Smart Grid (R)evolution - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 219

A different kind of struggle over the imagined future benefits of smart grid was
illustrated in our Chapter 8 discussion of climate change and the environmental
uncertainties of smart grid innovation. While environmental improvements are often touted
as a dominant promise of smart grid justifying grid innovation, the degree to which
smart grid may actually contribute to environmental improvement is neither self-evident
nor predetermined. The environmental impacts of smart grid development depend on the
details of implementation, which actors' perspectives are most influential, which smart grid
configurations are advanced, and what environmental impacts are prioritized. All of these
details are context-specific, dynamic, and dependent on which societal actors have more
control in shaping smart grid systems. It is possible to imagine, for example, a scenario
in which a large utility, heavily dependent on coal-fired power generation, uses smart grid
technologies, including syncophasors and new high-voltage transmission lines, to operate
their fossil fuel plants at lower cost. Such a scenario exemplifies the possibility that some
smart grid futures may not maximize environmental benefits.
9.4 Evolution to Revolution: Wind-to-Heat in a Small Canadian
Community
To illustrate the potential for evolutionary smart grid innovation leading to more
transformative revolutionary change, we introduce one final example of electricity system
change in the Canadian city of Summerside on Prince Edward Island (Belanger 2014 ) . This
small city of about 7,000 households and 14,000 people installed a four-turbine 12 MW
wind farm in 2009, which was largely a financially motivated decision by the city. Between
2010 and 2012 the city profited by $1.6 million annually from selling the electricity to the
local municipal utility, Summerside Electric. Given the variability of the wind, however,
the utility ended up having more electricity than it could use locally, and due to limits on
its power purchasing agreements it lost money if the excess power was sold elsewhere. To
help manage the mismatch between supply and demand and expand the city's use of the
local power, the municipal utility worked with the city to explore options for storing and
using surplus electricity for residential and commercial heating in Summerside.
Electric thermal storage (ETS), the storage of electricity as heat in an insulated brick
core, became the focus of Summerside Electric's strategy, because the excess renewable
electricity during off-peak hours could be used to provide a reliable and low-cost steady
stream of heat for water and space heating for residential and commercial customers
(Belanger 2014 ) . This so-called “Heat for Less” program also required the installation of
a fiber network to enable reliable two-way communication and the smart meters necessary
to monitor and manage the electricity storage capacity of the ETS units. Although the fiber