The informal history goes well beyond that.  The SPP came into existence on December 14, 1941 when 11 regional utilities agreed to pool power to deliver 120,000 kW of reliable electricity to Jones Mill – an aluminum plant co-located next to the largest bauxite mine in the nation back then.  Aluminum was needed to build planes for the war effort.  War was declared on December 7, 1941.  It took just seven days, in an age before the Internet, computers, faxes and cell phones for eleven utilities to overcome all technical, regulatory, and organizational issues to make a handshake deal to guarantee the power to the mill.  It’s easy to recognize the motivators for this admirable accomplishment – necessity, national security, resource scarcity, and patriotism.  The origin of the Southwest Power Pool eloquently illustrates what Americans can do when we are motivated to action.

Smart Grid technologies can help integrate utility-scale and small-scale renewable sources of electricity generation and dramatically reduce our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels for power generation and transportation.  Face it, fossil fuels are not renewable and they are definitely not clean – or cheap.  The BP deep water oil spill is merely the latest, and most dramatic evidence that our economy and society go to ever greater risks to obtain a fluid that is ever more difficult (and environmentally costly) to extract. 

Tar sands are a great example of insanely complicated and expensive oil extraction.  The oil-imbued sands must be mined, and then the oil is separated and upgraded to produce oil fit to send to a refinery.  It takes several barrels of water just to produce one barrel of oil, and not all of that water can be recycled.  Where does the unrecyclable (ie thoroughly polluted) water reside?  In toxic containment ponds that kill birds that land in them. 

Even on land, oil obeys the “spill, baby, spill” rule, as the recent Red Butte Creek spill in Utah sadly illustrates.  Another ecosystem damaged – another inconvenient externality that is not factored into the price of petroleum. 

So what about natural gas?  Increasing evidence shows that hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” of the earth to obtain natural gas also has devastating environmental results.  Fracking uses vast amounts of water and chemicals similar to Drano in toxicity to extract natural gas.  In Pennsylvania and New York, reliable and long established household wells are now pouring out flammable water.  Yes, you read that right.  Water that you can light on fire. 

The Smart Grid enables the integration of domestically-produced clean and renewable sources of energy that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels through electrification of our cars and public transportation systems.  Smart Grid technologies also help us consumers to intelligently manage and reduce our consumption of electricity and therefore retire aging generation plants that use dirty fuels.  Ramping up domestic renewables to integrate into the Smart Grid is a war effort, and the motivators are the same as cited in the example above – we need to confront the resource realities of fossil fuels and do it out of necessity.   We need to recognize that domestic renewable energy sources in the Smart Grid provide the right economic and national security foundations to ensure American prosperity.

Was this evidence of a smart meter backlash or a simple demonstration of that adage that familiarity breeds contempt?    Only detailed surveys will determine that, but it is clear that PG&E needs different advisors in the executive suite and a fresh approach to interacting with customers. 

So, community choice is safe in California, and this is excellent Smart Grid news for two reasons – but there’s a real warning in the poll results too.  (Community choice lets cities, counties, or neighborhood entities purchase and/or generate electricity for residential and business use within their boundaries.  Community choice means local control over energy resources, more renewable sources of energy, plus a lower overall cost of electricity.) 

First the good news.  Community choice should accelerate the integration of sources of renewable energy into the grid.  As the environmental devastation grows from oil spills (even on land – see the Red Butte Creek spill in Utah), it is becoming apparent to even the most oblivious that this is one fossil fuel that we would be well-served to render obsolete.  For instance, communities can band together to create solar gardens and aggressively convert rooftops to solar power to generate local clean and renewable power for their electric vehicles.  

A second benefit is that distributed generation improves our grid security.  Complete reliance on centralized energy generation puts all eggs in one basket.  If you believe the reports about hackers infiltrating the computer networks that control the electrical grid, or even if you only believe a fraction of them, there’s serious reason to be alarmed and deploy solutions that improve the stability and reliability of the electrical grid.  A grid studded with microgrids and CCA-controlled energy sources is a smarter grid, less likely to be completely disabled and able to recover faster from natural disasters or acts of criminality and terrorism.     

However, there is a real worry in the Proposition 16 results.  It is clear that PG&E customers don’t trust PG&E.  This does not bode well for future PG&E efforts to educate their customers about TOU (Time of Use) rates and other measures to reduce electricity needs at peak time periods to save money and reduce carbon emissions.  Enlightening consumers about their energy use and encouraging participation in smart energy programs is a process of complex messaging, and it requires a relationship of trust.  PG&E doesn’t have that now, and the big question is – can they earn consumer trust to be effective in their future Smart Grid solution rollouts?  If they fail in that endeavor, we all lose. 

This ongoing environmental tragedy makes the reasons to accelerate deployment of Smart Grid solutions all the more compelling.  The Smart Grid uses renewable, clean energy – and lots of it.  The current grid isn’t designed to accommodate variable (wind and solar) sources of energy, but there are two Smart Grid technologies that make it possible.  First is energy storage.  Utility-scale energy storage generally fulfills one of two missions – it is either long-lasting, or it is instantaneously available.  Advances are being made in both storage categories to drive down the costs of energy storage and make it economically feasible.  (There are a few questions about how to define this asset for amortization purposes, and these are regulatory matters that need to be decided at federal and state levels). 

The second technology that supports integration of clean and renewable energy sources into our electrical grid consists of sensors and actuators that remotely monitor and control the grid at points ranging from generation through transmission to distribution.  These devices are called PMUs or Phasor Measurement Units, and they collect time-stamped data samples at multiple points across the grid to deliver what the industry calls “wide area situational awareness”.  That big picture view of the grid helps the people responsible for electricity delivery to prevent brownouts and blackouts. 

These technologies are in deployment now in pilots and in full-fledged operations.  These technologies accelerate integration of renewables into the Smart Grid, and acceleration of the Smart Grid means a faster adoption of EVs (electric vehicles) in this country.  And that means we can give the heave ho to oil, instead of watching it give the heave ho to the entire Gulf ecosystem (which includes all the humans in it). 

I alluded to the regulatory questions about energy storage, and this is important.  You can do something instead of helplessly watching video of oiled marshes and dead birds.  There is a bill in Congress to encourage investment in energy storage.  It is SB1091, the Storage Technology of Renewable and Green Energy act of 2009 (STORAGE) also known as the Wyden bill.  It provides tax credits and accelerated depreciation for energy storage assets, so utilities have financial incentives over and above the good arguments about reducing carbon footprints and reliance on clean forms of energy.    It will create a standard definition of how energy storage assets should be treated.  It is sitting on Capitol Hill right now.  You may not be able to decontaminate the Gulf waters or beaches, but you CAN do this – you can contact your US senators and representatives and ask them to make this the law of the land.  

It’s not an audacious act, but as a combined effort, it becomes part of an audacious goal – to create a Smart Grid that sustains millions of EVs using electricity coming from clean energy sources.  This should be our future, instead of continued reliance on oil.  Is that too much to hope for?