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AP / Adele Starr
This smart intersection designed by the Virginia Technical Transportation Institute includes traffic signals and an advanced traffic controller system which was unveiled Tuesday, June 24, 2003 in McLean, Va. Electric utilities hope new smart meters based on traffic signal cues will help people put the brakes on their energy consumption.
Humans are visual creatures. When we see a red traffic light, we know to apply the brakes. Electric utilities are hoping a new generation of traffic light-like smart meter monitors will help people curb their energy consumption.
"When information is in real time and it's in your face it helps change habits," Catherine Cuellar, a spokeswoman for Oncor, an electric utility in Texas that is piloting two of the new monitors, told me Wednesday.
She has personally been testing the Landis+Gyr Ecometer, which has a screen that changes from green to yellow to red depending on how much energy is being consumed. She said it's been effective in getting her to take note of her energy use and even changed her behavior.
In one instance, she came home and the monitor was red. Her heat wasn't on and she couldn't figure out what was using so much juice. Then she realized her freezer door wasn't closed all the way. When she shut it, the monitor turned from red back to green.
This winter, the readings indicated higher energy consumption as temperatures dipped, prompting her to wear more layers, and to cuddle up with a blanket instead of cranking up the heat.
"That's the kind of instant awareness and conscientious and common-sense conservation that we believe this information will empower users to adopt," she said.
A similar gadget being piloted by the utility is manufactured by Tendril. Both run on the ZigBee standard, which allows two-way communication between devices and appliances in the house and a smart meter on the outside of the house.
Iris Kuo, writing on Venture Beat, noted that "it seems this (traffic light) approach is a simple but effective way to get to the vast majority of users who aren't terribly interested in raw energy usage data … In a home enabled with smart appliances like programmable thermostats and water heaters, these devices make even more sense."
More on the smart grid:
- 'Smart' power meters track electricity use
- 'Smart' meters have security holes
- 'Smart grid' – buzz of the power industry
- How smart can the grid get?
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
So, basically, the answer to the headline question is still a resounding "No!" Traffic lights have always been energy wasters and remain so. What this article talks about is simply an energy use indicator which happens to use the same color-scheme as a traffic light. Wow. Very creative.
How about somebody who can do basic time-speed-distance calculations sets traffic lights so that we spend less time sitting at them wasting gasoline? Forget about sensors and cameras and all that. We already know when rush hour happens. Fix the lights on the major thoroughfares to accomodate those flows with minimal stopping. Then worry about the secondary intersections, working your way out from major rush hour destinations. This is not rocket science and is something any moderately intelligent group of high school math students could figure out.
Not rocket science but it takes people and that cuts into corporations profits.
YES - traffic lights can save energy - by fixing them so that dozens of vehicles on main roadways don't have to stop at a red light, every minute of every hour, so that a side street where NO CARS are waiting can have a long green light. If you look around, you'll see there are intersections like this everywhere - and nobody will fix them.
This is a huge opportunity to save a lot of time and a lot of energy, especially for suburban commuters. And it's dead simple to implement. Remove unnecessary traffic lights, drastically re-time others, and put in smart sensors.
Auto engineers spend years researching ways to improve fuel economy by fractions of a percent. We could have this improvement in no time by fixing the traffic lights ... no research needed.
I second your comment. And third. My favorite is stopping for such a light at 2:00 AM, then having to wait as the opposing left turn lights take their time to cycle (no cars other than yourself, of course), then finally getting a green light, only to stop at the next light two blocks down the road (with no other cars) and repeating the process.
I absolutely agree -- we could probably increase overall fuel efficiency by 10% in cities and suburbs in no time just by fixing the traffic lights.
I've seen articles about test intersections that would switch to a steady yellow for the main thoroughfare and a blinking red for the side street intersection during light traffic times, mainly 10pm to 4am. Then back to normal traffic light operations when traffic necessitated the control.
Miker: We have that now. They are called round-a-bouts. There is no need for traffic lights anymore. Just remember to yield in a round-a-bout to the left.
So basically people are idiots and can't figure out that they use more energy when it is hot or cold without a panel in their house telling them so? And who pays for the electricity to run the panel that monitors how much power you use? Oh wait. You do!
Round-abouts are the answer. Not only do they allow for a normal flow of traffic, there is no additional electricity needed to operate the signals. This eliminates the 11:30 pm wait-at-the-light-when-no-one-else-is-there events.
As far as a gadget to tell me that I didn't close my fridge all of the way? It must be nice to have the cash to spend on luxuries like that. I guess I'll have to resort to the old-school method - look to see if it closed all of the way before I leave.
I think we should return to the ice box concept myself. Very green on energy consumption!
Just a back breaker, but job creator concept......