Smart Transformers

"If one neighbor plugged an electric car into an AC charger, for example, it could respond by tapping otherwise unneeded DC power from another neighbor's solar panels."

 

 

Sent to you by Pat via Google Reader:

 

 

Smart Transformers

via Technology Review RSS Feeds on 4/18/11

Controlling the flow of electricity to stabilize the grid

In a lab wired up to simulate a residential neighborhood, Alex Huang is working to revamp aging power grids into something more like the Internet—a network that might direct energy not just from centralized power stations to consumers but from any source to any destination, by whatever route makes the most sense. To that end, Huang, a professor of electrical engineering at North Carolina State University, is reinventing the transformers that currently reduce the voltage of the electricity distributed to neighborhoods so that it's suitable for use in homes and offices.

 

 

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Technology Review RSS Feeds using Google Reader
• Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites