October 30, 2009

Modesto, Calif mulls

‘Buy American’ clause

The Modesto Irrigation District (MID) in California was awarded a $1.5 million ARRA stimulus grant under the DOE's SGIG program, mostly to install automated capacitor bank controllers and voltage control equipment at substations, Bob Hondeville, energy services supervisor at MID, told us yesterday.  The firm's other application was not one of the 100 winners.

          The five-member, locally elected board governing the public power utility in the state's Central Valley still needs to approve spending $1.5 million to match the DOE grant (Editor's note: A hint to us that having funds in place was not a deciding criteria at DOE in picking SGIG winners).

          Hondeville and his crew will explain to the board that the control equipment upgrades will, along with smart meters, lead to more efficient distribution of power, cut out energy waste by delivering exactly the voltage customers need and add up to cost savings for MID customers.

          The non-profit firm has deployed Silver Spring's AMI network to most of its electric customers and plans to use it to control capacitor banks and voltage regulators, said Hondeville, adding that MID deployed about 100,000 smart meters from Landis & Gyr and GE, too.

          The smart grid deployment action MID took before the stimulus funds came into play might be the reason it did not get the second SGIG grant, Hondeville said.  MID had sought about $10 million for AMI deployment with a plan to spend $18 million itself.  MID this year sold $28 million worth of long-term bonds and all of them will now be paid back by the firm's ratepayers.

          A portion of the federal money that was awarded to MID will help pay for about 4,000 smart meters soon to be deployed so that all of the firm's retail electric customers have smart meters.

          Even though DOE declined the utility's $10 million grant application for AMI, MID still believes it “did the right thing prior to the grant,” said Hondeville, since it will make complying with the new California law requiring every major utility in the state to develop a smart grid deployment plan (SGT, Oct-27) a bit easier, he noted.

          MID's board approved the grant application but still needs to approve spending to match the grant -- though MID is reviewing the grant in detail.

          One potential problem is a federal law concerning drug testing that may conflict with the agreement MID has in place with its union contract employees.

          Another point to double-check is compliance with SGIG “Buy American” clauses, said Hondeville.  “What's American?” he asked rhetorically.  “I have a Chevy pickup with a transmission that was built in Mexico and a chassis that was built in Canada.  We find the same thing with some of the meter technology.  Some components are built oversees and some are shipped in for assembly.  There are some challenges with that.”

          Some components in Landis & Gyr meters, for example, are made or assembled outside of the US, he noted.   “We disclosed all the data we had and it seems to have not been an issue.”

          Hondeville is, of course, eager to get on with MID's smart grid initiative.  The public power utility's two-year smart grid project might end up saving several million dollars/year -- and passing it to its customers.  That's the ultimate goal of MID's smart grid project, he added.

          “Having this technology deployed would be a way to offer rate options and customer control of usage,” Hondeville noted.  MID has had TOU rates in place for larger C&I customers for over a decade.  “We are looking at TOU for residential as an option because of this AMI technology.  We foresee eventually going to more unique rate designs,” but MID's board will first need to approve residential TOU rates.

          But first, MID plans to use some of the DOE grant money to run a pilot testing in-home display devices and a rate structure that rewards the customer for using less power during peak hours.

          The pilot will also test in-home display devices, Hondeville said.  “Comverge uses a display that gives you a pricing number, along with red, yellow and green lights.  It's pretty obvious that when a red light is glowing, it's a bad time to use power.  Other people might prefer a more sophisticated, internet tool on which they can run a cost comparison” showing what appliances can be pushed off peak -- especially during the summer when AC is the big concern in Modesto.

            It's good to be Duke

Duke Energy, of Charlotte, NC, got everything it sought from DOE's SGIG program, Todd Arnold, the firm's smart grid VP, told us this week.  Talk about a matching grant -- the firm was awarded a grant for the maximum allowed $200 million but will itself spend $651.7 million.

          “The grant helps reinforce that ‘smartening' the system is a good thing.  Now let's make it happen,” he said.

          IOU Duke will apply the funds in Ohio and Indiana, in projects lasting up to five years, said Arnold.

          Ohio plans call for installing 700,000 smart power meters plus two-way communications for 450,000 gas meters.  Ohio's PUC issued an order in December supporting those plans, Arnold noted.  Pilot metering projects are under way there and they will be ramped up to thousands of meter installs per week starting in December, he added.  “The grant fits in by helping us accelerate this project.”

          Though Duke's transmission system in Ohio “is already fairly smart,” its distribution system will get some automation, he added.  For example, recloser devices to be installed will open if they sense a fault on a distribution line, then close again if the fault was temporary, such as a branch hitting a line and then bouncing off.  Two-way communications will let those devices send status reports and be controlled remotely.

          Indiana's regulatory commission is poised to approve installing 800,000 smart meters there, since all the organizations that weighed in on the issue have assented, Arnold said.

          Duke will initially buy 150,000 meters from Echelon in San Jose, Calif, that send data via PLC.  The utility has been using Echelon gear, we reported previously (SGT, Aug-11).

          It also plans to install an as-yet-undetermined number of nodes from Ambient, of Newton, Mass, to connect its networked devices in Ohio and likely in Indiana.  The nodes will initially gather data from gas and electric meters, and, Duke hopes, eventually also from capacitors and recloser devices.

          The nodes will be upgradeable to use Wi-Fi for communications within metered homes.  Arnold declined to name the cellular network that will be used to connect the nodes to each other and to Duke's back-office and control systems.

          Duke began designing variable rates in Ohio and plans to do so in Indiana.  Such rates are not yet approved in either state, he added.

          Following the requisite negotiations with DOE that precede the actual receipt of the grant money, Duke is ready to get started on its projects, Arnold said.  “We can fill the supplier pipeline quickly, because we're not starting from scratch.  We've been working on this, doing pilots, for well over three years.”

          The application process forced Duke to focus on concisely stating its goals, he added.  The resulting grant made Duke “pleased to take an engineering marvel and begin the process of applying two-way communications, to give customers more options and have less impact on the environment.”

          Under a separate SGIG grant for $3.9 million, to be matched with Duke's own $7.9 million, the utility will install 45 monitoring units on transmission lines.  By quickly reporting problems, they will cut the chances of blackouts since power can be re-routed around trouble spots, Arnold said.

          The vendor for the monitoring units has not yet been chosen, Duke spokesman Dave Scanzoni told us yesterday.

            FPL wins maximum grant

A comprehensive makeover is in the works for Florida Power & Light (FPL) of Juno Beach, after it scored the maximum allowable $200 million grant.  The IOU will add another $651.7 million toward its project that calls for installing over 2.6 million smart meters, 9,000 new distribution devices, 45 phasors and upgraded monitoring equipment in over 270 substations.

          The utility's program, called Energy Smart Florida, will “allow us to create an intelligent network that is able to detect potential problems and automatically reconfigure the grid to minimize outages,” Meter Director Bryan Olnick told us via e-mail.  “Smart meters will give customers the ability to see their usage online by the hour, enabling them to better understand their energy consumption and paving the way for them to make energy-efficient, cost-saving choices,” he added.

          GE will supply the smart meters and possibly some software and control systems.  Silver Spring Networks will provide wireless communications gear while Cisco supplies the utility with T&D communications -- and supplies the customers with in-home power information and controls.  Other vendors may be added, Olnick said.

          Preliminary work has already begun in downtown Miami and some other locations in Dade County (STG, Sep-21).  Sped along by the DOE grant, the utility plans to install 2.5 million smart meters by the end of 2011 on its way to 4.5 million “in the following years,” it said.

          The work funded by the grant and the utility's $378 million will start in January and is set to be completed by Dec 31, 2011. 

          BOTTOM LINE: We now keep a list of links to our DOE stimulus coverage in the HOT TOPIC: DOE Stimulus Grants section of our website.