Smart Grid Library

The NARUC (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners) Summer Committee Meetings last week revealed a few sobering projections about our future electrical supply.  First, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) anticipates that the cost of electricity will increase by 50% by 2030 even with use of all possible energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables.  [...]

My mother is writing a book.  She learned how to use a computer, and has been diligently crafting her story chapter by chapter.  If only the local electric grid would cooperate.  A single power disruption of a few seconds wiped out an entire chapter of her book.  Now she is reworking a previous version and [...]

My blog dated April 19 focused on PG&E activities that seemed to be designed to kill the spirit and the objectives of the Smart Grid.  Since then, PG&E has admitted that mistakes were made in some meter installs (although my PG&E smart meter functions perfectly, thank you very much), the tariff change is wending its way [...]

Don’t you just love acronyms?  I do, which is a good thing since I write the Smart Grid Dictionary, which is loaded with them.  Acronyms are shorthand for common phrases, and there are certainly plenty of them in the Smart Grid business.    Imagine my delight when I encountered a new acronym last week – BUGS.  [...]

Microgrids are natural innovation zones for the Smart Grid because they have experimentation scalability and flexibility.  Smart utilities could create partnerships with academic and business campuses in their territories to deploy microgrids and study the most effective solutions for management of distributed generation.  Why distributed generation?  Because smart utilities should leverage the abilities of microgrids [...]

Back in September 2009 I blogged about six rules that tell you when you have a Smart Grid.  The third rule is:  You know you have a Smart Grid when the transmission and distribution portions of the grid are optimized for distributed energy generation/storage.  This rule becomes reality when microgrids are ubiquitous.  The Smart Grid [...]

Defining the asset treatment for energy storage is vital to its rapid deployment in distributed generation as well as traditional utility applications.

Regulations are critical to help today’s electrical grid evolve to a Smart Grid with ubiquitous distributed generation sites.

A truly Smart Grid must overcome NIMBY, BANANA, and NOPE, and the answer is to optimize the grid for distributed generation.

My previous blogs touched on different aspects of the Smart Grid.  Now let’s talk about some of the common denominators of all solutions.  One is the fact that software will be a critical component to successful Smart Grid operations.  And not just any software – but open, standards-based, interoperable, and secure software. 
The National Institute of [...]