May 2009
Leading the Way in Building a "Smart Grid"
by Keven Groenewold
The federal stimulus package and various U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiatives are promoting development of a “smart grid” to help solve America’s energy crisis. In addition, this spring DOE Secretary Steven Chu declared our nation’s electricity transmission and distribution system a national priority.
But what does any of this mean for electric cooperative members?
The electric grid that covers our nation—quite literally the largest machine ever built—includes millions of miles of transmission and distribution lines that deliver power from generating stations to your front door. In fact, in 1999 when all of the greatest lists were being developed for the last century, the National Society of Professional Engineers voted the U.S. electric grid as the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. It won over achievements like sending a man to the moon, development of transistors and computers, the airplane, and the interstate highway system.
An intelligent, strong grid will help consumers save money and may minimize future government mandated increases resulting from climate change and other policy goals.
Contrary to popular belief, the grid isn’t unintelligent; it has sustained us for almost a century, keeping electricity safe, reliable, and affordable. But the grid is similar to a high school graduate who heads off for college—there’s a lot of room for learning. In this case, in the areas of energy efficiency and reliability.
The first step toward building a smarter grid involves installing a strong foundation of smart meters at homes and businesses that can talk back and forth to utilities about outages and electric use.
Electric cooperatives lead other industry sectors in deploying smart meters and related automation devices which are creating an advanced meter infrastructure inside the grid.
All of New Mexico’s co-ops have installed some form of a smart meter, and some co-ops are 100 percent automated on their single-phase services. This is important when you consider co-ops own and maintain 45,000 miles of distribution lines, delivering power to 22 percent of New Mexico homes. In comparison, a recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) report showed only 2.7 percent of investor-owned utility customers have smart meters.
These meters cut down on operating costs and help co-ops effectively manage outages. For example, a smart meter can tell us when the power is out instead of relying on you to call the outage in, and the meters can help reroute power around problems.
Down the road they might be able to help you manage energy use, showing you what power costs at different times of the day to help you make smart energy choices when using appliances.
In New Mexico, we’re committed to building a smarter grid, making it faster, more efficient, and smart enough to handle challenges this century promises to bring. An intelligent, strong grid will help consumers save money and may minimize future government mandated increases resulting from climate change and other policy goals.
It’s a critical part of the way we focus on supporting innovative technologies that make economic sense, allowing us to continue providing you with safe, reliable, and affordable power in years to come. You can read about what some of New Mexico’s electric cooperatives are doing in this edition’s cover story.
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