If
you’ve been keeping track of distributed energy and onsite power in the news,
then you’ve noticed that all the talk as of late seems to be how a distributed
power systems will be an integral part of any national smart grid system. Of
course, I’ve been keeping an eye on these development and—as I’ve stated
before—I’m optimistic that future national energy policies will provide
opportunities for an expansion of onsite power systems. And as long as
“efficiency” continues to be the watchword, distributed systems will continue to
march towards mainstream acceptance and implementation.
Because
any smart grid system will coordinate power from both large and small producers,
metering—both automatic meter reading (AMR) and Advanced Metering Infrastructure
(AMI)—is an integral part of the process. Imagine if you will, a set up wherein
your local power utility balances your communities energy needs by switching
back and forth between centralized and onsite power. In order for this
give-and-take to work, AMR and AMI collect data from locally installed meters
and transfer the information back to a central database for analysis. The AMR
and AMI data allows the centralized system to make studied choices—based on
demand and supply—between onsite power (which could include renewable sources
like rooftop solar and small-scale wind installations) and the grid.
In
Arizona,
this AMR–Grid relationship is already in the making. Recently, the Arizona
Attorney General’s Office approved a net metering rule (actually established
last year by the Arizona
Corporation Commission) that allows for a two-way flow of energy from the grid
and users. The actual rule requires all Arizona electric utilities to employ an AMR or
AMI system, so that onsite renewable sources can supplement power from the grid.
The two-way aspect of the meters also allows the utility to buy back excess
energy generated onsite—essentially
allowing users to “sell” their power back to the utility. With a goal of
producing 15% of energy from renewable sources by 2025, Arizona’s net metering
rule will facilitate the inclusion of distributed energy in large-scale, public
utility systems in the state and, perhaps, serve as a blueprint for other states
interested in combining the smart grid with renewable energy and onsite
power.