{"id":1704,"date":"2013-10-24T08:17:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T12:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/elr\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2023-07-25T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T20:00:08","slug":"smart-rules-for-the-smart-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/2013\/10\/24\/smart-rules-for-the-smart-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Rules for the Smart Grid (HELR Podcast)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Power<\/a>
Photo credit: Non-dropframe, Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Sachin Desai<\/em> — Oct. 24, 2013 at 8:18am<\/em><\/p>\n

What makes the Smart Grid \u201csmart\u201d?\u00a0 Of course the technology plays a role.\u00a0 Grid-scale batteries<\/a> allow renewable energy generators to be more competitive.\u00a0 New smart meters<\/a> allow homeowners to know which appliances are energy hogs.\u00a0 However, what also makes the Smart Grid \u201csmart\u201d is legal in nature.\u00a0 In particular, a unique approach is being undertaken to develop the standards and regulations that will govern the new grid.\u00a0 Professor Joel Eisen<\/a>, one of the nation\u2019s energy law experts, leads us through this critical aspect of the renewable energy revolution in an article<\/a> and podcast<\/a> published by the Harvard Environmental Law Review (HELR).<\/p>\n

The Smart Grid has often been compared to the internet<\/a>, a giant network, governed by an underlying set of traffic rules<\/a>, which allows energy to travel, two-way, from place to place just like information.\u00a0 However, unlike the internet, the Smart Grid is being built in an environment with huge entrenched interests, as well as multiple federal and state regulatory agencies with diverging missions.\u00a0 The current grid consists of 3,200 electric utilities<\/a>, interacting with even more suppliers and supporting businesses.\u00a0 To top it off, citizens groups are resisting the Smart Grid due to privacy concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So how can all these different organizations come together to develop the common foundation of rules and standards that will govern the electric internet?\u00a0 One traditional route is command and control<\/i> \u2013 where (federal) agencies set the rules after notice and comment.\u00a0 However, private groups<\/a> and state agencies<\/a> have fought against this approach, in large part arguing that federalism prevents the federal government from reaching into private homes and intrastate utility operations.\u00a0 Another traditional route is self-regulation<\/i> \u2013 where the private sector set its own rules (many internet<\/a> standards were set this way).\u00a0 However, getting so many actors with different incentives together on their own has proven difficult<\/a>, to say the least.<\/p>\n

Professor Eisen discusses an alternative: a novel, \u201cdemocratically-led\u201d process for rule-making. \u00a0It\u2019s a two-part process. First, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, through its Smart Grid Interoperability Panel<\/a> (SGIP), has brought together hundreds of participants<\/a> to set standards through negotiation and dialogue.\u00a0 SGIP can leverage its benign, disinterested status (it does not have regulatory power) to bring skeptics to the table.\u00a0 The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) can turn those standards into legally enforceable regulations only once \u201csufficient consensus<\/a>\u201d has been reached among the body.\u00a0 This process, especially in light of recent FERC decisions, has allowed Smart Grid standards to be created and implemented in an environment otherwise resistant to change.\u00a0 Professor Eisen discusses this and more in his article, \u201cSmart Regulation and Federalism for the Smart Grid<\/a>,\u201d published by HELR in the fall issue of Volume 37.\u00a0 Professor Eisen also sat down with Sachin Desai of HELR to talk about this article and the concepts behind it an HELR exclusive podcast, \u201cSmart Rules for the Smart Grid.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sachin Desai — Oct. 24, 2013 at 8:18am What makes the Smart Grid \u201csmart\u201d?\u00a0 Of course the technology plays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[78,88,116,118,143,186,207,213,221,225,235],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-helr-online","tag-electric-utilities","tag-energy-law","tag-federalism","tag-ferc","tag-helr-vol-37-1","tag-nist","tag-podcast","tag-professor-joel-eisen","tag-regulation","tag-renewable-energy","tag-smart-grid"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZkUb-ru","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/elr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}