innovation Is Invisible

Neal Stephenson's recent talk on "Innovation Starvation" strikes a nerve in every engineer: we don't build anything anymore. With the end of high-visibility mega-projects like the space shuttle, it's an understandable notion. Another way to look at it is that the innovation of our era is incremental and invisible.

The telcos have invested billions to create a worldwide high-speed mobile data network. The only manifestation of this gigantic project is the occasional poorly-hidden tower disguised as a tree. In exchange, we are never lost, can always meet our friends at an event with no planning, are always informed, record or reference any memory, and can travel in unfamiliar places like a local.

Our electricity system is undergoing a seismic shift away from coal and toward natural gas. For the last decade, 90% of the new generation capacity in ISO New England has been highly-efficient, relatively low-carbon combined cycle gas turbines. If each of these replaced a coal plant, you're talking an avoided-carbon equivalent equivalent to a few hundred wind turbines. Cape Wind is a big, visible project with a high feel-good factor. But the invisible innovations in natural gas exploration that have made this cleaner fuel relatively cheap have had much more impact.

Even the military (which used to spontaneously generate battleships and bombers like aristotelian flies) is assembling its toys from loose networks of small parts. The drone that just executed Anwar al-Awlaki is a fragile model airplane connected to a bunch of satellites, a guy in a trailer in Nevada, and world-class intelligence gathering.

To a generation that grew up on glossy books showing us the Future in its flying-car glory, this is all unsatisfying stuff. Sure, practical supersonic transport would cut my flight duration to Europe by a few hours. But the ability to rent a bike in Boston and return it in Cambridge saves more time per year. There is plenty of innovation happening, Neal. You just need to look with different eyes.

Special Project: NREL

I've been waiting for a while to announce this one. Last fall I applied for an Innovative Research Analysis Award Program grant from the National Renewable Energy Lab. It took a while to get the paperwork squared away, but the award is now official. From the NREL website:

Power System Balancing with High Renewable Penetration: the Potential of Demand Response in Hawai'i

The State of Hawai'i has adopted an aggressive renewable portfolio standard of 40% renewable energy by 2030. Most system balance studies in Hawai'i have focused on grid assets such as spinning reserve or energy storage to provide electricity when generation from renewable resources changes unexpectedly. Demand Response (DR) is an alternate strategy in which the grid operator ensures system stability by managing select consumers' loads, such as changing air conditioner set points or turning off non-essential loads within the service area according to a pre-approved prioritization plan. Demand Response may provide a lower-cost solution to balancing intermittent supplies, enabling the State to achieve its goals for reduced energy dependence. This research will use time series data for demand, wind speed, and wind speed forecasts to identify the potential grid-value of Demand Response, as well as DR program design to meet the needs of both the electric utility and electricity customers. A unit commitment model will simulate the relative production of wind, thermal, and demand response resources, then predict the frequency, duration, and scope of curtailment events necessary to maintain a balanced grid. Lessons learned in Hawai'i can be applied in other regions.

Collaborators: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Estimated completion is September, with publications and conferences to follow. This project is the reason why I delayed my graduation from Summer to Fall. It's exciting to see it come together.

A Dynamic Pricing Thought Experiment

Imagine that all residential electricity customers experience real-time pricing. We all have smart meters and smart appliances which enable customers to register a spot price beyond which the user is willing to automatically curtail use. Imagine that a popular air conditioner manufacturer ships its unit with a default curtailment price of $.25/kWh. What is your ideal bid?

You certainly don't want to leave it set at the user default. Your bid will be lost amid the others. If you value your comfort, a bid of $.26 will clear out the vast mass of people who just leave their appliance set at the default while still preserving the lowest possible bid. I'm not sure what a $.24 bid says about you, though. Maybe that you're cheap and want to capitalize on savings before everyone else?

ERCOT (in Texas) already limits the pool of demand resources because they can react so fast to an event call that the system goes into overvoltage. I wonder if device manufacturers will be required to ship their smart appliances with a randomized default bid to prevent a sudden shutoff of half the air conditioners at a substation.

The world of real-time pricing is going to be a fascinating place in ways the academics haven't even begun to consider.

MIT Energy Conference 2010

This weekend is the MIT Energy Conference. There are more interesting lectures than I can possibly attend, and that's even including skipping one of my favorite classes. (Sorry, professor von hippel.) I won't summarize every talk, but a few deserve mention:

The provocatively titled "Is green energy the next bubble?" panel talk provided some good fodder for thought. The consensus was that since the market for green energy is mostly provided by government policy, it is unlikely to overheat and bubble. But there was some good criticism of ethanol, which one panelist artfully described as a "bridge to nowhere." If incentives create powerful constituencies for other uneconomic policies, could we get into a similar bizzaroland? Another panelist, though, mounted an interesting defense of ethanol. Her argument was that the first generation food-based feedstocks created a market into which more-reasonable second-generation feedstocks (like cellulosic) could enter. I'm still not holding my breath.

The panel on electric vehicles asked a particularly incisive question: "If EVs are the solution, what is the problem?" Tellingly, the justifications were all over the place. One speaker mentioned "carbon", which is great (assuming you're not powered from a coal plant) but I don't see the incentive mechanism which will make drivers WANT an electric car. Another mentioned "energy security", which at least has a price mechanism (oil futures internalize uncertainty). The CEO of Fisker hit closer to the truth - driving enjoyment and ability to travel in emission-free european city hubs. Like all new technologies, EVs will continue to disappoint when compared to to internal combustion in the traditional metrics of range, weight, and cost. Without a price on carbon, the drivers which will bring us EVs will be noise, avoiding gas stations, acceleration, and other new metrics.

A few annoyances:

• There were a disturbing number of speakers whose presentation consisted of reading numbers verbatim from a paper statement. Boring.
• The panel discussion on solar had a strange format, with each speaker beginning with a long statement addressing the same 3 issues. I would have preferred that each speaker address a single question in series so as to promote more interplay of ideas.

This was a good conference, very well-run. Perhaps I'll help organize it next year.