Arthur's Seat

Smart or dumb meters?

Today's announcement by the UK government on smart meters tells only half the story about their potential. They have the capability to change the way in which we interact with our energy suppliers in the same way that online services have empowered us in our dealings with our banks and other retailers.

Smart meters will not only let us monitor our energy usage, but will strengthen our hand when dealing with the utility that provides our electricity. I look forward to using the new meter to provide me with up to the minute pricing information, so I, and not my supply company, can determine the rate and level of service that I require. I want to be able to sell home-generated electricity to the company that offers me the best price at the time, and to use the meter to run appliances in my home at the time that best balances the needs of my family with the immediate cost of the power required.

If, however, supply companies, and the government, see smart meters simply as a cheaper way to sell electricity within current market structures, and not to empower their customers, then they will be just another marketing gimmick.

Academic Earth

H/T Ian Douglas at the Telegraph: Academic Earth is a website offering lectures from US universities. Just beginning to dig into it - but it is a beautiful thing. Can the Russell Group come up with something similar?

Life on Earth

Wow. Competition in the amphibian world to meet a Princess is now far greater.

Full of good intentions

A bit of quiet time after a weekend full of boisterous children. Work month full of regulatory and political issues around building large-scale grid infrastructure to support Europe's drive for renewable energy, and to act as a hedge against incresingly volatile Russian gas imports.

Time to get out and bang the drum; thankfully there are many others out there who see the need.

A little twitter

Am now twittering. Thanks to Knowledge Problem. One more distraction in the day.

Smart customers and green power

Within this piece from the American Wind Energy Association on their predictions for 2009 is an interesting analysis on the language and dynamics of electricity supply. Very few consumers really understand the rude mechanicals of electricity supply - you flick a switch and the lights come on. Energy supply is remote. Power comes from anonymous grey boxes on the coast. Commentators write  in obscure terms about "base load" and "peaking plant". Broadly we need enough of the former to keep the lights on and the latter to boil the kettle during the ads on Coronation Street. Essentially, the customer is kept at arms length from the supply of electricity, which limits innovation and stifles competition. All that is about to change. As the AWEA puts it:

The electric industry faces dramatic transformations as it wrestles with the challenges of the 21st century. The old paradigm that assumed “baseload” power plants were necessary is being replaced by a new paradigm where both demand and supply are managed in tandem, and electricity is supplied by a smart, clean mix including a high level of renewable and flexible technologies.

Essentially, consumers will get much more involved in how they choose and use their electricity. Smart meters will give them an informed choice, and other breakthrough technologies will make even greater changes to the way we manage demand.

Do you always go to the same garage to buy your petrol? No? Why would you then always use the same electricity supply company to power your new electric car, let alone your domestic appliances? Your smart meter will buy what ever is cheapest and best for the task in hand. That electricity will come from a range of suppliers offering green only (renewable), carbon neutral (renewable and nuclear) or broad mix (the above and fossils). You get to choose - not the utility with whom you are currently a captive customer.

I got it from Agnes

Interconnection, wrote Tom Lehrer, is the stuff of life.

I am writing this on board the London bound express as we thunder through "MW Valley" - that part of South Yorkshire that is dominated by coal-fired power stations built when King Coal provided the UK with most of its power. To my left the main 400kv transmission line marches south, carrying the electricity to keep the lights on in London.

Transmission has long been the ugly sister in the electric family. Renewables are sexy - even gas-fired plant can be dressed up and made to wear lipstick. But, overhead pylons are ugly things, no matter which way you look at them. For too long over-regulated and unloved, the day is coming when the UK's transmission network is given a long-awaited makeover. Ofgem has had its remit subtly tweaked by the government and told to look again at its modelling for new transmission. The drive to build large amounts of offshore wind to meet the 2020 Directive means that we need to look closely at long distance DC interconnection across the North Sea to the continent.

The need for interconnection in support of renewable power generation is not a European phenomenon - could there be a NATO for grid experts? Suddenly, transmission access is sexy again.

Canada and a constitutional conundrum

This is a good analysis of the current constitutional imbroglio in Canada, which will be watched by "Constitutional Experts"* in the same way as twitchers flock to remote spots to catch a glimpse of some rare bird blown off its migratory course.

In countries that follow the broad outline of the UK constitution like Canada and Australia, there will be moments when the Sovereign, or the Governor-General acting as Sovereign, has to act in the absence of clearly defined rules. That is not to say that there are no rules. Analysis of the recent constitutional history of the UK, Australia and Canada provides the advisors to the Governor-General of Canada with a broadly clear set of guidance within which to act. Events such as the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's government in Australia and the fall of the Heath government in the UK have created a framework to direct the actions of the Crown.

There is also clear precedent within Canada's own constitutional history where the Governor-General upheld the tenets of responsible government and faced down a mob of truculent Tories who proceeded to burn down Parliament. Few remember the then leader of the Tories, but the Governor-General is now seen as a founding father of the Canadian constitution. He even had a hotel named after him.

* (recently described in the Spectator as a historian who gives journalists his telephone number)

The man on the Clapham omnibus

Trevor Kavanagh, the political editor emeritus of the Sun has a knack of being able to put his finger on the pulse of the British voter, as it were. Here he sets out why he has had a volte face on what used to be his paper's "hang 'em and flog 'em" agenda:

I USED to think ID cards were a good thing. Along with CCTV cameras and DNA databanks. Even, at a pinch, 90-day detention.

What law-abiding citizen could object to these new weapons against terrorists, rapists and murderers?

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

Not any more.

Not after the death of innocent Jean Charles de Menezes or the pointless shooting of drunken barrister Mark Saunders by two police marksmen. Not after the inexcusable bugging, strip-searching and futile £1million vendetta by police against journalist Sally Murrer for revealing officers had lost the keys to the local nick – a case which was rightly dismissed last week. And certainly not after the Stasi-style raid by anti-terror police on an MP I know to be above reproach.

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