GridPulse

Inspiration

During extreme summer heat domes (104°F+) and winter polar vortex freezes across the Texas ERCOT grid, residential peak electricity demand between 16:00 and 20:00 pushes feeder transformers toward thermal limits, triggers Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) watches, and forces grid operators to dispatch high-emission simple-cycle gas peaker plants. Yet most households have no clear way to see how their individual 240V and 120V sub-panel circuits (central HVAC, 40A Level-2 EV chargers, resistive dryers, water heaters, and pool pumps) stack up during emergency windows, or how long a 13.5 kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) home battery will actually last if the grid goes down.

GridPulse was built for Next Byte Hacks V5 as a tactile, Dieter Rams-inspired residential sub-panel telemetry and peak-load shift optimizer that turns complex time-of-use and microgrid math into an immediate, actionable household instrument.

What it does

1. Four ERCOT Weather & Reserve Scenarios:
   • August 104°F Thermal Peak (16:00 - 20:00 EEA-1 Watch): Models afternoon thermal derating, $0.32/kWh peak vs. $0.09/kWh off-peak tariffs, and 0.62 kg CO2/kWh marginal peaker intensity.
   • February Polar Vortex Freeze (06:00 - 09:00 & 17:00 - 21:00): Captures dual morning and evening electric resistance heating surges at 18°F.
   • Coastal Wind Drop & Solar Ramp (17:00 - 20:00): Simulates the late-afternoon "duck curve" net-load ramp as solar generation drops off before evening thermal demand subsides.
   • Outage Island Mode (13.5 kWh LFP Reserve): Simulates off-grid microgrid islanding with automatic critical-load breaker shedding.
2. 24-Hour Dual-Trace Demand Oscilloscope & Interval Scrubber:
   • Renders a custom real-time SVG dual-trace waveform comparing the unshifted baseline load curve (vermilion dashed) against the active load-shifted bus (emerald solid), with an interactive 24-hour interval cursor (00:00 to 23:00).
3. 8-Circuit Sub-Panel Load Directory & One-Tap Auto-Optimize:
   • Models 8 realistic residential circuits (Central HVAC Compressor 3.80 kW, Level-2 EV Supply Equipment 9.60 kW, Electric Resistance Tumble Dryer 4.50 kW, Variable-Speed Pool Pump 1.80 kW, Heat-Pump Water Heater 3.50 kW, Induction Range & Oven 3.20 kW, Medical & Cold-Chain Refrigeration 0.45 kW, and Fiber Gateway & Emergency LED Bus 0.35 kW).
   • Clicking One-Tap Auto-Optimize Peak Shift pre-cools thermal mass before 16:00, shifts EV charging to 01:00 - 04:00 nocturnal wind surplus hours, and locks out resistive laundry heating during emergency windows, shaving up to 22.51 kW (87.0%) off peak window demand and dropping the Feeder Strain Index from 99 / 100 (CRITICAL) to 30 / 100 (STABLE).
4. 13.5 kWh LFP Outage Reserve Simulator & Printable 1-Page Breaker Placard:
   • Computes usable capacity (94% inverter efficiency, 10% reserve floor), State of Charge (20% - 100%), daytime solar offset, and shows how shedding heavy 240V circuits extends backup runtime from 1h 48m to 84h 35m for critical medical refrigeration and communications.
   • Includes a dedicated @media print 1-page Household Breaker & Peak-Shift Schedule that families can print and tape inside their utility closet door.

How we built it

• Deterministic ES Module Telemetry Engine (js/gridpulse-engine.js): Pure, zero-dependency JavaScript engine computing 24-hour hourly load arrays, peak window kW shaved, daily and 30-day time-of-use bill arbitrage ($), marginal peaker carbon emissions avoided (kg CO2), feeder strain scoring (0-100), and LFP battery endurance math.
• Swiss Industrial Hardware Interface (index.html, styles.css, js/app.js, DESIGN.md): Built with warm limestone (#F4F2EB), deep graphite housing (#11161B), Space Grotesk + Instrument Serif + JetBrains Mono (tabular-nums), custom inline SVG oscilloscope rendering, and full keyboard/screen-reader accessibility.
• Automated Verification & Mutation Testing (tests/gridpulse.test.js): Verified with 48/48 unit tests (node --test) and 20/20 (100%) synthetic bug catches in our planted-defect mutation harness.

Challenges we ran into

Modeling realistic thermal pre-cooling and hot-water tank thermal storage required accounting for both the pre-charge energy bump before the peak window and the compressor duty-cycle reduction during the emergency window so that total daily energy conservation and time-of-use tariff arbitrage remain physically accurate.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Designing a responsive 24-hour dual-trace SVG oscilloscope and sub-panel breaker matrix with zero external charting libraries or framework bloat.
• Achieving 48/48 passing unit tests and a 100% (20/20) catch rate against planted arithmetic, boundary, and state mutations.

What we learned

Making grid resilience actionable at the household level requires translating abstract megawatt reserve margins into the specific breaker switches and time windows a family actually controls.

What's next for GridPulse

Adding live ERCOT wholesale settlement point price (SPP) JSON feed ingestion and downloadable Home Assistant / Matter smart-relay automation YAML schedules.

Built With

• css3
• github
• html5
• javascript
• node.js
• svg