Sparse plug-ins for electric cars spark creativity
Sunday October 19, 2:22 pm ET
By Phuong Le, Associated Press Writer
Refueling an electric car requires charm, guile, planning -- and a 50-foot extension cord
SEATTLE (AP) -- Owning an electric vehicle requires more than global-cooling ambitions. It takes guile, planning, sharp vision, a silver tongue -- and a 50-foot extension cord.
Steve Bernheim knows accessible outlets like a firefighter knows hydrants. He has to -- his Corbin Sparrow runs only 25 miles on a charge.
"You do guerrilla charging where you locate these plugs," said Bernheim, an attorney who lives in the Seattle suburb of Edmonds. "I'm an expert at finding them."
While California has more than 500 public charging stations at parks, malls and grocery stores to serve electric vehicles that rolled out in the last decade, the network is still thin across the rest of the country, forcing drivers like Bernheim to get creative.
That may change as charging stations crop up in San Jose, Calif., Seattle and Portland, Ore. to serve early adopters and pave the way for a new breed of mass market plug-in cars.
"Every auto company in the world is developing all-electric or plug-in hybrids," said Zan Dubin Scott, a spokeswoman for Plug In America, a nonprofit advocacy group for electric car owners. "The utilities, municipalities and smart business people are seeing that this is the future."
The vast majority of electric vehicle owners charge their cars at home while they sleep, so most trips aren't a problem.
But drivers can now plug in -- reservations recommended -- at two park-and-ride lots in King County, which includes Seattle. The county plans to add sockets at three garages under construction.
"We want to make sure we're ahead of the curve in doing what we can to support the use of these vehicles," said Rochelle Ogershok, a county transportation spokeswoman.
In Oregon, Portland General Electric put five free charging stations in downtown Portland, Salem and suburban Lake Oswego and plans to add more.
At the end of the year, Coulomb Technologies plans to roll out five curbside charging stations in downtown San Jose that drivers can access through a prepaid plan. The company is working with entities in New York and Florida to do something similar there, president and founder Praveen Mandal said.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place is working with Renault SA to develop charging stations for electric cars in Israel and Denmark that would work on a paid subscription, said spokeswoman Julie Mullins.
In recent months, the smaller cities of Edmonds and Lacey invited drivers to plug in their electric vehicles at free public stations near city hall.
"We haven't seen much usage yet, but we wanted to put it out there," said Graeme Sackrison, mayor of Lacey, a town of 38,000 an hour south of Seattle. "You have to have the infrastructure in place so people feel comfortable using them."
Street-legal "neighborhood electric vehicles" that can travel up to 25 mph typically go about 35 to 40 miles on a single charge. Vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt that General Motors Corp. plans to sell in 2010 can travel about 40 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in.
Drivers like Bernheim, whose range is about 25 miles to a charge, has become adept at sweet-talking use of a 110-volt outlet if he needs to travel farther. Once he persuaded a fruit stand owner to let him plug in. He ended up buying $50 of produce there.
Bernheim says there are about 30 reliable sites in the Seattle area to plug in. Most are free, some require calling a fellow enthusiast ahead of time. Others charge the same as parking a gas-powered car -- $7 an hour at the downtown Seattle Public Library garage.
Jeff Smith, 51, a mechanical parts inspector, carries three extension cords of varying lengths when he drives his ZENN (Zero Emission, No Noise) two-seater.
At his home in a Seattle suburb, Smith has posted a sign "plug in vehicle parking only" outside his kitchen window and invites others to plug in. No one has taken him up on the offer yet.
When he wanted to go to a Little League game -- a round-trip that required an extra charge -- Smith cold-called restaurants to find one willing to let him plug in while dined there.
Eric Diesen, co-owner of the restaurant Acapulco Fresh, didn't mind. He'd let others do the same.
It didn't cost him much -- about a dime or so. "If it brought people in, we would do that again," he said. "And it's something we believe in."
Plug In America estimates there are several thousand freeway-capable, road-certified EVs, including both factory-built and conversions. Neighborhood electric vehicles may number in the tens of thousands.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 250 million vehicles on the road.
Driving an electric car can be a challenge when your roundtrip work commute is much longer than your car can travel. But Jason Henderson, 29, feels obligated to make it work.
"I saw 'Inconvenient Truth' and then realized that I needed to make a personal change to show others how easy it is to reduce our dependency on petroleum," Henderson said.
He bought a used Saturn with 100,000 miles and paid an expert $12,000 to convert it to all-electric. He estimates it has cost him about $252 in electricity to drive 9,000 miles in the past 18 months.
It's not hard to find places to plug in, but "there should absolutely be more spots," he said. "Everyone has power outlets, so it's just a matter of making them available."
Henderson now drives his car 15 miles from his Tacoma home, charges it at a friend's house and hops a vanpool another 35 miles to his office at Microsoft Corp.
He said he's just like a normal driver, "except my car has a much smaller carbon footprint and has a cheaper energy source."
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The China Smart Grid Cooperative 2008 will share Duke Energy expertise on Smart Grid
The China Smart Grid Cooperative, 2008
The China Smart Grid Cooperative continues to solicit partners and sponsor until the December 2008.
- They will establish a China-US Smart Grid Cooperative in September 2008.
- They will share Duke Energy expertise on Smart Grid at JUCCCE China Energy Forum in Beijing, China from November 10 to November 11, 2008.
- The China-US Smart Grid Cooperative will organize a series of Smart Grid Workshops in Beijing, China. This will include a roll out that is dependent on the success of each workshop. Partners will participate in development and deployment of workshops. An anticipated workshop will be ROI of Smart Grids on November 12, 2008.
The China Smart Grid Cooperative continues to solicit partners and sponsor until the December 2008.
- They will establish a China-US Smart Grid Cooperative in September 2008.
- They will share Duke Energy expertise on Smart Grid at JUCCCE China Energy Forum in Beijing, China from November 10 to November 11, 2008.
- The China-US Smart Grid Cooperative will organize a series of Smart Grid Workshops in Beijing, China. This will include a roll out that is dependent on the success of each workshop. Partners will participate in development and deployment of workshops. An anticipated workshop will be ROI of Smart Grids on November 12, 2008.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
First-Ever Smart Grid Tax Breaks Hitch Ride On Bailout Bill
10/9/2008 3:42:00 PM
First-Ever Smart Grid Tax Breaks Hitch Ride On Bailout Bill
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Congress has provided its first-ever tax breaks for investments in a next-generation electricity grid, giving a lift to an industry that for years has struggled to win the federal government's help in dealing with costs.
Tucked into the $700 billion bailout package that President Bush signed into law last week is a measure allowing utilities to write off more quickly investments in so-called smart meters or other smart-grid equipment. Worth $915 million over 10 years, the tax treatment lets companies depreciate investments over 10 years instead of 20 years - in essence taking bigger deductions each year.
"It provides a little prodding to the utilities to get going," said John Berger, the chief executive of Standard Renewable Energy, a Houston company that installs smart-meter-based thermostats.
Cost has been an impediment as companies such as Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL), Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) and others seek to roll out the technology on a large scale. Smart meters, which replace the traditional meters located on houses, cost roughly $120 to $200 apiece. Amid consumer concern over electric bills, public utility commissions are still weighing requests to wrap those costs into the rates that homeowners ultimately pay each month.
Smart meters provide a two-way communications link between homes and utilities. The most basic benefit is that utilities are notified immediately of any outages, avoiding the need for customers to call. Other potential benefits are more advanced: applications that would allow real-time prices that rise during periods of peak demand and fall as households turn out the lights at night. That would create an incentive to reduce demand during maximum stress on the electricity grid - in effect creating the equivalent of a new source of supply.
"We really applaud Congress for addressing technology beyond the meter because that's where we think the value really is," said John O'Donnell, a lobbyist for Xcel, which is funding a project in Boulder, Colorado, to demonstrate the usefulness of smart-grid technology. Among the possible applications that he envisions: "property that would be installed in peoples' homes to gauge how much electricity they're using on an outlet by outlet basis, on an appliance by appliance basis, really super cutting-edge stuff."
Congress approved the accelerated depreciation of smart-grid investments as U.S. economic woes deepened, raising questions about whether utilities will be willing to make investments. It isn't clear whether the new tax treatment will help overcome a reluctance to spend.
"I know that utilities will probably tighten up on capital spending," said Stephen Johnston, the chief executive of SmartSynch, which integrates cell-phone technology into electric meters. But he notes that his company's data-monitoring services operate on a public wireless network, so "we allow a utility to deploy smart-metering technology without spending capital on big network assets."
For the past several years, Congress has moved in baby steps to unlock the potential of a digitally-enhanced electricity grid. A 2005 law ordered utilities to begin offering rates that vary along with changes in a utility's costs for buying electricity at wholesaleA 2007 energy law authorized $100 million a year for projects to demonstrate the effectiveness of smart-grid technology, but Congress never appropriated the funds.
"There's a lot more that we can and should be doing, and I'm hopeful that the next administration and the next Congress will have similar views on that," Kevin Kolevar, the U.S. Energy Department's assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, said at a smart-grid conference last month. His own office has a budget with $5 million for smart-grid technology out of a total $100 million a year, "an amount that is really pretty small."
Supporters hope that congressional approval of accelerated depreciation for smart-grid equipment reflects a growing comfort level with the technology within the government. Duke has 16,000 smart meters in Charlotte, North Carolina, along with 7500 in South Carolina, as part of pilot programs that it is financing. The company aims to install 90,000 smart meters in Cincinnati 800,000 in Indiana - or its entire customer base in that state. Indiana and Ohio regulators are still reviewing whether to approve cost-recovery plans.
"State regulators have gotten comfortable with this, and in many cases are advocates," said Dan Delurey, executive director of the Demand Response and Advanced Metering Coalition, who company executives say was instrumental in persuading Congress to allow for accelerated depreciation. "This is still early, but there are a lot of applications in process as we speak. The general tone of the regulatory community is positive on this."
Source: Siobhan Hughes, Dow Jones Newswires
First-Ever Smart Grid Tax Breaks Hitch Ride On Bailout Bill
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Congress has provided its first-ever tax breaks for investments in a next-generation electricity grid, giving a lift to an industry that for years has struggled to win the federal government's help in dealing with costs.
Tucked into the $700 billion bailout package that President Bush signed into law last week is a measure allowing utilities to write off more quickly investments in so-called smart meters or other smart-grid equipment. Worth $915 million over 10 years, the tax treatment lets companies depreciate investments over 10 years instead of 20 years - in essence taking bigger deductions each year.
"It provides a little prodding to the utilities to get going," said John Berger, the chief executive of Standard Renewable Energy, a Houston company that installs smart-meter-based thermostats.
Cost has been an impediment as companies such as Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL), Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) and others seek to roll out the technology on a large scale. Smart meters, which replace the traditional meters located on houses, cost roughly $120 to $200 apiece. Amid consumer concern over electric bills, public utility commissions are still weighing requests to wrap those costs into the rates that homeowners ultimately pay each month.
Smart meters provide a two-way communications link between homes and utilities. The most basic benefit is that utilities are notified immediately of any outages, avoiding the need for customers to call. Other potential benefits are more advanced: applications that would allow real-time prices that rise during periods of peak demand and fall as households turn out the lights at night. That would create an incentive to reduce demand during maximum stress on the electricity grid - in effect creating the equivalent of a new source of supply.
"We really applaud Congress for addressing technology beyond the meter because that's where we think the value really is," said John O'Donnell, a lobbyist for Xcel, which is funding a project in Boulder, Colorado, to demonstrate the usefulness of smart-grid technology. Among the possible applications that he envisions: "property that would be installed in peoples' homes to gauge how much electricity they're using on an outlet by outlet basis, on an appliance by appliance basis, really super cutting-edge stuff."
Congress approved the accelerated depreciation of smart-grid investments as U.S. economic woes deepened, raising questions about whether utilities will be willing to make investments. It isn't clear whether the new tax treatment will help overcome a reluctance to spend.
"I know that utilities will probably tighten up on capital spending," said Stephen Johnston, the chief executive of SmartSynch, which integrates cell-phone technology into electric meters. But he notes that his company's data-monitoring services operate on a public wireless network, so "we allow a utility to deploy smart-metering technology without spending capital on big network assets."
For the past several years, Congress has moved in baby steps to unlock the potential of a digitally-enhanced electricity grid. A 2005 law ordered utilities to begin offering rates that vary along with changes in a utility's costs for buying electricity at wholesaleA 2007 energy law authorized $100 million a year for projects to demonstrate the effectiveness of smart-grid technology, but Congress never appropriated the funds.
"There's a lot more that we can and should be doing, and I'm hopeful that the next administration and the next Congress will have similar views on that," Kevin Kolevar, the U.S. Energy Department's assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, said at a smart-grid conference last month. His own office has a budget with $5 million for smart-grid technology out of a total $100 million a year, "an amount that is really pretty small."
Supporters hope that congressional approval of accelerated depreciation for smart-grid equipment reflects a growing comfort level with the technology within the government. Duke has 16,000 smart meters in Charlotte, North Carolina, along with 7500 in South Carolina, as part of pilot programs that it is financing. The company aims to install 90,000 smart meters in Cincinnati 800,000 in Indiana - or its entire customer base in that state. Indiana and Ohio regulators are still reviewing whether to approve cost-recovery plans.
"State regulators have gotten comfortable with this, and in many cases are advocates," said Dan Delurey, executive director of the Demand Response and Advanced Metering Coalition, who company executives say was instrumental in persuading Congress to allow for accelerated depreciation. "This is still early, but there are a lot of applications in process as we speak. The general tone of the regulatory community is positive on this."
Source: Siobhan Hughes, Dow Jones Newswires
Monday, October 13, 2008
Duke out to transform business- with *SMART GRID* technology
Duke out to transform business
By Mike Boyer • mboyer@enquirer.com • October 12, 2008
ERLANGER - Technology couldn't prevent the hurricane-force winds that knocked out power to 90 percent of Duke Energy's 800,000 customers on Sept. 14.
But it could have helped restore power much faster.
After the windstorm, Duke frequently had to send crews back to the same areas as they learned from customers that more homes were still without power. That was the only way they could tell if homes served by a transformer or substation had power.
With new technology called Smart-Grid, a crew in the field could immediately get a report from a control center telling it which homes were still out.
The capacity for such improved service is one of the messages Duke hopes to get across this week at a $1 million facility it is unveiling where it will demonstrate and research the future of its electric-delivery system.
The new Envision Center in Erlanger, in converted office-warehouse space off Olympic Boulevard, is a first-of-its-kind demonstration center and lab to show how Smart-Grid technology will improve electric system reliability and efficiency, give consumers greater control over their energy use and provider faster response to outages like those caused by the windstorm.
Smart-Grid is a term for a network of sophisticated sensors, distributed computers and other black-box communications devices installed on a utility's existing network of wires, poles and transformers to remotely monitor power delivery in much greater detail than today.
It has capabilities as mundane as automated meter reading and remote service connection, and as sophisticated as remote monitoring and control of customers' energy use - and the size of their bills.
"This is designed to present a picture of what energy can be," Duke spokeswoman Johnna Reeder said.
"This is a demonstration site for innovation in energy.
"Today's analog grid doesn't reflect consumers' expectations for instant information," she said. "Smart-Grid will enable Duke Energy to move into the 21st century and will help transform our century-old business model."
Simulating the future
To create the Envision Center, Duke set up movie studio-style sets of a home with solar panels, an energy-management system and a plug-in hybrid car, and an apartment complex with "smart" meters.
A presenter uses a click of a computer button to trigger videos and a simulated lightning strike and power outage to show how a smart system would respond.
Inside the mock home, the energy-management system monitors high-efficiency appliances, picks the optimum times to run based on the price of electricity and alerts customers to savings by turning down or turning off power-draining devices.
Time-of-use meters have been available in the utilities industry for years, but microprocessors in today's "smart meters" and other energy-management devices allow utilities to send signals to consumer's thermostats and appliances, letting them know that the price of electricity is increasing.
Based on a customer's decision, the system can automatically reduce usage or give the customer the information so they can reduce usage or decide to pay the higher rate.
The key thing, says Reeder: "The customer is in control."
Doesn't come cheap
The solar-collector-equipped smart home in the Envision Center also includes a battery backup system. That allows electricity from the solar collectors to charge the hybrid electric car in the garage overnight and store additional power in the event of a power failure. The 10-kilowatt battery can provide up to 40 hours of backup power for the home.
"If you turn everything down but your refrigerator, you can extend that to 87 hours," said Steve Hinkel, project manager for Duke's advanced customer technology.
That kind of technology doesn't come cheap today.
The battery costs about $9,700, he said.
But as manufacturers increase production with demand, solar-battery backups will eventually become more affordable and commonplace, he said.
Duke believes the Envision Center, a demonstration site for its entire electric system encompassing 4 million customers in five states, is unique in the industry.
"Other utilities have created "smart" homes and pieces of what we have here, but no place else shows all the technology in one spot," said Reeder.
Duke is opening the 15,000-square-foot center initially to show employees, regulators and other government officials what the technology can do, but sometime next year the utility says it plans to open the facility for public tours.
The site's location near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport makes it accessible to Duke's five-state service area, Reeder said.
Many years and millions away
Full implementation of a Smart-Grid system across Duke's 47,000-mile service area will take years and millions of dollars to complete.
But the company is launching the effort here with a pilot program to replace about 480,000 electric meters, one piece in a Smart-Grid system, in established neighborhoods in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky requiring manual or estimated monthly readings because the devices are inside homes where Duke doesn't have access.
The company has already replaced about 40,000 meters at the rate of about 5,000 a month with new ones that will allow automatic meter reading. The new meters won't be fully operational until the middle of next year.
But when the system is completed, it will allow Duke to eliminate the more than 1 million estimated bills it sends annually to customers because they aren't home when meter readers are in their neighborhood.
Other routine services, such as service connections and re-connections at apartment buildings that now require Duke to roll a service truck for each service, could be automated.
Last year, Duke handled 210,000 connection/ re-connection calls in Ohio alone, the utility says, and another 200,000 individual calls for a change in service requiring a meter reading.
Eliminating those calls would be a savings for the utility and save customers time and frustration waiting for a service crew, Duke says.
"By demonstrating the benefits of smart technology, we're hoping to gain advocates for the implementation of our Smart-Grid," said Hinkel.
"We're asking people not to focus on specific devices but the concepts involved."
By Mike Boyer • mboyer@enquirer.com • October 12, 2008
ERLANGER - Technology couldn't prevent the hurricane-force winds that knocked out power to 90 percent of Duke Energy's 800,000 customers on Sept. 14.
But it could have helped restore power much faster.
After the windstorm, Duke frequently had to send crews back to the same areas as they learned from customers that more homes were still without power. That was the only way they could tell if homes served by a transformer or substation had power.
With new technology called Smart-Grid, a crew in the field could immediately get a report from a control center telling it which homes were still out.
The capacity for such improved service is one of the messages Duke hopes to get across this week at a $1 million facility it is unveiling where it will demonstrate and research the future of its electric-delivery system.
The new Envision Center in Erlanger, in converted office-warehouse space off Olympic Boulevard, is a first-of-its-kind demonstration center and lab to show how Smart-Grid technology will improve electric system reliability and efficiency, give consumers greater control over their energy use and provider faster response to outages like those caused by the windstorm.
Smart-Grid is a term for a network of sophisticated sensors, distributed computers and other black-box communications devices installed on a utility's existing network of wires, poles and transformers to remotely monitor power delivery in much greater detail than today.
It has capabilities as mundane as automated meter reading and remote service connection, and as sophisticated as remote monitoring and control of customers' energy use - and the size of their bills.
"This is designed to present a picture of what energy can be," Duke spokeswoman Johnna Reeder said.
"This is a demonstration site for innovation in energy.
"Today's analog grid doesn't reflect consumers' expectations for instant information," she said. "Smart-Grid will enable Duke Energy to move into the 21st century and will help transform our century-old business model."
Simulating the future
To create the Envision Center, Duke set up movie studio-style sets of a home with solar panels, an energy-management system and a plug-in hybrid car, and an apartment complex with "smart" meters.
A presenter uses a click of a computer button to trigger videos and a simulated lightning strike and power outage to show how a smart system would respond.
Inside the mock home, the energy-management system monitors high-efficiency appliances, picks the optimum times to run based on the price of electricity and alerts customers to savings by turning down or turning off power-draining devices.
Time-of-use meters have been available in the utilities industry for years, but microprocessors in today's "smart meters" and other energy-management devices allow utilities to send signals to consumer's thermostats and appliances, letting them know that the price of electricity is increasing.
Based on a customer's decision, the system can automatically reduce usage or give the customer the information so they can reduce usage or decide to pay the higher rate.
The key thing, says Reeder: "The customer is in control."
Doesn't come cheap
The solar-collector-equipped smart home in the Envision Center also includes a battery backup system. That allows electricity from the solar collectors to charge the hybrid electric car in the garage overnight and store additional power in the event of a power failure. The 10-kilowatt battery can provide up to 40 hours of backup power for the home.
"If you turn everything down but your refrigerator, you can extend that to 87 hours," said Steve Hinkel, project manager for Duke's advanced customer technology.
That kind of technology doesn't come cheap today.
The battery costs about $9,700, he said.
But as manufacturers increase production with demand, solar-battery backups will eventually become more affordable and commonplace, he said.
Duke believes the Envision Center, a demonstration site for its entire electric system encompassing 4 million customers in five states, is unique in the industry.
"Other utilities have created "smart" homes and pieces of what we have here, but no place else shows all the technology in one spot," said Reeder.
Duke is opening the 15,000-square-foot center initially to show employees, regulators and other government officials what the technology can do, but sometime next year the utility says it plans to open the facility for public tours.
The site's location near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport makes it accessible to Duke's five-state service area, Reeder said.
Many years and millions away
Full implementation of a Smart-Grid system across Duke's 47,000-mile service area will take years and millions of dollars to complete.
But the company is launching the effort here with a pilot program to replace about 480,000 electric meters, one piece in a Smart-Grid system, in established neighborhoods in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky requiring manual or estimated monthly readings because the devices are inside homes where Duke doesn't have access.
The company has already replaced about 40,000 meters at the rate of about 5,000 a month with new ones that will allow automatic meter reading. The new meters won't be fully operational until the middle of next year.
But when the system is completed, it will allow Duke to eliminate the more than 1 million estimated bills it sends annually to customers because they aren't home when meter readers are in their neighborhood.
Other routine services, such as service connections and re-connections at apartment buildings that now require Duke to roll a service truck for each service, could be automated.
Last year, Duke handled 210,000 connection/ re-connection calls in Ohio alone, the utility says, and another 200,000 individual calls for a change in service requiring a meter reading.
Eliminating those calls would be a savings for the utility and save customers time and frustration waiting for a service crew, Duke says.
"By demonstrating the benefits of smart technology, we're hoping to gain advocates for the implementation of our Smart-Grid," said Hinkel.
"We're asking people not to focus on specific devices but the concepts involved."
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Smart Grid program next step for the Carolinas: Duke again will seek to change regulatory practice in the state
Friday, October 3, 2008
Smart Grid program next step for the Carolinas
Duke again will seek to change regulatory practice in the state
Charlotte Business Journal - by John Downey Senior staff writer
Duke Energy Corp. expects to pay $730 million over 20 years in Indiana to install interactive meters and upgrade the power grid.
The program is called Smart Grid. Duke says it will allow for greater conservation and use of smaller, decentralized power plants. It’s an important piece of Chief Executive Jim Rogers’ vision for remaking the utility industry.
It reinforces other key initiatives such as the proposed Save-A-Watt efficiency program, solar and wind power development and infrastructure for widespread use of electric cars. And it will eventually come to the Carolinas.
When it does, expect it to be more expensive. Duke Energy Carolinas, with 2.3 million customers, is roughly triple the size of Duke Energy Indiana, with just under 800,000 customers.
The Carolinas can also expect that Duke will, once again, seek to change regulatory practice. It wants to collect the costs for improvements as it goes along. And it will want to do it without having to go to a full regulatory review of its rates.
That’s what it is doing in Indiana. Duke proposes to develop a rate formula to distribute the costs for Smart Grid. And those costs would include its “lost revenues” from lower energy sales through improved grid efficiency. That concept has already proved controversial in Duke Energy Carolinas’ Save-A-Watt proposal.
David Mohler, Duke Energy Corp.’s chief technology officer, says such a recovery program is vital to making a business case for Smart Grid.
“If you make an investment over — pick the number of years: five, six or eight or whatever — and have to wait to do a full-blown rate case, the costs have been hanging out there so long it kind of doesn’t work,” he says.
Also, he says, traditional regulation and cost-recovery systems were built for investments with useful lives exceeding 20 years, and often exceeding 40. Much of Smart Grid’s information technology will have a useful live of five to seven years.
Jerry Polk of Indianapolis sees it as one more attempt by Duke to bypass traditional regulation and scrutiny. He is counsel for the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana Inc., a group skeptical of the Smart Grid proposal.
He says Duke has consistently sought ways to raise rates without going to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission for full reviews.
“It’s a strategy they have pursued for years to get small automatic rate adjustments,” he says. “I have one friend who says it’s like being nibbled to death by ducks.”
It’s a strategy Duke has pursued in the Carolinas as well. “They are constantly probing the edges of the regulatory model,” says Robert Gruber, head of the Public Staff of the N.C. Utilities Commission. “They want to avoid coming in for a rate case as much as they can.”
Duke’s argument is that the upfront costs for Smart Grid will be significant. More than half the capital costs — about $435.9 million — will be incurred in the first five years.
A lot of the costs will be for roughly 800,000 “intelligent” meters. Those meters will enable Duke to record power use at a central location and compile significant amounts of information about how energy is consumed — down to the level of individual appliances. The utility plans to use that information to work with customers to control energy costs.
But it also involves significant upgrades to the transmission and distribution grids. That will enable the utility to improve efficiency on the power lines, react more quickly to power outages and find problems before they lead to failures on the system, Mohler says.
That will lead to significant societal benefits, he says. The obvious ones are improving reliability and cutting energy use. But upgrading the grid will also allow for more effective use of renewable energy sources, particularly small wind and solar generators.
The same program has just been proposed in Ohio as well. Duke has not yet made those cost estimates public.
The Carolinas have provided the real-life laboratory for working out the program, Mohler says. By year’s end, 16,000 customers in south Charlotte and 7,500 in Upstate South Carolina will be on what amounts to a mini-Smart Grid with intelligent meters and new grid technology.
But rolling the program out across the Carolinas will lag a few years behind.
That’s because Duke made a big technology investment five years ago in new meters for automated reading. That makes the business case for installing new equipment in the Carolinas less compelling.
But Mohler says the program is coming here. And the plan is to put it on the same model as the one proposed in the Midwest.
“We will see over the next few years a fundamental shift in the model for electric utilities,” he says. “That new business model has to incorporate cleaner energy and more reliable energy with efficiency and still be affordable.
“What’s required to bring it all together and deliver it is an intelligent network.”
Smart Grid program next step for the Carolinas
Duke again will seek to change regulatory practice in the state
Charlotte Business Journal - by John Downey Senior staff writer
Duke Energy Corp. expects to pay $730 million over 20 years in Indiana to install interactive meters and upgrade the power grid.
The program is called Smart Grid. Duke says it will allow for greater conservation and use of smaller, decentralized power plants. It’s an important piece of Chief Executive Jim Rogers’ vision for remaking the utility industry.
It reinforces other key initiatives such as the proposed Save-A-Watt efficiency program, solar and wind power development and infrastructure for widespread use of electric cars. And it will eventually come to the Carolinas.
When it does, expect it to be more expensive. Duke Energy Carolinas, with 2.3 million customers, is roughly triple the size of Duke Energy Indiana, with just under 800,000 customers.
The Carolinas can also expect that Duke will, once again, seek to change regulatory practice. It wants to collect the costs for improvements as it goes along. And it will want to do it without having to go to a full regulatory review of its rates.
That’s what it is doing in Indiana. Duke proposes to develop a rate formula to distribute the costs for Smart Grid. And those costs would include its “lost revenues” from lower energy sales through improved grid efficiency. That concept has already proved controversial in Duke Energy Carolinas’ Save-A-Watt proposal.
David Mohler, Duke Energy Corp.’s chief technology officer, says such a recovery program is vital to making a business case for Smart Grid.
“If you make an investment over — pick the number of years: five, six or eight or whatever — and have to wait to do a full-blown rate case, the costs have been hanging out there so long it kind of doesn’t work,” he says.
Also, he says, traditional regulation and cost-recovery systems were built for investments with useful lives exceeding 20 years, and often exceeding 40. Much of Smart Grid’s information technology will have a useful live of five to seven years.
Jerry Polk of Indianapolis sees it as one more attempt by Duke to bypass traditional regulation and scrutiny. He is counsel for the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana Inc., a group skeptical of the Smart Grid proposal.
He says Duke has consistently sought ways to raise rates without going to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission for full reviews.
“It’s a strategy they have pursued for years to get small automatic rate adjustments,” he says. “I have one friend who says it’s like being nibbled to death by ducks.”
It’s a strategy Duke has pursued in the Carolinas as well. “They are constantly probing the edges of the regulatory model,” says Robert Gruber, head of the Public Staff of the N.C. Utilities Commission. “They want to avoid coming in for a rate case as much as they can.”
Duke’s argument is that the upfront costs for Smart Grid will be significant. More than half the capital costs — about $435.9 million — will be incurred in the first five years.
A lot of the costs will be for roughly 800,000 “intelligent” meters. Those meters will enable Duke to record power use at a central location and compile significant amounts of information about how energy is consumed — down to the level of individual appliances. The utility plans to use that information to work with customers to control energy costs.
But it also involves significant upgrades to the transmission and distribution grids. That will enable the utility to improve efficiency on the power lines, react more quickly to power outages and find problems before they lead to failures on the system, Mohler says.
That will lead to significant societal benefits, he says. The obvious ones are improving reliability and cutting energy use. But upgrading the grid will also allow for more effective use of renewable energy sources, particularly small wind and solar generators.
The same program has just been proposed in Ohio as well. Duke has not yet made those cost estimates public.
The Carolinas have provided the real-life laboratory for working out the program, Mohler says. By year’s end, 16,000 customers in south Charlotte and 7,500 in Upstate South Carolina will be on what amounts to a mini-Smart Grid with intelligent meters and new grid technology.
But rolling the program out across the Carolinas will lag a few years behind.
That’s because Duke made a big technology investment five years ago in new meters for automated reading. That makes the business case for installing new equipment in the Carolinas less compelling.
But Mohler says the program is coming here. And the plan is to put it on the same model as the one proposed in the Midwest.
“We will see over the next few years a fundamental shift in the model for electric utilities,” he says. “That new business model has to incorporate cleaner energy and more reliable energy with efficiency and still be affordable.
“What’s required to bring it all together and deliver it is an intelligent network.”
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Smart Meters Open Market for Smart Apps
October 7, 2008, 4:19 pm
Smart Meters Open Market for Smart Apps
By Erik Olsen
"Part of the allure of smart metering is that consumers can use their computers to monitor their minute-by-minute energy usage — and adjust their habits accordingly. Companies are now lining up to provide the software for that interface."
As Matthew Wald wrote back in August, the power grid in the United States is in dramatic need of overhaul. But the needed improvements to load management and energy efficiency go well beyond upgrades to the network cables, transformers and power stations that make up the system’s gross anatomy.
Indeed, embedded in the promise of an improved, 21st-century “smart grid” are “smart meters,” which are quietly gaining ground in American households as utilities replace aging meters with high-tech, networked versions.
The units provide real-time, two-way communication between customer and power company — on the theory that consumers might be more likely to, say, tolerate a bit of balminess if they are able to monitor their air conditioner’s energy consumption in real time. With a Web-browser interface, a customer can access colorful graphs and charts that display exactly how much the appliance costs — and at what time of day it costs the most.
That last point is also a boon to utilities, as they can use smart metering to more closely link customer pricing with market principles of supply and demand. Energy, after all, is typically more scarce, and therefore more expensive, when households are humming with activity — in the mornings and evenings, say.
In the middle of the night, when demand for power is low, it is comparatively cheaper.
Smart meters are, of course, not new. Given the rate of current smart-meter deployment in Europe, the Swedish business research firm Berg Insight estimated recently that more than 80 million smart meters will have been installed across that continent by 2013.
Smart meters have been slower to take hold in the United States, but programs are underway in several cities. Southern California Edison, for instance, recently announced plans to install some 5.3 million meters between 2009 and 2012 at a cost of $1.63 billion.
And as the smart-meter market grows, so too does the demand for networking, software and hardware tools to make it all work. Tendril Networks’ TREE system, for example, creates an in-home wireless network linking appliances and electrical outlets to either a stand-alone monitoring unit or Web interface.
And Oklahoma Gas & Electric, a utility serving 765,000 customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas, has recently teamed up in a pilot program with Silver Spring Networks, a network hardware and software provider specifically marketing to utilities, and Greenbox, a company based in San Bruno, Calif., that provides the Web-based energy monitoring software.
According to Matt Smith, the vice president of marketing at Greenbox, the system so far has helped 24 households to lower their monthly bills 15 percent to 20 percent. “We want to educate people about their energy usage,” Mr. Smith said.
Last week, Mr. Smith showed me a live demo of the system — which currently runs on a 15-minute delay (an enhanced, real-time version, which will require the installation of a router in the home, is planned for release in November.) A typical chart display from the Greenbox Web application is shown here:
ChartsCharting electric usage. (Image: Greenbox)
The names of residents were changed, but I was able to not only see how much energy the home was drawing and at what cost, but by selecting the “community features” option, I could also compare the home’s consumption with that of its neighbors.
Can a “tsk-tsk” feature that might allow residents to chide their power-gluttonous neighbors be far off?
Smart Meters Open Market for Smart Apps
By Erik Olsen
"Part of the allure of smart metering is that consumers can use their computers to monitor their minute-by-minute energy usage — and adjust their habits accordingly. Companies are now lining up to provide the software for that interface."
As Matthew Wald wrote back in August, the power grid in the United States is in dramatic need of overhaul. But the needed improvements to load management and energy efficiency go well beyond upgrades to the network cables, transformers and power stations that make up the system’s gross anatomy.
Indeed, embedded in the promise of an improved, 21st-century “smart grid” are “smart meters,” which are quietly gaining ground in American households as utilities replace aging meters with high-tech, networked versions.
The units provide real-time, two-way communication between customer and power company — on the theory that consumers might be more likely to, say, tolerate a bit of balminess if they are able to monitor their air conditioner’s energy consumption in real time. With a Web-browser interface, a customer can access colorful graphs and charts that display exactly how much the appliance costs — and at what time of day it costs the most.
That last point is also a boon to utilities, as they can use smart metering to more closely link customer pricing with market principles of supply and demand. Energy, after all, is typically more scarce, and therefore more expensive, when households are humming with activity — in the mornings and evenings, say.
In the middle of the night, when demand for power is low, it is comparatively cheaper.
Smart meters are, of course, not new. Given the rate of current smart-meter deployment in Europe, the Swedish business research firm Berg Insight estimated recently that more than 80 million smart meters will have been installed across that continent by 2013.
Smart meters have been slower to take hold in the United States, but programs are underway in several cities. Southern California Edison, for instance, recently announced plans to install some 5.3 million meters between 2009 and 2012 at a cost of $1.63 billion.
And as the smart-meter market grows, so too does the demand for networking, software and hardware tools to make it all work. Tendril Networks’ TREE system, for example, creates an in-home wireless network linking appliances and electrical outlets to either a stand-alone monitoring unit or Web interface.
And Oklahoma Gas & Electric, a utility serving 765,000 customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas, has recently teamed up in a pilot program with Silver Spring Networks, a network hardware and software provider specifically marketing to utilities, and Greenbox, a company based in San Bruno, Calif., that provides the Web-based energy monitoring software.
According to Matt Smith, the vice president of marketing at Greenbox, the system so far has helped 24 households to lower their monthly bills 15 percent to 20 percent. “We want to educate people about their energy usage,” Mr. Smith said.
Last week, Mr. Smith showed me a live demo of the system — which currently runs on a 15-minute delay (an enhanced, real-time version, which will require the installation of a router in the home, is planned for release in November.) A typical chart display from the Greenbox Web application is shown here:
ChartsCharting electric usage. (Image: Greenbox)
The names of residents were changed, but I was able to not only see how much energy the home was drawing and at what cost, but by selecting the “community features” option, I could also compare the home’s consumption with that of its neighbors.
Can a “tsk-tsk” feature that might allow residents to chide their power-gluttonous neighbors be far off?
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Google whips out $4.4 trillion clean-energy plan
Google.org, the philanthropic unit of search giant Google Inc., publicized a $4.4 trillion plan to wean the United States off fossil fuels by 2030.
Giant Google’s curiosity, which seems as boundless as the Internet its algorithms search, extends into nearly every area of human endeavor. Though it makes most of its money from advertising it is interested in nearly every subject, and presented this proposal as a straw-man, meant to stimulate policy debate.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), based in Mountain View, Calif., calls in the proposal for a 38-percent cut in oil used for vehicle fuel. “Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development,” the proposal, by Jeffery Greenblatt, says.
It also urges greater use of nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal sources of power.
According to Google, the plan would cost about $4.4 trillion but over 22 years would save a net of about $1 trillion while creating new jobs.
The details of the plan call for:
Improved electrical energy efficiency, which will counteract growth in demand and also the expected demand from plug-in electric cars.
Replacing all electrical power generation that uses coal and oil for fuel. About half of electrical generation from natural gas would also be replaced, all with renewable sources like wind — both on and offshore — solar and geothermal.
Raising standard car fuel efficiency from 31 mpg to 45 mpg.
Increasing use of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars.
Replacing cars in business fleets faster.
To achieve these goals, Greenblatt says, the country will have to improve electrical transmission capacity and invest in research to make renewable energy cheap and ubiquitous. Mileage standards for cars will have to be raised, and infrastructure like charging stations for electric vehicles will have to be encouraged and built.
Google’s proposal assumes that electricity demand can be kept flat at the 2008 level, rather than growing by a quarter by 2030. The proposal claims “ample proof” that this is possible, citing research studies and the experience of states, plus a McKinsey & Co. report — Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost, published last December.
Giant Google’s curiosity, which seems as boundless as the Internet its algorithms search, extends into nearly every area of human endeavor. Though it makes most of its money from advertising it is interested in nearly every subject, and presented this proposal as a straw-man, meant to stimulate policy debate.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), based in Mountain View, Calif., calls in the proposal for a 38-percent cut in oil used for vehicle fuel. “Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development,” the proposal, by Jeffery Greenblatt, says.
It also urges greater use of nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal sources of power.
According to Google, the plan would cost about $4.4 trillion but over 22 years would save a net of about $1 trillion while creating new jobs.
The details of the plan call for:
Improved electrical energy efficiency, which will counteract growth in demand and also the expected demand from plug-in electric cars.
Replacing all electrical power generation that uses coal and oil for fuel. About half of electrical generation from natural gas would also be replaced, all with renewable sources like wind — both on and offshore — solar and geothermal.
Raising standard car fuel efficiency from 31 mpg to 45 mpg.
Increasing use of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars.
Replacing cars in business fleets faster.
To achieve these goals, Greenblatt says, the country will have to improve electrical transmission capacity and invest in research to make renewable energy cheap and ubiquitous. Mileage standards for cars will have to be raised, and infrastructure like charging stations for electric vehicles will have to be encouraged and built.
Google’s proposal assumes that electricity demand can be kept flat at the 2008 level, rather than growing by a quarter by 2030. The proposal claims “ample proof” that this is possible, citing research studies and the experience of states, plus a McKinsey & Co. report — Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost, published last December.
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