October 14, 2009

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By Product Safety Letter staff

The Smart Grid could be as important an emerging change to product safety professionals as are the CPSIA or nanotechnology. The electricity-delivery benefits that the Smart Grid could provide -- better efficiency, cost-savings, reliability, etc. -- are great, but in changing how products receive electricity, it will be necessary to ensure safety. That might mean changing both products and the safety standards that govern their production. Recently, our premium sister-service, Product Safety Letter, carried two articles about these coming changes. Here's what it had to say,

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Product Safety Letter September 28, 2008

Movement toward a "smart grid" electricity distribution system means that standards makers and product safety regulators will need to stay on top of the effects on how products operate. That was among the topics raised by UL President/CEO Keith William, who visited commissioners September 23 and 24. Smart grid refers to modernization of the electricity delivery system, using computer/digital technology, decentralization and other methods to improve efficiency and reliability. Among the foreseen benefits would be the ability to better adjust electricity delivery to places and times as demand rises and falls. However, products might need to be adapted to a changed system, and Williams explained that UL is interested in looking at what those changes might be.

In a related vein, some people deem a smart grid necessary for a movement toward wide scale use of electric vehicles because it would mean spikes in electricity demand at night as the vehicles were recharged. Moreover, the vehicles themselves raise product safety questions. Williams pointed to the fire and explosion problem with high-energy rechargeable batteries for electrical products like laptop computer, and he suggested that such problems could be worse with the much-larger batteries needed for vehicles. He also raised the need to ensure recharging does not overload existing home electricity systems.

A 2008 Department of Energy publication, The Smart Grid: An Introduction (see www.oe.energy.gov/DocumentsandMedia/DOE_SG_Book_Single_Pages(1).pdf) provides a detailed overview of the effort.

The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) September 24 identified about 80 standards that should be updated to facilitate movement to the Smart Grid. The agency's draft report also specifies 14 priority work areas -- ranging from scheduling energy transactions to use of wireless communications and IP protocol to interoperability of electric vehicles. Download a copy of NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability from www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/smartgrid_interoperability.pdf.

NIST is accepting comments on the draft for 30 days with a goal of moving to the next stage of its efforts: creation of a Smart Grid Interoperability Panel by the end of the year. The agency is targeting 2010 to begin implementation steps. Smart Grid refers to modernization of the electricity delivery system, using computer/digital technology, decentralization and other methods to improve efficiency and reliability. Among the foreseen benefits would be the ability to better adjust electricity delivery to places and times as demand rises and falls.