Smart Grid Funds Heading to Fort Collins, CO

After all the frustration that progressives such as myself have felt over the health care “debate” in the past few weeks, it’s nice to come across pieces of better news.  Such is the case with an announcement from the Energy Department and Colorado’s Senate offices: the city of Fort Collins, CO will receive $5 million in Recovery Act funds for a smart-grid demonstration project, one of eight projects around the country.

This is actually the second smart-grid project to be established for a city in Colorado.  The first, in Boulder, is being developed in concert with Xcel Energy, which I covered in March 2008, May 2008 and March 2009.  Boulder’s and Xcel’s progress on this initial project has been a little hard to come by this year, as I wrote about back in March.  Their website has been redesigned a couple of times, but the same material just seems to be getting shuffled around.

It looks to me like Xcel’s initial target of 50,000 homes to be connected by the end of this year was scaled back to 23,000 homes by the middle of this year.  To this point, I haven’t been able to determine if this lower target is going to be achieved or not.  I’m sure Xcel and Boulder are experiencing issues and delays that weren’t forseeable when the program was announced.  I hope that Ft. Collins and the Energy Department are in touch with Boulder and Xcel officials about their experiences.  Sharing learned lessons would likely help the Ft. Collins program announce more realistic target numbers and dates.

Back to the Ft. Collins announcement:

The City of Fort Collins, in cooperation with a number of partners in the state, will research, develop and demonstrate a coordinated and integrated system of mixed clean energy technologies and distributed energy resources to reduce peak load electricity demand at distribution feeders and expand use of renewable energy sources.

Smart grids and smart cities will be important cogs in our future smart energy culture.  I’m sure efforts like the ones in Boulder and Ft. Collins will seem quaint in the not-too-far future.  But they’re important stepping stones to get to where we need to be.  Congratulations, Ft. Collins; thank you Sec. Chu!

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Boulder’s Smart Grid Update – 3/24/09

I had written about Boulder, CO becoming Xcel Energy’s first Smart Grid City just over one year ago.  I followed that up with an update in May about the first few projects Xcel was working on.  I went back to Xcel’s SmartGrid site today to see how things were going.  The answer isn’t easy to come across.  It looks like they spent some time last year laying out the plans, but not much time updating the site with progress to date or how their plans have shifted.  There was this update back in August:

Xcel Energy and its technology partners are making significant progress in the installation of SmartGridCity. The first meters are active and two-way communication between the customer and the utility company is a reality. Xcel Energy has installed sensors and high-speed communications on approximately 82 miles of fiber optic cable. By the end of 2008, Xcel Energy will have more than 13,000 homes enabled with smart meters and by mid-2009, another 10,000 meters will be available for installation at the customer’s request.

Those numbers are down from what I wrote about back in May 2008:

15,000 homes should have brand new digital meters by Aug. 1 of this year. Xcel plans to install approximately 50,000 meters by year’s end.

23,000 by mid-2009 isn’t quite 65,000 meters by the end of 2009.  Since then, I can’t tell what’s happened.  Xcel tested some PHEVs in October.  But no more news has surface as to the progress of the smart meters or the infrastructure installation.  That’s kind of disappointing.  Hopefully by this summer, more good news will be released.

First Smart Grid City Work Starts Today

Boulder, CO was chosen as Xcel Energy’s first “Smart Grid City” two months ago. Today, Xcel will begin work to create that smart grid. That includes rebuilding the energy infrastructure (grid) within the town. Xcel and its partners will reportedly spend upwards of $100 million on the work, which is expected to be completed in two years.

15,000 homes should have brand new digital meters by Aug. 1 of this year. Xcel plans to install approximately 50,000 meters by year’s end. The new system will allow customers to set up a monthly energy budget and receive feedback on their actual usage. This concept has been shown to reduce overall consumption. Right now, most of us aren’t highly aware of where every kilowatt-hour of energy use is going. With these systems, most of us will likely work to minimize our usage. Groups will be established to examine and compete to drive usage to all-new lows, much like Prius and MiniCooper users have done with optimizing their mileage.

Additional smart features include being able to select how much renewable energy is used, program the system to use it at certain times and even how to use it. Appliances will be remotely programmed. If available, renewable energy can be sold back to Xcel. I really like that part. Citizens should not be mindless consumers of externally generated power sources. We should be harvesters and be able to market our own energy.

Once people are accustomed to seeing what item uses the most energy in their house, expect them to but a more efficient model. Refrigerators and clothes driers are large energy hogs. But anything that remains plugged into the wall socket typically acts as a constant energy vampire, especially cell phone and iPod chargers. Control over their time spent on, and thus actively drawing power, will reduce tons of carbon emissions going into the climate system.

The Smart Grid will also feature massive batteries that store energy gathered from wind and solar sources. That energy will be available for release when usage peaks. This feature will be a big improvement over the current paradigm: continually running coal and natural gas plants at full capacity. Another possible source of energy for the system? Plug-in vehicles. The city will consider ways to help increase the number of plug-ins in Boulder. Purchase incentives and city fleet conversions are being considered.

As the first large system to be deployed, there will certainly be things that are done either incorrectly or less efficiently than desired. That’s actually a good thing. As the technologies are implemented elsewhere, they will be constantly improved upon.

You can see what’s new at http://www.xcelenergy.com/smartgrid.

X-posted at SquareState.net.

Xcel’s First Smart Grid City: Boulder

Xcel Energy has chosen Boulder as its first “Smart Grid City” using technology to help customers conserve more energy while helping the utility reduce outages.

“Xcel said Wednesday it will work with partners to create a fully networked “smart grid” that can deliver renewable energy such as wind and solar power, along with fuels like coal, to customers with a largely automated system. It would be able to sense when part of the system is overloaded so power can be rerouted to prevent an outage.”

While Xcel hasn’t been on my list of favorite corporations, they deserve kudos for finally getting a program like this in place. The first phase of the project is expected to be in place around August. In 2009, the project will start evaluating data. If all goes well, other states could start seeing smart grid projects as early as 2010.

“Boulder Mayor Shaun McGrath said the Smart Grid City initiative represents an opportunity to help the city meet its goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“We know energy conservation and energy efficiency must be key components of our energy future,” Gov. Bill Ritter said in a written statement. “We also know the least expensive energy is energy that’s never used – the ‘nega-watt.’ New smart-grid technology will allow us to better manage, reduce, monitor and understand our energy use. It also will integrate, for the first time, solar rooftops as a recognized part of our energy infrastructure.””