DOE expected to issue

ARRA details tomorrow

A new coalition in the Pacific Northwest is gearing up to ask DOE for a chunk of the smart grid stimulus funds -- to the tune of one quarter of the $400 million that's available now and ultimately $1 billion of the agency's $4.5 billion set aside for smart grid demos and roll-outs.  The plan is to secure regional commitments in the next 50 days totaling the $100 million.

          The plan is to build a foundation for possibly garnering over $1 billion from DOE to deploy smart grid products and systems in the Pacific Northwest.

          Federal authorities have set aside $400 million to use as matching funds for regional demos and DOE's eventual distribution of the $4.5 billion will be informed by the demo-money distribution, Matt Muldoon told us yesterday.  He's a senior economist at the Oregon PUC.  He took part in a workshop that the Bonneville Power Administration and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory held in Portland on Tuesday.  The event set out to better define what the smart grid means and to help prepare smart grid players in the region for an imminent DOE smart-grid-funds application process.

          BPA is considering putting in $10 million and wants commitments from utilities and other parties to invest $90 million so that a regional demo project it is coordinating could get $100 million in matching demo money from Uncle Sam, according to Muldoon and Mark Osborn, distributed resources manager of Portland General Electric (PGE).

          BPA expects to learn on Friday more about what DOE expects -- and it anticipates needing to meet a June 1 application deadline, said Osborn.

          The utilities considering tossing millions into the pot need to decide whether they will learn enough from taking part in the demo, said Muldoon.

          Separately, Portland State University is set to hold a conference titled “Sustainable Smart Grid Community Planning for the Northwest” at the school June 18.  The conference grew out of recommendations made by 52 students in a PSU class called “Designing the Smart Grid for Sustainable Communities,” Jeff Hammarlund, who is teaching the course, told us.

          A coalition of environmental groups and businesses called Climate Solutions is helping design the conference.  It is meant to identify gaps in smart grid planning and to work to integrate the smart grid with other sustainability infrastructures such as natural gas, water, building design and telecom.

          Portland General Electric is “very excited about the project,” said Osborn.  “It's really necessary for us to improve the service to our customers, primarily, but also for the industry to demonstrate the capabilities of the smart grid.” His firm made headlines in the last 24 hours with the kickoff of its AMI rollout (story this issue).

          Meanwhile, the people that started this week to help prepare a “Northwest plan for implementing Smart Grid,” said BPA, are still working on the basics such as a clear definition for “smart grid” and an outline of its benefits.

          BPA is a not-for-profit federal electric utility and runs a high-voltage transmission grid made up of over 15,000 miles of lines and associated substations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.  The scope of the regional project in development has not yet been defined, said the utility, but some utilities have expressed an interest in joining.

          Osborn took part in Tuesday's workshop with Muldoon and about 80 others.  PGE is, he said, determined to “contribute as much as we can” but the utility is “waiting to define what the share is.  Right now, we don't know if that's in-kind support, whether it has to be cash, whether the value of contributing a feeder [power lines radiating out from a substation to feed homes and businesses] for testing could be included in there.”

          DOE is expected to issue a “notice of intent” on Friday, Osborn said, noting that he expects the document to clear up some confusion for everyone.

          BPA outlined essential assets to be included in the DOE matching-funds proposal including agricultural pump control, backup generation, commercial HVAC, industrial process control, interval revenue metering, residential photovoltaic, residential smart appliance, residential thermostat, residential water heater, small wind generation, substation distribution automation/feeder reconfiguration and substation volt/VAr control, to name a few.

          BPA's “good to have” assets list includes customer transformers, cyber security, plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, home energy management system, interoperability specifications and testing, oil temperature sensors and diagnostic systems, small commercial energy management systems, SCADA and voltage regulators.

          While Osborn is concerned about the timeline of the DOE application for demo money, he said it looked like the two men leading BPA's effort -- Lee Hall and Jason Salmi-Klotz -- seemed “very competent to pull this complex project together.” Hall and Salmi-Klotz, reached by Smart Grid Today Wednesday evening, declined to comment.

          BPA has had a strategic initiative on the smart grid “for some time now,” said Osborn.  “I think they are well positioned to provide some leadership in this area.” BPA hasn't announced when another workshop will be held, he added when asked.