TechPulse 360

The smart grid is one of the hottest investment themes in Silicon Valley.

Millions of venture dollars have been poured into startups such as Silver Springs Networks, Tendril and SmartSynch.

The concept is simple. Make the electrical network responsive, interactive and intelligent, and consumers, utilities and businesses will watch their electricity use more closely. They will turn off appliances when they aren’t needed or when peak-use power costs are high.

The smart grid is being grossly over sold, says Mark Bramfitt of PG&E

But implementation isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. And because of complexities, the grid could be over hyped as a solution to global warming that in the end won’t deliver.

One expert with a cautionary tale is Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager of customer energy efficiency at Pacific Gas and Electric.

The grid is “grossly over sold in Silicon Valley in particular,” Bramfitt said Thursday evening. It will help with conservation and let people make better product choices, but it is unlikely to accomplish some of the bigger tasks being asked of it, Bramfitt said at a Churchill Club and German American Business Association energy efficiency panel discussion.

For instance, consumers may choose to replace aging, inefficient refrigerators, or install more efficient LED lighting after monitoring their energy use. They also should be able to more accurately calculate whether rooftop solar saves money.

Similarly, the grid may enable utilities to cut peak load demand by encouraging people to curtail power use on the hottest summer days.

But it is unlikely to tackle some of the more massive tasks in front of it, says Bramfitt. One hope is that the smart grid will enable consumers to manage their home appliances remotely. But how will appliances communicate with smart meters, he asks, and how many people will really want to program their refrigerators? (The air conditioner may be a different story.)

“Who wants to see (his or her) power use hour by hour?” Bramfitt asks. “Maybe a few.” But not the many. And saving energy on a national scale is a challenge of large numbers.

Another claim is the smart grid will allow utilities to store solar or wind energy in the batteries of millions of electric cars when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Then when the sun sets or the wind dies, the power can be retrieved. Unfortunately, “the infrastructure is just not up to what everyone is asking of it,” he says.

One change the gird may permit is tiered pricing. Power can be made more expensive during high use hours and less expensive when demand is low. In that way, it could drive consumer behavior, says Bramfitt.

But provide a magical solution to climate change? Not in the cards.