Colorado’s SmartGridCity
In early September, Xcel Energy
proclaimed that “SmartGridCity becomes first fully functioning smart city in the world.” Well, not exactly. The release went on to say that Xcel “has completed construction of the infrastructure and launched the remaining software to
enable [my emphasis] all SmartGridCity operational functions. This step makes it the first fully functioning smart grid enabled city in the world.”
Specifically, “This launch ties together all the automated functions of SmartGridCity including: switching power through fully-automated substations; re-routing power around bottlenecked lines; detecting power outages and proactively identifying outage risks. The deployment integrated more than 20 applications, 95 new interfaces and more than 300 test cases.”
A month later, Ventyx, one of Xcel’s SGC partners, added that the project had “enabled 45,200 premises with broadband over powerline (BPL)”
“The SmartGridCity project also included automating three of four distribution substations, four computer-monitored power feeders, and another 23 feeders that are watched for voltage irregularities. Approximately 200 miles of fiber optic cable, 4,600 residential and small business transformers and nearly 16,000 smart meters are now connected to the smart grid system.”
In late 2009, Xcel was “qualifying” a limited number of households to participate in a pilot Home Energy Manager study in which, according to the
SGC website, “Qualified homes may receive no cost installation and use of smart in-home devices that help manage energy use and environmental impact.”
To learn how some Boulder residents view the project, read “
What Do Customers Expect from the Smart Grid?”
Hype, Hope, and Help
As with any new idea, those promoting it need to, well, promote it, which leads to inevitable hype. That’s not to say that the claims made for a smart grid are untrue. It’s just that (especially when they are made by politicians or utility executives or equipment and software vendors) they may raise the general public’s hope a bit too high too fast.
However, when they talk seriously within the industry, smart grid players and analysts are usually quite measured when speaking of the speed and success of SG activities.
For example, in this YouTube
corporate video, Enrique Santacana, president and CEO of ABB (a major SG technology player) says North America is “not close” to having a smart grid, and he spells out the many elements that must be aligned before that happens.
And in an October Smart Grid webinar hosted by
The Energy Daily (a sister publication of
POWER), the message was similarly realistic. Carol Stimmel, research director at Boulder’s
E Source, an energy information services company, noted that the smart grid is “not a thing.” There’s no “end point,” and “we’ll probably never be finished” she said. (Disclosure: I was formerly an editor at E Source.)
Stimmel identified what may be the largest potential brake on the ability of SG projects to deliver on their promises: Real success for the smart grid “depends on customer involvement.” However, an E Source study showed that as many as 90% of customers don’t understand the value of a smart grid.
Tom Scaramellino, founder and CEO of Efficiency 2.0 and trained presenter for Al Gore’s Climate Project, also emphasized the key role that consumers will play. He depicted the smart grid as consisting of four steps: meter, network, management, and consumer. (
Efficiency 2.0 describes itself as “the premier energy efficiency and social software provider for utilities and other organizations seeking to engage residential and small business customers.”)
In Scaramellino’s view, the biggest long-term value of the smart grid (at least as he pitched it for the largely utility webinar audience) is “enhancing customer relationships” by enabling the addition of other sources of value besides the electricity.
As for the environmental benefits that are sometimes claimed for the smart grid, Scaramellino acknowledged that because load-shifting would likely move demand to evening hours, the result on the generation side is that you’re shifting from gas to coal, so a smarter grid may not necessarily be entirely environmentally beneficial.
He also observed that regulators are allowing SG investments because operational-side savings accrue—although, as the Xcel case mentioned above shows, timing can be critical. Because “the costs are fundamentally on the backs of customers,” there may be some “regulatory backlash” if utilities can’t demonstrate customer benefits over the next couple of years.
What’s Next?
If the state of the U.S. economy prompts another “stimulus package,” as some have speculated is possible, more federal money could be up for grabs later in 2010. In any case, instead of federal funds, public policy is likely to be the next lever that moves SG projects forward. As federal and/or state renewable standards and greenhouse gas limits become reality, every utility will have a different sort of incentive to minimize load increases, shift load from peak periods, and integrate renewable generation into its resource plan.
At least in the short term, we can expect more project announcements and more publicity about the biggest or smartest rollout of this or that SG technology. However, because much SG technology is still in its infancy, there will be someone coming along in a month or a week with a project that’s “bigger” or “smarter”—for years to come.
Another trend we may see concerns litigation involving smart grid technologies. Because the smart grid has many parts, supplied by many vendors, using relatively new technologies (especially compared with analog meters and existing T&D infrastructure elements), there are bound to be some growing pains.
Take for example, the case of a California man in the Central Valley who saw his monthly
PG&E bill jump from about $200 to over $500. As the
San Francisco Chronicle reported on Nov. 9, “The class-action suit, filed on Oct. 16 in Kern County Superior Court, alleges that the meters aren't accurate and lead to overcharges that PG&E should be forced to refund. PG&E denies allegations that the meters are faulty.
Similar complaints surfaced as the utility began installing smart meters in the San Francisco Bay area.
The utility has slowed deployment of the advanced meters, and the state PUC ordered PG&E to hire a
third-party expert to “test and validate meter and billing accuracy.” After field testing of 1,100 meters showed they were operating correctly, the
utility offered alternate explanations for the high bills that included customers dropping out of subsidy programs and bills with fees for overdue payments. Nevertheless, as this story was being finished, a web site affiliated with a Bakersfield television station reported that more than 500 customers had joined the
class action lawsuit.
At the very least, this case highlights the critical importance of communication—the old-fashioned kind, not the smart meter kind.
If, as some sources claim, the PG&E bills increased both because of rate increases implemented to pay for the smart meter implementation and because of running power-hungry devices during high-priced parts of the day, then companies like PG&E need to do a better job of communicating clearly, honestly, and proactively about the cost implications of their smart grid–related actions.
—Gail Reitenbach, PhD is
POWER’s managing editor.
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