The largest single area of expenditure that will have to be made in order to produce Smart Grid will be in Automatic Demand Response (ADR) on the transmission and distribution network. Our report http://memoori.com/smart-grid-2012 estimates that comprehensive ADR including communications between all digital devices, electrical conditioning, down to local controllers in commercial and industrial buildings and micro-grids will require an investment of some $1000 billion to achieve full penetration across the world. This is a major investment but it will provide a substantial return through improving operating efficiencies, reduced energy cost and outages, but its “raison d’etre” is that it facilitates the need to accept Variable Renewable Power (VRP). ADR is the very heart of Smart Grid but whilst the smart meter programme is now well underway and running away with the investment dollars, Automatic Demand Response is only just being introduced at the relatively small scale demonstration level. Programmes to invest in remedial measures […]