Smart Grid Stimulus Update: The Journey Has Begun, But There’s a Long Road Ahead

By Liz Enbysk

SGN Managing Editor

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Are we almost there? How much longer? Why is it taking so long?

Like a kid in the backseat of a car on a family vacation, waiting for the Smart Grid to gain traction with the promise of billions in federal stimulus money has been a long, slow journey.

So are we almost there yet?

It was February 2009 when President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in an attempt to kick start a wallowing economy, put people back to work and, among other things, push a clean energy agenda that included modernization of the electric grid and development of renewable energy sources.

On March 4, 2010 – more than a year later – Glendale Water & Power became the first city in the nation to sign a contract for a Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG). The California municipal utility will use the $20 million to support its $51 million AMI-Smart Grid initiative.

Some $3.4 billion in SGIGs were announced back in October, but tax issues and other hurdles delayed getting contracts signed and money out the door. To its credit, besides the SGIGs and $620 million in regional demonstration and energy storage projects the Smart Grid industry has been focused on, the DOE has been working on stimulus-funded weatherization and energy efficiency programs in all 50 states and territories, job training programs, stimulus-backed loan programs in conjunction with other federal agencies, plus spin-off efforts such as ARPA-E, the recently created agency within DOE that is funding high risk, high-payoff transformational technologies.

However, since Glendale W&P’s announcement last month, we’ve seen a steady stream of “contract signing” announcements as utilities work with the Department of Energy on the labyrinth of detail that makes up a federal contract:

·         March 12: NV Energy became the first investor-owned utility to ink a DOE contract for $138 million to help launch its $301 million Advanced Service Delivery project to build out a Smart Grid infrastructure.

·         March 23: CenterPoint Energy – one of six utilities to received the maximum SGIG award of $200 million – announced it had signed an agreement with DOE. CenterPoint’s Houston Electric will use $150 million toward accelerating smart meter rollouts and the other $50 million to start building a self-healing intelligent grid.

·         March 30: Midwest ISO announces it is the first regional transmission organization to execute an agreement with DOE and will use its $17.3 million grant toward installation of more than 150 high-tech monitoring devices that will monitor the state of the electrical grid 30 times each second.

·         March 31: Reliant Energy finalizes its stimulus grant agreement with DOE for $20 million to expand its rollout of smart energy solutions in Texas. Idaho Power announces it has finalized a contract with DOE for $47 million in stimulus funding for its Smart Grid initiatives.

·         April 6: Black Hills Corp. inked its agreement for $20.7 million in stimulus money for Smart Grid projects in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota.

·         April 7: Pepco Holdings signed contracts for three ARRA grants totaling $168.1 million to advance Smart Grid projects in Maryland, the District of Columbia and New Jersey.

·         April 12: Peco Energy, an Exelon subsidiary, finalized its $200 million SGIG which will be used for its Smart Future Greater Philadelphia initiatives, including smart meter deployment and demonstration projects with two sub-recipients.

·         April 20: American Transmission Co. announces it has entered into two agreements with the DOE; part of the $12.7 million will be used to equip ATC substations with PMUs and the remainder will go to extend its fiber optic cable network.

·         April 20: Naperville, Illinois signed an agreement with DOE to receive $11 million for a Smart Grid project that will include deployment of 57,000 smart meters.

·         April 21: Baltimore Gas & Electric – another of the big stimulus winners – finalized its agreement with DOE for $200 million to support the utility’s comprehensive Smart Grid

initiative.

And so it goes. We’re by no means there yet … but at least the pedal is to the metal.

You might also be interested in …

Beyond Metering: 10 Pretty Darn Interesting Stimulus-Funded Smart Grid Projects 

Smart Grid Grants: Not Currently Taxable, But There’s a Hitch

Will We Get Our Money’s Worth? $3.4 Billion in Smart Grid Stimulus Grants Go to 100 Projects

Smart Grid Investment Grants by State

Smart Grid Investment Grants by Category

Smart Grid Stimulus news and commentary

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