Colorado's Share of President Obama's Smart Grid Investments

October 29, 2009 by weatherdem | 1 Comment

Did you hear all the talk about President Obama’s announcement that $3.4 Billion in energy grid modernization investment? It hasn’t exactly dominated the top-of-the-hour news reports, but made some small ripples on Tuesday.

While Congress remains bogged down on health care, to say nothing of energy and climate, legislation, the executive branch has been very busy this year starting initiatives and issuing new rules and threatening regulations. This is the latest in that series of actions.

Two projects in Colorado are receiving investment money. More on them below…

According to this Denver Post story:

Fort Collins and Pueblo received $24.2 million in federal grants Tuesday to install smart-grid electric meters — enabling homes and power companies to communicate with each other — in almost 120,000 homes.

If you remember, Xcel Energy and Boulder have been working to deploy smart grid technologies to 25,000 homes. Additionally, Ft. Collins already was announced to participate in one of 8 projects nationwide – a smart grid demonstration. This new announcement builds on that first one.

Smart grid projects to date have demonstrated that people substantially reduce their energy demands. The energy grid could benefit from large-scale demand reduction, which projects like these build toward.

Four smart grid projects in Colorado through Oct. 2009, three of which are because President Obama’s administration understands the seriousness of our over-burdened and antiquated domestic energy system. This is one arena in which I think Obama is making a difference.

A list of all 100 projects, listed by state, can be found here.

[Update]: No sooner did I post this than I realize I received an email (press release) about geothermal recovery act funding for Colorado, to the tune of $18 Million. 11 projects, including $4.78 Million to Flint Geothermal LLC to identify resources in Colorado and $2.61 Million to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to demonstrate the use of municipal wastewater as the heat exchange medium for a heating/cooling system. The complete list of projects can be found at this DoE site.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

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