David Kaplan by Shahab Matin

            Founder V2 Green

            Clean Energy Advisor WA Department of Commerce

 

Smart Grid is…

 

Rewarding        Huge business & economic development opportunity

Achievable       Core technologies exist requiring only application of current    

information technologies to make current grid “smart”

Required          Essential to clean energy future

 

Energy System Context (WA state)

 

1988 – 1998                ~70% energy consumption “off grid” (petroleum)

                                    ~30% on the Grid

 

By 2048 Prediction       ~70% Grid energy requiring tremendous clean energy (wind/solar)

                                    Also requires huge energy savings (~750,000 billion BTUs) due to

                                                increasing population and energy needs

 

Sustainable future requires the following to be done soon and in parallel

 

1)      Move lots of end use energy from combustion to electric (predominantly transportation)

2)      Fix grid to be smart

 

The Current Grid

 

1)      Generation from coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro

2)      Transmission from generation to substations (10 – 15+ mega watt)

3)      Distribution from substations to individual users

 

Smart Grid Components

 

o  Energy efficiency

o  Communication between all items in grid

o  Smart metering

o  Demand management

o  Grid intelligence

o  Clean power

o  Electric vehicles

o  Energy Storage

Steve Klein

            General Manager Snohomish PUD

 

Smart Grid Challenges – Utilities Perspective

 

Ø  In NW demand response not that beneficial because of use of hydro which has high fixed costs but relatively low per unit cost.

 

Ø  Security risk in opening grid through use of extensive software and information technology (i.e. putting the grid on the net)

 

Ø  Smart metering is not the first step in getting to a smart grid. Infrastructure must be in place to support smart metering and make it meaningful

 

Ø  Public doesn’t want personal information (energy use) to be known

 

Ø  Public doesn’t want utility rates to increase BUT must pay for extensive infrastructure changes and R&D required to get to a smart grid

 

Smart Grid / Clean Energy Drivers

 

Government mandates (either state or national)

 

Ø  Would expedite smart grid by focusing public irritation at rates increases (to fund technology and infrastructure) at government and allow utilities to make necessary investments without risk of losing jobs or funding

 

§  $100’s million required

§  Long timeframe

§  WA – 10 yrs to get to smart grid because of cost issues

 

Ø  CA has mandate to move to smart grid technologies and now has 250,000+ signed up for program to allow utilities to control certain power consumption during summer months

Ø  Electrification of transportation

Ø  Real time feedback of consumption

Q&A

 

Customers are demanding knowledge of personal energy use before utilities are providing it. Hope is that utilities will soon provide services free of charge instead of consumers having to buy service/capability from 3rd party

 

Standards for smart grid are being overseen by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology http://www.nist.gov/index.html). Communications systems standardization/utilization must also be considered. SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers http://www.sae.org/servlets/index) working on protocols and standards for electric vehicles and has recently agreed to work with NIST

 

Itron (http://www.itron.com/) in Spokane is one of the world leaders in smart meters

 

New Scale energy or concept of modular, micro energy generation plants (~20 mega watts/unit) will only happen in NW after it has been proven somewhere else.

 

In 2 years Snohomish PUD went from 0 à 8% wind energy. Wind energy however costs ~$125/mega watt while hydro cost $30/mega watt and solar $400 - $500 / mega watt.