February 26, 2010

Six state utility experts -- four from states “that seem to be a little further ahead in terms of consumer empowerment” -- in December joined the Galvin Electricity Initiative part time as advisors, Deputy Director John Kelly told us this week, and this State Advisory Council met for the first time last week, in Washington, DC.

          Those forward-thinking states sent Paul Afonso, former chairman of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy; Bill Flynn, former chair of the New York State PSC; Paul Hudson, former chair of the PUC of Texas and Glen Thomas, former chair of the Pennsylvania Utility Commission.

          “These were the chairs of commissions that were tasked with shepherding restructuring into place,” Kelly said.  “It was a significant challenge for commissioners back in the early 2000s.  They were leaders amongst themselves.  We see restructuring as continuous improvements.  it's not a one-time event.”

          Sitting commissioners were not chosen since they would have been limited in their interactions with certain stakeholders due to conflicts of interest.

          The others joining the council are Ed Garvey, former chair of the Minnesota PUC and Jack McGowan, chairman emeritus of DOE's GridWise Architecture Council and CEO of Energy Control in New Mexico.

          The advisors are scouting for microgrid prototype opportunities.

          “We really believe a prototype is at a city level,” Kelly said.  “We think that it would behoove utilities to pick a community that has a discreet area and fully implement smart grid -- demonstrating a 50% improvement in reliability, demonstrating conservation and DR.”

          Syracuse, NY; Naperville, IL, and the Illinois village of Oak Park are good examples of prototype opportunities, Kelly said.

          National Grid wants $123 million -- less than 50¢ per-upstate NY customer/month -- from the New York PSC for a proposed, three-year project in Syracuse.  The IOU has been trying to keep financial details of its smart grid project secret through the end of May to “secure lowest cost prices for its customers” (SGT, Feb-09).

          The agency hasn't yet acted on National Grid's request for privacy through the end of May, Anne Dalton, a PSC spokesperson, told us yesterday.  

Naperville won an $11 million SGIG award and plans to deploy over 57,000 smart meters and install the infrastructure and software needed to support and integrate various smart-grid functions and the two-way flow of information between the utility and customers (SGT, Nov-13).

          Chicago's Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) filed an unsuccessful SGIG application worth $175 million.  But the utility is deploying smart meters in and around Chicago -- and plans to include Oak Park (SGT, Nov-10).

          At last week's meeting, smart grid performance metrics were discussed along with, of course, consumer empowerment.  The group spoke, too, about gaining data from and taking advantage of infrastructure already built by telecommunication firms, said Kelly.

          The group will for the first six to 12 months set up meetings with commissions, legislators and key stakeholders around the US to find out “what are the states' concerns and issues” regarding smart grid, he added.

          Galvin will put together a “policy lessons learned document” -- and make it available on its web site.  On the organization's site now are “consumer principles” for policymaking in the electric power sector: http://galvinpower.org/consumer-principles/electricity-consumer-principles.