Building a smart power grid at UCLA

Imagine a home or office where every appliance can carry on a minute-by-minute "conversation" with the local power grid, allowing devices to power down when the price of electricity is higher. Researchers at UCLA are partnering with colleagues from the Korea Institute of Energy Research to build and test innovative smart-grid technologies that could lead to major breakthroughs for power infrastructure and reliability. As part of that effort, the team is using three campus buildings as an experimental lab to observe how wireless sensing and control systems can help create the smart grid. They are retrofitting the structures with cutting-edge sensors and smart meters that can gauge and adjust the amount of power needed in a room at a particular time of day and control appliances, lights and heating and air-conditioning systems depending on energy pricing or power availability on the grid.

 

SOURCE: UCLA Press Release