Coming soon to your city – a Smart Grid...Supergrids power Manhattan...The CURRENT Smart Grid.

Patrick Mazza of Climate Solutions provided some of the material for these posts.

Coming soon to your city – a Smart Grid. Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis, plans to build a Smart Grid City. It will announce which city in its service area has been chosen in March of this year. Xcel has formed an alliance of companies that will provide the necessary platform, including Accenture, Current Group, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Ventyx. Xcel will create a Smart Grid City with (i) a robust, dynamic communications network, providing real time, high-speed, two-way communication throughout the distribution grid, (ii) “smart” substations capable of remote monitoring, near real-time data and optimized performance, (iii) installation of thousands of in-home control devices and the necessary systems to fully automate home energy use, (iv) integration of infrastructure to support up to 1,000 easily dispatched distributed generation technologies (including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with vehicle-to-grid technology; battery systems; wind turbines; and solar panels.)

   QuickTake: SGN has reported on Xcel’s technology efforts before and this confirms our previous interest, as Xcel is clearly setting a Smart Grid benchmark for North American utilities.

   Xcel press release

   Xcel CIO to Vendors: Please think Horizontal!

Supergrids power Manhattan. DHS has continued funding of a proprietary, system-level ‘smart grid’ solution that utilizes high temperature superconductor (HTS) power cables and ancillary controls to deliver up to 10 times more power through the grid while at the same time suppressing power surges – or fault currents – that can disrupt service. The technology utilizes multiple paths for electricity flow in metropolitan power grids to ensure system redundancy when individual circuits are disrupted due to severe weather, traffic accidents or willful destruction. Secure Super Grids technology requires use of American Superconductor’s proprietary technology. The current test project called Project Hydra, is being conducted in Manhattan using the power delivery system of Consolidated Edison of New York.

   QuickTake: while using proprietary technology, the routing of electricity flow using multiple paths sounds like the Internet to me – and this is very encouraging and holds promise. You can imagine how Supergrids could protect Southern California during its next wildfire.

   American Superconductor press release

The CURRENT Smart Grid. While California ponders, Texas moves on with CURRENT GROUP. CURRENT has installed what it calls the CURRENT Smart Grid, the nation's first high-speed utility home area network (HAN) using programmable communicating thermostats (PCTs) and load control switches communicating over a smart grid. The system communicates demand response requests and other critical information from the utility to the customer and verifies the results of the requests, all in real-time.

   QuickTake: home area networks are where the rubber hits the road in terms of enabling smart grid applications for the consumer. It allows multiple devices to cooperate with each other to fulfill complex functionality such as whole house energy management, or can simply provide a means to deliver utility prices to home devices so they use energy when it is least expensive. This adds significant value to those utilities that have or are installing AMI systems.

   CURRENT Group press release

Test proves smart appliances work...CA reconsiders. A Northwest field test of smart grid technologies conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has documented tremendous potential to run a grid that delivers power far more economically by controlling peak demand. The Pacific Northwest GridWise Demonstration Project was a year-long test, which included two pieces:

• On the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, 112 homes, three on-site generation units and municipal water pumps were equipped with automated systems that allowed them to adjust grid power demand in response to price signals.
• Appliances embedded with microchips capable of automatically responding to grid power fluctuations were placed at 150 homes in Washington and Oregon.     

The study showed that customers could save at least ten percent during off-peak period and 15% during peak periods while from a system standpoint peak power loads were reduced by as much as 50% for days at a time. These technologies have potential to lower peak power prices and save $70 billion over 20 years by avoiding the need to build peaking plants and wires. PNNL teamed up with Bonneville Power Administration, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric and Clallam PUD. Appliances were supplied by Whirlpool and software by IBM. 

California, which is often on the forefront of these issues, just removed a requirement that homes and businesses include programmable communicating thermostats (PCT.) The action resulted from consumer complaints about allowing utilities to control their thermostats. The debate on this issue repeats the often-heard arguments on both sides about protecting the environment by reducing energy demand and adds powerful consumer concerns about privacy and independence.

   QuickTake:  Demand response technologies also make for a cleaner grid. They reduce the need for peaker plant generation, generally the most polluting, as well as plants that must operate as a reserve for demand surges. They can also adjust demand to respond to fluctuations in production from renewable resources such as sun and wind. This is an alternative to back-up power plants now used to balance wind farms. 

   PNNL press release

   California Energy Commission press release  

Google Earth saves California. The California ISO innovative use of technology to help manage California’s high-voltage grid during wildfires won it an award from Utility Automation & Engineering T&D at Distributech in January 2008. The California ISO won in the Geospatial Technology category for its merging of local grid, fire and weather information onto the Google Earth platform in a manner that could be duplicated by other grid operators. “Out of all the nominations we received in the geospatial technology category, we felt the technology that the California ISO has implemented was the most innovative and could potentially have the greatest benefit to the power industry as a whole if it were to be implemented on a grander scale in the future,” said Editor Steven Brown from Utility Automation & Engineering T&D.

   QuickTake: some of the technology used by CAISO is proprietary, but the award highlights that the industry is waking up to the numerous advantages offered by IT applications.

   California ISO press release (PDF)

VCs fund $419M for Smart Grid in 2007. Over $3.4B was invested by VCs in the renewable energy sector with slightly over 10% being spent on Smart Grid ventures. GridPoint and Ice Energy were the two notable deals according to the Venture Power Report. Renewable energy attracted 50% more money in 2007 than 2006. Venture Power forecasts that VC funding should remain the same for the next two years.

   QuickTake: Given the announced spends on Smart Grid deployment by AEP ($2.25B), Duke ($.9B,) BC Hydro ($C5.1B,) and the trillions to be spent in Europe and China, it is no surprise that start-ups are going after this market. The Venture Power Report costs $850 a year, but you can access a lot of valuable free information at the publisher's site -- greentech media.

   Sign up for Venture Power report

   greentech media web site

Over 1700 U.S. Renewable Energy Plants. The C Three Group's latest research report, "U.S. Renewable Power Plants" provides a complete list of US renewable power plants that are currently announced, in licensing, under construction or operating. The report has numerous highlights, including:

·         Total renewable energy US capacity will approach 55,000 MW by 2012

·         FPL Group, through FPL Energy, is now the dominant renewable player in the US

   QuickTake:  The report costs $375.

   Buy report from CThree