The Department of Energy announced today it is awarding $620 million for projects around the country to demonstrate Smart Grid technologies for a smarter, more efficient, more resilient electrical grid. Funding came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, leveraged with $1 billion in funds from the private sector for a total of more than $1.6 billion for Smart Grid projects, nationwide.
The 32 demonstration projects (pdf) include large-scale energy storage, smart meters, distribution and transmission system monitoring devices, and a range of other smart technologies. They will act as models for deploying integrated Smart Grid systems. A month ago the DOE handed out $3.4 billion in stimulus grants to utilities working toward a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid.
The funding awards are divided into two topic areas.
- In the first group, 16 awards totaling $435 million will support fully integrated, regional Smart Grid demonstrations in 21 states, representing over 50 utilities and electricity organizations with a combined customer base of almost 100 million consumers. The projects include streamlined communication technologies that will allow different parts of the grid to “talk” to each other in real time.
- In the second group, an additional 16 awards for a total of $185 million will help fund utility-scale energy storage projects. The selected projects include innovative approaches for storing energy including advanced battery systems (including flow batteries), flywheels, and compressed air energy systems. Energy storage has become one of the hottest areas in clean-tech investing with entrepreneurs developing a wide range of different technologies.
The Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project (pdf) was one of the 16 announced by DOE today. It is currently testing smart grid technology with up to 60,000 customers in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
Portland-based PGE will develop a demonstration project in Salem, Oregon, serving residential and business customers. PGE’s partners on the Oregon project include Eaton, EnerDel, and Utility Integration Solutions.
The project team will install equipment and technology in 2010 and 2011. Then, for the next two to three years, project leaders will gather data on smart grid performance from 15 test sites that represent the region’s diverse terrain, weather and demographics. The project will involve more than 112 megawatts of power, enough to serve 86,000 households.
Smart grid technology includes everything from interactive appliances in homes to substation automation and sensors on transmission lines. It uses various technologies to improve power delivery and increase energy efficiency through intelligent, two-way communication. Generators of electricity, suppliers and users are all part of the equation.
PG&E’s smart meter installations in the Bakersfield area have caused an enormous backlash – with a class-action lawsuit by consumers slowing the $2.2 billion project. PG&E plans to finish installing 10 million smart meters by the end of next year.
Currently there are no in-home energy management displays or dashboards accompanying the new smart meters. Customers have no way to know how much their energy usage is costing in real time. The utility plans to install those in the future.
The Electric Power Research Institute says adopting Smart Grid technologies could cut electricity use by over 4% by 2030. That translates into total savings for businesses and consumers of about $20.4 billion.
The ZigBee Alliance mesh standard was designed for industrial automation and is too expensive for home or smart metering, argues Zensys founder of the Z-Wave Alliance.
About 350 devices from 170 manufacturers now support Z-Wave, a wireless mesh technology that allows home devices such as lighting, appliances, entertainment centers and security systems to interoperate. Z-Wave operates at the 900mHz band.
Intermatic’s HomeSettings line (right), uses Z-Wave to control lighting, appliances, and HVAC functions. A starter kit with two plug-in lamp modules and a master remote control costs $99 at Home Depot. It’s similar to X-10 modules, except wireless.
The ZWave Commander app for the iPhone/iPod Touch lets you to control your ZWave devices anywhere in the world. Here are 10 Monitoring Tools Bringing Smart Energy Home.
Longer range wireless networks connect the home to the power company. SilverSpring Networks uses an RF mesh network that operates in the 900 MHz band while GridNet is solely focused on delivering open-standards based communication for smart meters via WiMAX.
The IEEE has formed a new 802.16 study group to investigate Smart Grid, public safety, avionics, airport surface communication, and surveillance applications. The new “Greater Reliability In Disrupted Metropolitan Area Networks” (GRIDMAN) Study Group hopes to develop a project authorization request (PAR) and supporting material for approval by IEEE 802 at the March 2010 IEEE 802 session. The first meeting of the new study group will take place at IEEE 802.16’s Session #65 in San Diego.
GridPoint will provide smart charging and data logging for electric cars using eTec chargers in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington supporting 5,000 Nissan LEAF vehicles and a network of up to 12,750 charging stations.
A month ago the DOE handed out $3.4 billion in stimulus grants to utilities working toward a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid. The grants (below), which range from $400,000 to $200 million, will go to 100 companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners in 49 states — every state except Alaska. Here’s a full listing by state (pdf) and catagory (pdf). The Also-Ran’s may go forward, scaled back, or shelved. Smartgridnews.com tracks the buzz.
Related Smart Meter stories on Dailywireless include; Obama Announces $3.4B in Electric “Smart Grid” Grants, Smart Grid Gets Unwired, Smart Meters on The Stimulus Channel,
Obama Announces $3.4B in Electric “Smart Grid” Grants, WiMAX SmartGrid Coming to 700K Australians, Home Networking: A Universal Spec?, Google Power Meter, M2M: Big Deal, Wireless Power Standard Emerging, and Sprint Announces Smart Grid Ambitions, ABI: Stimulus Means Big Bucks for Wireless, The Smart Grid: Licensed or Unlicensed Spectrum, Cellular-enabled SCADA, Smart Grid: Dumb or What?, Smart Grid: It’s Alive!, Google: Smart Power R US, 900 Mhz Telemetry, Traffic Cameras and ITS and the Corpus Christi Cloud.
