Smart Grids' Year of Growth

December 29, 2008
By Jeff St. John

There's something a little sci-fi like about the idea of a "smart grid" – an electricity transmission system that can monitor and control the flow of power between utilities and their customers to avoid blackouts, smoothly incorporate distributed power generation and even use plug-in electric vehicles as grid storage batteries.

But for those competing to make it in the business, it's a Wild West story, with shootouts over competing communication standards – WiFi versus ZigBee, RF Mesh versus WiMax –looming, and the promise of concept-proving and lucrative utility contracts as the loot.

From giants like General Electric (GE) and IBM to up-and-coming startups, there's a lot of room in an industry that's still in its infancy. But as utilities continue to install smart meters and demand response systems, and plan for a much-anticipated Home Area Network that will connect appliances, thermostats and other power-suckers to utility control rooms, there's also a lot to prove.

Energy-Management Buying Spree Continues (Jan. 24)
The year in smart grid technologies began with some early consolidation, as BPL Global announced it was buying Portland, Ore.-based Serveron, a company that monitors online and services transformers energy-management company, and Connected Energy, which makes energy-management software. The consolidations had been building from the year before, when Comverge (COMV) bought energy-efficiency firm Public Energy Solutions for $13.4 million and Enerwise Global Technologies for $75.7 million, and EnerNOC (ENOC) acquired MDEnergy for $7.9 million.

SCE Preps $1.63B Smart-Meter Program (Sept. 19)
American utilities plan to install more than 40 million smart meters between 2007 and 2010, according to a 2007 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report. In September, Southern California Edison became the latest utility to announce grand plans to install smart meters to serve its 4.8 million electric customers. Smart meter maker Itron (ITRI) was the lucky winner in that contract, as well as in a deal with San Diego Gas & Electric (SDOGI.PK). But other smart meter providers, such as General Electric, Landis+Gyr, Elster and Sensus, are also getting involved. Pacific Gas & Electric is buying GE and Landis+Gyr meters for a $2.3 billion deployment. American Electric Power Co. (AEP) is working with GE as well.

Silver Spring Grabs $75M (Oct. 7)
Smart meters aren't smart unless they can talk to utilities, and companies like Silver Spring Networks gives them a voice. The Redwood City, Calif.-based startup raised $75 million in October, on top of $70 million raised since 2007 from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, JVB Properties and Northgate Capita. Its circuit boards are enabling communication from smart meters to the networks of utilities including Pacific Gas & Electric, the Modesto Irrigation District, Canada's Westario Power Services and others.

Others in the field include Trilliant, which raised $40 million in capital in August, has installed about 750,000 meters and participated in the large Hydro One deployment in Canada, and SmartSynch, which is working with utilities including Burbank (Calif.) Water and Power utility and Colorado's Xcel Energy.

An Old Favorite – WiFi – Preps to Disrupt Smart Meter Market (Aug. 22)
The Home Area Network – a future world of monitors that tell homeowners how much power they're using and appliances, thermostats and other devices that can be monitored and even controlled by utilities through home smart meters and communications networks –has so far been mostly a ZigBee world. Utilities including Southern California Edison and Centerpoint are adopting the low-power communication standard, which has been good for companies like Boulder, Colo.-based Tendril Networks, which had deals with 27 utilities to test or deploy its Zigbee-enabled home energy monitoring systems.

But other companies want to use tried-and-true WiFi instead, since it's already in widespread use. One of them is GainSpan, an Intel spinout that says it can match Zigbee's lower power requirements with WiFi's improved range. Only time will tell which - or both - will be in the smart homes of the future.

The Next Smart Grid Technology: WiMax (Sept. 18)
There are a variety of ways to link smart meters to the utilities that need to communicate with them. Pacific Gas & Electric and others working with startup Silver Spring Networks are using RF Mesh technology, which allows meters to serve as relays for each other to get information to collection points that deliver it to the utility's communication networks. Other methods, like broadband over powerline, have also been used, particularly in Europe.

But Grid Net, a startup with links to Intel (INTC) and General Electric, wants utilities to turn to the long range, high-bandwidth wireless data protocol WiMax instead. Grid Net says the growing WiMax network being put in place by Sprint (S) and Clearwire (CLWR), with billions in investments from the likes of Google (GOOG), Comcast (CMCSA), and Time Warner Cable (TWC), would be a ready-made communications system for a future smart grid.

GridPoint Gets $120M, Buys V2Green (Sept. 23)
Arlington, Va.-based GridPoint, founded in 2003, has moved from making products that monitor energy use for residential and commercial clients to making software to help utilities manage the flow and storage of power. In September, it announced a $120 million investment, bringing its total funding to more than $200 million.

It also announced it was buying Seattle-based V2Green, a company working on ways to use plug-in electric vehicles for grid power storage. That's a growing area of interest for utilities – while there are a handful of electric vehicles on the road today, any future electric fleet will have to be integrated into the grid to avoid overdrawing its power.

Acquisitions in Smart Grid: Get Used to It (Nov. 24)
When SmartSynch bought up Applied Mesh Technologies in November for an undisclosed sum, it continued a buying spree in smart grid companies that analysts expect to continue. Building out a smart grid will take utility-scale cash, and those utilities are famously averse to risk in their endeavors, making it likely that they'll look to large, established companies to provide them with equipment and services that will form a future smart grid.

Tendril Expands Its Reach in Smart Homes (Nov. 24)
Tendril Networks has taken a strong position in the home energy consumption monitoring business. The Boulder, Colo.-based startup, which makes Zigbee-based hardware and software, raised $40 million in 2008 and had signed deals with 29 utilities to test and/or deploy its technology as of November. CEO Adrian Tuck said one of those utilities would start a commercial rollout next year.

But Tendril will face competition from companies like GainSpan, which wants to use low-powered WiFi rather than Zigbee to connect home energy monitoring systems, and Greenbox Technology, which builds Web-based software to monitor home energy use.

Smart Grid Coalition Seeks Tax Breaks for Negawatts (Nov. 24)
Government subsidies have played a critical role in getting biofuels and solar and wind power off the ground in the United States. In November, the Demand Response Smart Grid Coalition [DRSC], a trade group for smart grid technology developers, asked Congress for equal treatment – except they want to get paid for not using power. That is, the group asked for a tax credit linked to "negawatts," or the power they're able to save utilities and customers through use of their products and services.

EnerNoc Expanding Into Carbon Management, Energy Services (Dec. 5)
EnerNoc is in the demand-response business – that is, it runs a network that can curtail power going to lights, machinery and other industrial power loads to help utilities deal with times of peak demand and avoid brownouts. But the company is also offering some of its customers consulting on energy procurement and energy efficiency, as well as "base load commissioning" services that help clients save power by using equipment more efficiently.

Late in 2008, it decided to get into a new game – carbon tracking and trading services. Cutting carbon emissions by reducing power demand, after all, will likely be cheaper than doing so by building solar and wind power plants or developing so-called "clean coal" technologies that don't exist yet.

Intellon Introduces New Firmware for BPL Access and Smart Grid Applications Using HomePlug AV-Class Products

Intellon Introduces New Firmware for BPL Access and Smart Grid Applications Using HomePlug AV-Class Products
Thursday December 11, 10:26 am ET

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Intellon Corporation (Nasdaq:ITLN), a leading provider of HomePlug®-compatible integrated circuits (ICs) for home networking, networked entertainment, Ethernet-over-Coax (EoC) and smart grid applications, today announced the introduction of a new firmware release for its HomePlug AV (HPAV) powerline chipsets. Intellon’s HPAV integrated circuits are already deployed in high volume for in-home powerline networking. The new release adds a Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) capability to the Intellon feature suite. FDM will make it easier to use HomePlug AV-based solutions for Broadband over Power Line (BPL) communications on outdoor power lines and Smart Grid applications.

The FDM technology divides the available communications spectrum (2.0 – 28 MHz) into smaller sub-bands, allowing pole-top repeater units to communicate both up- and down-stream in full-duplex mode. Because the repeaters can send on one sub-band while receiving on another, better spectral efficiency is obtained in high user-density environments. Intellon employs Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) tone masking as opposed to other solutions which use a variable OFDM symbol length. Field tests have demonstrated the efficacy of Intellon’s approach.

“The new firmware release allows Intellon to better meet the unique needs of BPL access and utility firms using our existing line-up of HomePlug AV-based chipsets,” said Rick Furtney, COO and president of Intellon. “Because these chips are already produced in high volume for in-home powerline networking, the new solution brings increased economies of scale to BPL access and smart grid applications.”

Ambient Secures $8.0 Million in Permanent Funding

Ambient Secures $8.0 Million in Permanent Funding
Monday November 24, 8:30 am ET

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ambient Corporation (OTCBB: ABTG - News) announced today that it has raised an additional $8.0 million from Vicis Capital Master Fund (Vicis). This injection of capital follows Ambient’s strongest quarterly results to date and enables Ambient to fund present initiatives and future growth. Vicis’ investment into Ambient now totals $23.5 million.

Vicis will also be exercising all of the warrants previously issued to it between July 31, 2007 and April 23, 2008 through a combination of “cashless exercises” as well as “for cash exercises.” This exercise is anticipated to net Ambient approximately $242,142, in addition to the $8.0 million investment, and will result in Vicis holding, immediately following such exercise, approximately 65% of Ambient’s outstanding shares of Common Stock.

Shad Stastney, a partner with Vicis Capital, LLC, the investment manager for Vicis Capital Master Fund, commented, “In completing this latest round of investment into Ambient and exercising our warrants, Vicis has taken a controlling ownership position in a company that has continuously met development goals and successfully positioned itself to capitalize on the progressive movements within the smart grid space. Our investments into Ambient reflect our belief and support of its initiatives focusing on wide-scale grid efficiency gains through the deployment of such advanced technologies.”

This cash infusion, combined with the revenue generated from the contract announced in April of this year, positions Ambient to expand its business plan for a growing market and affords it the necessary flexibility to increase product manufacturing for future deployments and opportunities. The present financing involves no increase of debt, allowing Ambient to use the investment to fund current and future business activities through 2009.

“We are at a defining moment, both as a company and as a nation,” stated John J. Joyce, President and CEO of Ambient. “The incoming administration in Washington has stated that the new clean energy economy is a top priority. Along with our partners and the continued support of Vicis, we are enabling energy efficiencies and technologies that will help the country drive towards energy independence by offering utilities communications solutions for the future by modernizing the distribution infrastructure. Ambient whole heartedly supports the emerging national awareness, as we believe the most effective energy solution available to combat future increase in energy demand is to more efficiently use the energy already generated.”

On November 14, 2008, Ambient reported for the nine-months ending September 30th, year-to-date revenues of $4,450,099, an increase of 44% for the corresponding period in 2007.

Additional information relating to the terms of the investment will be included in Ambient’s Current Report on Form 8-K, which Ambient will be filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional information on Ambient’s third quarter results can found in Ambient’s most recent 10-Q.

IBM Plans Broadband Over Power Lines For Rural America

The technology allows residents of areas underserved by traditional ISPs to receive high-speed Internet access.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek
November 12, 2008 09:31 AM

IBM (NYSE: IBM) said Wednesday that it has struck a $9.6 million deal with International Broadband Electric Communications under which it will deploy high-speed Internet service that runs over power lines in rural U.S. markets underserved by traditional broadband technology.

IBM will use IBEC's Broadband over Power Line (BPL) equipment to roll out BPL service to customers of electrical cooperatives that provide electricity for much of rural America.

"Americans in rural areas of the country trail their urban and suburban counterparts in broadband availability," said IBEC CEO Scott Lee, in a statement. "This capability will play a crucial role in rural health, education and economic development, while closing the digital divide that exists between well served and underserved America."

Raymond Blair, director of Advanced Networks at IBM, said that, "High-speed Internet service is revolutionizing the way we do business, and access to this resource will generate great opportunities for rural America."

IBM estimates there are over 900 electrical cooperatives in the U.S., providing service that accounts for 45% of the country's total power grid.

Officials at co-op industry groups said the plan would help boost the economies of less populated areas. "This is a key development in the growth and availability of high-speed Broadband over Power Line Internet services and widespread availability of critical SmartGrid applications in the United States," said Bill Moroney, president and CEO of the Utilities Telecom Council.

With BPL, consumers can simply plug their computers into any electrical outlet to receive broadband service at speeds comparable to those offered by DSL and cable Internet Service Providers.

Despite its promise, BPL has received mixed reviews to date and as a result has largely failed to flourish. Among other things, critics charge that BPL interferes with short-wave radios signals used by Ham radio operators and others.

All Electric and/or Plug-in Hybrid Cars Adding Demands to our Electric Grid !!!

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."

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.

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

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."

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 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?