For those of you requiring a fix of stories about negawatts. This is definitely the way things have to go to reduce consumption or more importantly reduce the need for more base load and transmission infrastructure. Soon however I’m guessing we will have devices that automatically decide to power down themselves. I believe there are demand side control systems like this already in energy intensive industrial applications.

clipped from www.technologyreview.com Red alert: The red glow of the Joule meter from ConsumerPowerline and Ambient Devices tells participants in an energy-conservation program that their local power grid is jammed and that their utility will pay them to power down. Can glorified glow lamps stop blackouts and slash energy costs? Manhattan-based ConsumerPowerline thinks so. This winter, about a thousand participants in the company’s energy-conservation program will receive small plug-in boxes that glow red when power demand peaks, urging them to turn off space heaters, defer dishwasher runs, or otherwise save electricity. Energy suppliers respond to spikes in demand by gearing up extra production capacity. That can be so expensive that many utilities are willing to pay to promote conservation during periods of peak use. ConsumerPowerline pays apartment complexes, companies, and institutions to conserve on cue, then resells the resulting “negawatts”–reduction in demand–to utilities in New York, Massachusetts, and California.

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