Oct 27 2009

A Smart Investment in Smarter Grids

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The Obama administration today issued a huge vote of confidence in the utility industry's commitment to providing customers with more reliable, efficient and sustainable electric service: It announced $3.4 billion in grants to leverage more than $8 billion in total investments in "smart grid" technology and systems.

The programs funded include mass deployments of smart meters, in-home energy displays and distribution and transmission automation systems. The White House predicts they will create tens of thousands of jobs across the country, reduce the frequency of power outages that cost American consumers $150 billion a year, and help make possible energy savings of $20 billion a year by 2030.

California utilities will receive $203 million in funds from the Department of Energy. Other large state recipients were  North Carolina ($404 million), Florida ($267 million), Texas ($258 million) and Pennsylvania ($233 million).

Ultimately, all utilities--and more important, their customers--should benefit from the lessons these projects will provide in how best to implement high-tech systems that help people manage energy more wisely and sustainably.

PG&E, which leads the nation in smart meter deployments, did not receive funding for its proposed customer energy management project, in collaboration with IBM, Cisco, Stanford University, the city of San Jose and other partners.

However, with funding previously approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E still plans a project to demonstrate Home Area Network technology. As PG&E's Chief Customer Officer Helen Burt wrote in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, such technology will allow smart meters to "communicate with in-home displays that show customers how much energy they are using and at what price, and with smart appliances, which can be programmed to operate during hours when there's less demand for power and lower prices."

PG&E is also part of a consortium led by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), which won stimulus funds to improve monitoring and performance of the 14-state Western electric grid.

WECC's $108 million project--which will be supported by a $54 million grant from the Department of Energy--will install sophisticated sensors, called phasor measurement units, at key points around the grid and connect them with a new data communications infrastructure.

The sensors will help operators improve grid reliability, free up transmission capacity and facilitate greater integration of intermittent renewable generation, like wind and solar power, into Western electricity markets.

PG&E also has another proposal--to build a compressed air energy storage facility that will store off-peak wind energy and release it during peak afternoon hours--which is still being reviewed by the DOE as part of the smart grid stimulus funding program.

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"PG&E" refers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation.