| | | | | Gustaf Öhrnell Hjalmars for The Washington Post | | Will you let your devices decide when to recharge? If you own an iPhone, you probably already have. This week's column explores how a new, largely unnoticed iPhone feature is giving us a preview of our clean energy future. | |  | | Apple is getting a lot of flak for setting up iPhones to charge when the sun shines or the wind blows. Right-wing personalities slammed the feature, called "Clean Energy Charging," as yet another "woke" front in the culture war. Others worried they would wake up to a depleted battery. | | This misses the quiet revolution this feature represents for you and the electricity grid. Apple has proved overnight that millions of ordinary people will use their devices to help manage the electricity grid, even if they don't realize it. And that's precisely the point. As America tries to electrify everything and switch to renewable energy at the same time, we need a way to dial down demand at critical times and soak up excess renewable energy at others. And we need to do this automatically. | | In this week's column, I explore what that might look like. Renewable energy fluctuates dramatically over the course of a day. But consumer demand doesn't. That creates an imbalance — and sometimes, blackouts. You and I are the solution — or, at least, our devices. All of us are going to have to be a lot more flexible about when we use electricity to balance the grid. How? The machines will do it for us. The iPhone was the first device to coordinate millions of customers' energy use on a minute-by-minute basis to favor renewable energy. | | Now imagine Apple's approach applied to electric vehicles, heat pumps, refrigerators and other major devices and appliances. Millions of machines can act in concert to adjust their temperature by 1 or 2 degrees to spare the grid with their owners none the wiser. Utilities might even pay you, or lower your rates, for the service. Should you keep the iPhone feature on? Your call. But if you want to know more about what it means for you, and a cleaner energy future, read this week's column. | |  | | Did you know I read all your emails? Be part of the Climate Coach community. Write with clever ideas, bad jokes and ways I can make this newsletter better for you at climatecoach@washpost.com. | | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Climate Coach in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. | | See you on Thursday, Michael Coren, Climate Coach | | | | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment