The Future of Demand Response Technologies

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 12:31:42 -0400

We know that electronics drive enormous efficiency gains on the grid. After all, our smartphones can guide us to some place we've never been, so why not immediately optimize all our home appliances to help balance the grid load?

Easier said than done at this point in time, which is why researchers like UCLA's Rajit Gadh are busy in their labs.

Gadh is director of the UCLA Smart Grid Energy Research Center here in Westwood, which performs research into and demonstrates advanced wireless/communications, Internet, and sense-and-control technologies in the smart-grid context.

"The grid already has a lot of smarts in the sense that it's very reliable when a part of the grid breaks down, it comes back very quickly," Gadh said. "What we don't have the ability for the consumer to participate in these types of programs."

(Link to watch a video interview with Gadh)