First off, my apologies
to those of you who’ve heard enough about the Smart Gird. I was planning on
discussing other onsite power and energy efficiency issues today, but then I
looked over the first draft of the DOE’s grant application for stimulus money,
and it became clear that the development of national smart grid is still an
important issue for those of us in the onsite power and energy efficiency
industry.
Earlier this month, Vice
President Biden announced that the DOE was planning on directing some of it’s
portion of the stimulus towards the smart grid, and the DOE’s Notice of Intent
(which is available here) makes it clear exactly where
and how those funds will be utilized. Not surprisingly, distributed energy makes
a strong showing in these preliminary plans.
Let’s nail down some of
the basics. First off, the funding for smart grid development will be funneled
primarily into existing demonstration projects—many of which were initiated
after the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. These
projects were developed and designed to work on a regional level with a focus on
best practices and the identification of possible obstacles or roadblocks to the
implementation of a larger smart grid project. The additional stimulus grants
require that all data from these demonstration projects be made available on a
large scale to facilitate learning and cooperation between new and existing
participants.
Once again, there are
aspects of the smart grid—laid out specifically in the DOE document—that
implicate distributed energy. It is clear from the Notice of Intent that the DOE
anticipates the demonstration projects will deliver data on the demand reduction
abilities of the smart grid—especially when tied to renewable energy and
distributed systems. Some of the funding has also been set aside for energy
storage systems, both at a utility scale (8–15 MW with 4–8-hour capacity) and a
distributed energy model (1–3 MW with 30-minute, 8-hour capacity). Finally, some
of the money has been set aside for the integration of wind power and storage
systems as a way to even out the irregularities involved in renewable energy
supplies.
As is usually the case,
the first draft containing the draft rules will be available for public comment
for only 20 days before the feedback is used to formulate final rules. If these
rules are formalized, it looks like good news for the distributed energy
industry. I’ve asked this before, and, now that it looks like some version of
the smart grid will become reality, it seems worthwhile to ponder if the
ultimate future for energy efficiency and onsite power is a partnership with the
national smart grid system. What do you think—is this where we’re
headed?