Consider this – the consumption model for AC power has not fundamentally changed in over 100 years…..
The AC power system used today developed rapidly after initial experiments in the late 1800s, and included contributions by William Stanley, Jr., Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse (using licensed Tesla technology) and Carl Wilhelm Siemens. AC systems overcame the limitations of the direct current system used by Thomas Edison to distribute electricity efficiently over long distances even though Edison attempted to discredit alternating current as too dangerous during the “War of Currents”.
George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla, Siemens, General Electric and others were part of electrical transmission development and were players in the “War of the Currents” that shaped the way we, even today, interact with AC power.
Improvements in Generation, High Voltage transmission and Distribution may have been made since the days of the War of the Currents, but the fundamentals remain the same today in the delivery of the AC power we take for granted in our everyday life – generation, high voltage distribution, substation, distribution, and consumer consumption and interaction.
The “Automation” and “Lighting Control” markets have made an attempt at power management but fall short of true power management as they are fundamentally systems for turning lights or devices on or off and have little or no awareness of AC power and certainly do not have the capabilities or tools that, for example, a data network engineer would be accustomed to having for true visibility, awareness and most importantly management of data networks.
Without a fundamental change in the way AC power is managed and controlled, consumers will continue to waste power by the gigawatt.