{"id":5637,"date":"2022-11-01T15:34:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T15:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=5637"},"modified":"2024-07-16T15:46:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T15:46:51","slug":"air-conditioners-that-talk-to-each-other-could-prevent-rolling-blackouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2022\/Q4\/air-conditioners-that-talk-to-each-other-could-prevent-rolling-blackouts","title":{"rendered":"Air conditioners that talk to each other could prevent rolling blackouts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"purdue-initial-words-wrap\"><p class=\"purdue-initial-words wp-block-paragraph\">WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. &mdash;<\/p> \n<p>When we turn on the air conditioner, we seldom think about the hundreds of other air conditioners in our neighborhood that may also be turning on simultaneously. At these peak demand times, local power grids are susceptible to brownouts and other issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Purdue University researchers have proposed a simple solution: air conditioners that talk to each other. By distributing the times at which electrical loads turn on \u2013 even by a few seconds \u2013 power grids can be much more robust against these issues, with no discernible impact to the end user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEnergy use follows a predictable pattern,\u201d said&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.purdue.edu\/ME\/People\/ptProfile?resource_id=273136\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Kircher<\/a>, an assistant professor of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/purdue.edu\/me\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mechanical engineering<\/a>&nbsp;who studies the interaction between buildings and the electrical grid. \u201cWhen the outside temperature rises, air conditioners come on in the middle of the day to cool buildings down.\u201d This can lead to a domino effect because electrical infrastructure is built to withstand the worst-case scenario. \u201cIf a million people turn on their air conditioner at the same time, power lines may overload.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More information can be read on the Purdue University\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.purdue.edu\/ME\/News\/2022\/air-conditioners-that-talk-to-each-other-could-prevent-rolling-blackouts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">School of Mechanical Engineering website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div id=\"note\" class=\"post-content__attribution \">\n    <div class=\"columns\"> \n                    <div class=\"column\"> \n                <p class=\"post-content__source\">\n                    <strong>Media contact:<\/strong>\u00a0Kayla Wiles, 765-494-2432,\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:wiles5@purdue.edu\">wiles5@purdue.edu<\/a>                <\/p>\n            <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. &mdash; When we turn on the air conditioner, we seldom think about the hundreds of other air conditioners in our neighborhood that may also be turning on simultaneously. At these peak demand times, local power grids are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"department":[],"source":[29],"purdue_today_topic":[],"coauthors":[10],"class_list":["post-5637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","source-purdue-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5646,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/5646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}