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Smart grid losers …
Beacon Power. The Massachusetts-based flywheel energy storage maker that received federal stimulus money and a state loan filed for bankruptcy.
Solyndra and the DOE loan guarantee program. Speaking of stimulus recipients, California solar panel maker Solyndra shut downafter receiving $535 million in DOE loan guarantees, a program now under scrutiny.
PG&E. To be fair, PG&E rolled out millions and millions of meters, a major accomplishment. And it filed a comprehensive smart grid road map full of good ideas. But it can't seem to figure out how to make friends with the press and the public, and continues to suffer from bad publicity.
Xcel Energy. Xcel completed Boulder's SmartGridCity, in our view one of the country's most complete smart grid implementations. But cost overruns, regulatory wrangling and disputes over how much energy should come from coal caused the city of Boulder to vote to secede" from Xcel and form its own municipal.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn – After a contentious debate involving politicians, labor unions and smart grid proponents, the Illinois General Assembly voted to override Gov. Quinn's veto of smart grid legislation, giving Commonwealth Edison the go-ahead to build out a smart grid.
Congress. We don't cover politics much, but it's hard to miss the Congressional gridlock that has stymied progress on energy policy and put some valued programs – such as ARPA-E at risk.
Utilities in the Northeast. After racking millions in costs to restore power after the unseasonable October storm, governors, senators and others are calling for investigations of utility preparation for and responses to it.
Sitting on the fence …
ComEd. Yes, the governor's veto was overridden and they got the go-ahead to build a smart grid, but they were saddled with significant performance metrics. Can they deliver?
.
FERC. The commission took some necessary steps toward transmission planning and cost allocation reforms. But will they stick … or be overturned by opponents?
.
Broadband over power line. BPL doesn't have a strong following in the U.S., but it's showing promise in India and has proven more manageable in the UK where networks are built differently.
Silver Spring Networks. On the plus side, they continued their growth, built out their industry-leading platform, filed for an initial public offering and announced new financing. On the down side, we won't know for a while if that IPO is successful. If it is not, that failure could (in hindsight) taint what was otherwise a strong year.
Zigbee. There was a time when ZigBee looked like it would become the planetary standard for home area networking, but mounting competition could interfere.
Renewable energy industry. Tax incentives that have been a huge boost to the renewables industry are scheduled to end, leaving many companies sweating the political and economic reality that could mean the incentives won't be renewed.
The Obama Administration. In October, the Obama administration unveiled grid modernization pilot projects designed to speed up the permitting and construction of seven proposed transmission lines across the country. Will they succeed?
.
Your turn! Did we get it right? Wrong? What did we miss? Please use the comment form below to share your thoughts.
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| Worthy of mention |
| I think that the Smart Meter pilot conducted by the Commission for Energy Regulation in Ireland together with the utilty and other agency stakeholders deserves some mention. This is a pilot of scale, using an array of technologies with documented facts and statistically significant outcomes. These quantify potential consumer savings and potential benefit to network through peak shifting ( up to 12%) It is particularly notable as it was led by the Regulatory Authority who had the vision to instigate back in 2008 and who have since announced the intention to move to a full $700M smart meter rollout. Further information at http://www.cer.ie/en/information-centre-reports-and-publications.aspx?article=23aacb0d-6f8f-4f00-9512-e252594fbf3e |
| Willie Donaghy - 12/16/2011 - 06:57 |
| Bravo to ComEd |
| Jesse Nice job on this piece and for always stimulating discussion. However I think you were unfair to ComEd. I have been writing a lot this past year about changed utility business and regulatory models. Longstanding approaches to utility regulation must be modified or eliminated in light of the enabling, liberating technology inherent in smart grid platforms. That means that regulators and utility execs need to change their ways. What has been a social delivery system populated by averaged, fixed prices, and litigated rate cases as the means to drive performance, now must give way to true economic pricing and performance based regulatory compacts. I say a healthy kudos to ComEd for being willing to be held accountable for performance. Regulators have been slow to recognize this angle. Utilities armed with tremendous digital awareness and reduced manual work processes absolutely should operate at a higher level. I think ComEd should be commended for having the courage to take on the Governor of their state to get permission to invest and innovate and for being willing to be held accountable. This is the path of the utility of the future. |
| David O'Brien - 12/16/2011 - 08:08 |
| Texas PUC deserves a D at Best |
| The Texas PUC has cancelled reliability must run payments for a number of plants that would have eliminated the power shortages in February and August. Their operation would have prevented the rolling blackouts in February and the August sire straits caused by the drought. The most important of these is PH Robinson. is the only major plant that could operate without fresh ground water or surface water. Its inlet is Galveston Bay which is salt water. Cedar Bayou is classed as salt water bu6t has thermal limits dating back top 1971 that keep all four units from being operated simultaneously. An additional unit (retired) at Cedar Bayou and PH Robinson could add 3000mw to generation that the PUCT has opted to fore go. That doesn't includ3e plants like Fort Phantom closed , sold and cannibalized. trading house and others depend on water that was not available. This last summer was only marginally worse than the 1950's which should have been the worst case planning scenario. State wide 1917-1918 was actually worse but the data is not as reliable. |
| edward hinders - 12/16/2011 - 09:14 |
| David, excellent point |
| David, you make an excellent point. I was referring to the fact that ComEd will have to hit those metrics. If it does not, then it will be in trouble. But you are correct that we should commend them for taking on that risk. |
| Jesse Berst - 12/16/2011 - 09:23 |
| FERC Rating |
| In my humble opinion FERC deserves to be on the winners list. In 2011 they took decisive and game changing action on demand response and transmission policy. No doubt some of their rulings will be challenged, but anytime FERC takes the market in new directions that always happens. |
| Peter Weigand - 12/16/2011 - 09:59 |
| SG Requires Political Will |
| Jesse Kudos should also go to Illinois legislative leaders Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.Without them there would not be SG legislation in Illinois. Dave |
| David O'Brien - 12/16/2011 - 10:37 |
| Star for SDGE |
| While SDGE is adding commercial solar they own or contract for, they have submitted a tariff that will effectively block residential and small commercial solar. Further, they will not allow small residential customers who have put in conservation measures to reduce their usage to go on TOU rates. Little more research needed here. I don't rate them as a star. An SDGE customer. |
| Bruce Hamilton - 12/16/2011 - 11:04 |
| B-PLC used for substation communications |
| Regarding the use of BPL as sitting on the fence - Amperion has found a niche market in the US for its Broadband Power Line Carrier (B-PLC) technology in P&C applications over transmission lines. It proved that it can be used for substation communications over short and medium distances. Nachum Sadan Amperion Inc. |
| Nachum Sadan - 12/16/2011 - 13:10 |
| Xcel Energy |
| Good to see someone else recognize that Xcel is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. As a former employee of one of their wholesale utility customers, I was starting to feel the I was the only guy outside the City of Boulder to know that! |
| David L Gilmer - 12/16/2011 - 22:01 |
| Did I miss PECO in this article ? |
| Maybe I missed it but I think that PECO should be given a lot of credit for their effort with AMI...! |
| Brian Neiman - 12/17/2011 - 08:42 |
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