Sacramento Municipal Utility District

www.smud.org   Territory: 900-square-mile service in northern California Headquarters:  Sacramento, CA General Manager and CEO:  John DiStasio Employees:  2,161 Ownership: Publicly owned utility   2008 Operating Revenues: $1.48 billion   Customers ·  522,228 residential ·   67,361 commercial   Assets ·  473 miles of transmission lines ·  9,784 miles of distribution lines ·  5,730 MW generation   Read more Transmission and Distribution World SMUD Selects R. W. Beck to Help Implement AMI System & Evaluate Smart Grid   Sacramento Bee SMUD to offer new solar program

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is the nation's sixth largest community-owned electric utility based on customers served.

It generates, transmits and distributes electric power to a 900-square-mile territory that includes California’s capital city, Sacramento County and a small portion of Placer County. SMUD As a municipal utility, SMUD is governed by a seven-member board of directors. The SMUD board determines policy for the District and appoints the general manager, who is responsible for the District’s operations. In 2007 and 2008, SMUD received the highest commercial customer satisfaction score of any electric utility in the country from J.D. Power and Associates. Power generating assets include hydro and natural gas plants plus wind and solar projects.

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Smart Grid

SMUD is moving forward on the smart grid front, launching its $110 million Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Project. The project calls for implementing an AMI system—two-way interactive customer meters—for all 610,000 residential and commercial customers. The full system roll-out to all customers is expected to be complete by December 2011. A primary goal of the project is to create a foundation on which the SMUD can build a variety of programs such as demand response, load management, energy efficiency, and time-based pricing programs. In January SMUD selected consultant R. W. Beck to help implement its AMI/Smart grid project. SMUD chose to go with Itron’s Enterprise Edition (IEE) Meter Data Management (MDM) system.

Renewables

At the end of 2008, renewables accounted for approximately 17 percent of SMUD’s power supply. SMUD aims to have renewable energy account for 33 percent of its delivered power supply by 2020.

A “virtual solar” program was implemented in 2008 to give SMUD customers an opportunity to get between 20 to 40 percent of their power from SMUD’s solar sources. SMUD intends to install 6.0 MW of new SB-1 solar capacity in 2009.

The utility has purchased the entire output of a 55-megawatt biomass cogeneration plant in Tacoma, Wash.