 What Is A Smart Grid?
By: Adam Stein
Date: January 30, 2009
Source: WORLDCHANGING (www.worldchanging.com)
Ednote: Allied with the previous article “Smart Grid and Future Technology” is the question of what exactly is a “Smart Grid”? Since our national grids are sadly in need of smartness, expansion and upgrades it might be worth a discussion so we are all informed. Informed voters/rate payors make better decisions. The future of alternative energy distribution is very connected to available capacity in cross-country transmission lines as well. Note the recent failure of T. Boone Pickens dreams of mega-wind power farms. The smart grid could also offer WiFi and broad band allowing the poor not only access to the internet for job searches, but local cell-phone charging stations from street light uprights.
Our future grid will pull together a complex and far-flung set of technologies
The trouble with writing about the smart grid is that the news is moving so fast.
Witness:
But this is all getting ahead of things. Round 1 of this series looked at why we need a smart grid. Round 2 will try to briefly answer the question, what is a smart grid? This question is a bit trickier to answer than you might think, much as the question “What is the internet?” is a bit more slippery than it first appears. Let’s let Tyler Hamilton take a crack at it.
The true vision of the smart grid is a self-healing, automated grid that can manage complex flows of electrons, from the hundreds — potentially thousands — of large and small sources of power to the millions of homes, businesses, industrial customers and, potentially, electric cars that require that energy.
Sounds good. The Department of Energy breaks this down a lot further, laying out no fewer than 60 specific technologies that fall under the smart grid label (big PDF). These can be loosely grouped into six intersecting categories:
· One set of technologies — smart meters, programmable thermostats, home automation software, etc. — allows consumers (Or by the utility.) to participate in the smart grid by adjusting their electricity use automatically based on fluctuations in electricity availability or rates.
· The most desperately needed part of the smart grid are the transmission lines and control software that tie together far-flung renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar) and energy storage devices (such as electric batteries). Unlike the present crazy quilt system, a true smart grid will be able to move electricity from wherever its being generated to wherever its needed — potentially thousands of miles away — in real time, even parking it in storage for use later if necessary.
· The smart grid is a communications network, moving information about grid performance, electricity demand and availability, rate information, etc. from point to point.
· The smart grid is an application platform. Just as the internet allowed services like Amazon.com to spring into existence, the smart grid will allow a host of innovative energy management applications from third parties to be deployed on the network.
· The smart grid is a set of monitors and automated control mechanisms that respond quickly to service interruptions — whether from natural disasters or purposeful attack — in a self-healing manner.
Taken together, these features of a smart grid will facilitate both clean energy and energy efficiency, all while providing more reliable service.
At least, that’s the hope. A large number of companies, from start-ups to industry giants like IBM, are working feverishly to make it a reality.
Adam Stein is a co-founder of TerraPass. He writes on issues related to carbon, climate change, policy, and conservation.
OFGEM Plans "Smart Grid Cities" As It Gears Up
By: Tim Webb
Date: August 4, 2009
Source: WORLDCHANGING (www.worldchanging.com) This post originally appeared on guardian.co.uk
Regulator cites plans to provide infrastructure for renewable micro-generation
Britain will create up to four "smart grid cities" after the energy regulator set aside £500m from customers' utility bills to start rewiring the nation's electricity system.
Ofgem wants companies to choose several towns or cities where it will pay for households to have smart energy technologies installed to monitor how it works on a large scale.
The idea is to start an overhaul of the ageing electricity grid, which is centralised and depends on large fossil fuel powered plants, and make it more localised using more renewable forms of generation.
Mini "smart grids" will be built that will be able to handle more unpredictable large volumes of power from intermittent wind farms. The grids will also make it easier for households that have their own micro-generation – such as solar panels on their roofs – to supply electricity back to the grid. Smart meters will be fitted in homes, which are better able to manage demand unpredictable supply peaks from renewable forms of generation, such as wind and solar power.
Steve Smith, Ofgem's managing director of markets, told the Guardian that the model would be the US town of Boulder, Colorado, dubbed the world's first "smart grid city".
Companies could combine with other government schemes, such as those trialling electric cars, he said. Electric cars are helping to drive the roll-out of smart grids as they are generally charged at night. This means electric car batteries act as storage for otherwise unused renewable generation because wind farms continue to generate at night, when most other forms of demand is low.
Philip Wolfe, director general of the Renewable Energy Association, welcomed the £500m scheme. "This is encouraging news. The electricity network has been designed for a centralised energy approach for a few large scale power stations dotted around the country feeding out towards users somewhere down the line in a dumb grid.
"It will be a substantial task to rewire it. With the new feed-in tariffs coming in next year, it will dynamite the market for microgeneration. But it's important to have the infrastructure for it."
The £500m funding for the UK scheme will be spread over five years. Power companies also welcomed the cash.
Ofgem announced the plan as part of its five year review of distribution charges that electricity suppliers must pay to use the network. Ofgem said annual bills would go up by £4 each to pay for the £6.5bn in total it says companies need to invest.
Ofgem now has a remit to protect consumers, no longer just by keeping bills down, but also by cutting carbon emissions.
Smart Grid Stimulus Applications Accelerate as Deadline Approaches
By: Jeff St. John
Date: August 5, 2009
Source: www.greentechmedia.com
Four more utilities are seeking millions of dollars from a $3.3 billion pool of smart grid stimulus grants. A rough tally puts the total requested at $1.53 billion, but more applications are likely to come, industry watchers say.
The deadline is fast approaching to ask for a piece of the Department of Energy's $3.3 billion Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, and utilities are taking notice.
Four more utilities – CenterPoint Energy, United Illuminating Co., Westar Energy and PPL Electric Utilities – have publicly announced their requests, in advance of the Aug. 6 deadline for applying for the investment grants (see DOE Issues Rules for $3.9B in Smart Grid Stimulus Grants).
Those make up the larger portion of a total of $3.9 billion in stimulus grants for smart grid projects. The remaining portion is for smaller projects that demonstrate new technologies (see DOE Hands Out $47M for Smart Grid Demos).
But for the investment grant program, job creation will be one of the key measures DOE will use to judge winners and losers, industry watchers say – and for many of the utilities that have applied so far, that means big smart meter deployments.
That includes a $317 million request from Texas utility Oncor, a $200 million request from Baltimore Gas & Electric and a $254 million request from Maryland-based Pepco Holdings (see Oncor Makes $317M Smart Grid Pitch and news reports here).
Still, not all the applications are aimed at boosting the number of two-way communicating electric meters in the field (see 8.3M Smart Meters and Counting in U.S.).
Distribution automation projects – sensors, communications and control systems to improve the efficiency of distribution grids – are also seeking a smaller, but significant, portion of the funds available (see Distribution Automation: Smart Grid's Quiet Efficiency Offering).
Take the example of Houston-based CenterPoint Energy, which said Wednesday it would request $200 million from the program.
About $150 million would be aimed at accelerating its deployment of smart meters, it said. CenterPoint expects to have two million of the meters, built by Itron, installed by the end of the project – which could be by 2012 with federal support, or 2014 without it, the utility noted in its press release.
The remaining $50 million would go for CenterPoint's Intelligent Grid project - a distribution automation system that uses smart meters, along with other devices, to maximize efficiency and minimize breakdowns on the portion of the grid that carries power from substations to end users (see GE Offers WiMax Smart Meter Solution).
Another utility seeking funds for distribution grid systems is PPL Electric Utilities in Harrisburg, Pa., which is seeking $19 million in grants to support a proposed $38 million project with key goals of optimizing voltage levels and detecting and isolating problems that can cause outages. General Electric, Lockheed Martin and Alcatel-Lucent would be partners in the project, the utility announced.
On the customer-facing front, New Haven, Ct.-based utility United Illuminating Co. said it would seek $37.5 million in grants to support a $75 million project focused on installing smart meters and the two-way communications systems to support them.
And Kansas-based Westar Energy is seeking up to $20 million to cover half of a $40 million project to install programmable thermostats and Web connections in customers' homes in Lawrence, Kan. The utility is seeking regulator approval for the project, it said.
New York-based Consolidated Edison Co. and Chicago-based Commonwealth Edison are also asking for grants, with ComEd asking for $175 million for a 141,000 smart meter deployment and ConEdison asking an unspecified amount in support of $375 million in planned smart grid projects (see Green Light post).
Also, Spokane, Wash.-based utility Avista said it would seek $20 million to help pay for a distribution grid upgrade, and Arizona utility Salt River Project is seeking an undisclosed amount to support smart meter deployment, as well as substation communications and transmission line monitoring systems.
Then there's Florida Power & Light, which said in April that it would seek stimulus funding for a $200 million project to install about one million smart meters in Miami as part of a larger smart meter project. The utility hasn't publicly specified how much grant funding it would be seeking (see A Million Smart Meters For Miami).
Adding up only the grant applications that have been made public with specific dollar figures attached yields a total of about $1.24 billion in requests so far.
If one assumes that Florida Power & Light and Consolidated Edison would seek up to 50 percent of the costs of the projects for which they've said they'll seek grants, that total would rise to $1.53 billion.
But it's almost certain that many, if not most, of the larger utilities in the country are also seeking smart grid stimulus grants, even if they haven't publicly said so, noted Sandy Goodwin, director of intelligent grid service at E-Source, an energy research firm that serves utility clients.
"Some I think we won't hear about until after the due date," she said. "From what I've heard, DOE is expecting hundreds, if not thousands, of applications."
For example, California's three major investor-owned utilities - Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric - had yet to publicize whether or not they were seeking stimulus grants as of Wednesday morning, she noted.
But the three are among the leaders in smart meter deployments, which would seem to make them natural candidates for stimulus, she said.
Beyond the focus on job creation, DOE is likely to favor applications that include plans to provide two-way communications to consumers' homes to send pricing signals or commands that can turn down power-using systems such as air conditioners, water heaters and appliances, Goodwin said.
Such "home area networks" are part of the business plan of most of the smart meter deployments being done in the country today, though real-world efforts remain at the pilot project stage (see Comverge's Home Demand Response: Pagers First, Then Smart Meters and The Smart Home, Part I).
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