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smart grid 
Mon Nov 29, 2010 at 15:19:08 PM MST
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Two news stories caught my eye this weekend dealing with Smart Grid projects. Smart grids are being researched and developed to connect residents and businesses with utility companies. Based on the thought that people tend to reduce usage of resources when presented with that information in real-time, smart grids are envisioned as a way to help bring our wasteful energy use down. I hold the opinion that they are a critical development in solving our climate crisis. Serving as a foundation to introduce applications for people to directly affect their energy usage on a minute-to-minute basis if they choose, incorporating plug-in vehicles to act as energy storage and delivery systems and pulling together demand-site and utility-scale energy generation technologies, smart grids need to be developed and deployed to every city as quickly as possible.
But haste makes waste, as the saying goes. On the way toward deploying smart grid technologies, robust systems that are well-planned and installed as advertised are obviously important. That brings me to the first story: Xcel, critics await PUC's smart-grid rate ruling. A little bit of background: back in March 2008, Boulder, CO was announced as the first city where smart grid technologies would be deployed. Originally, 15,000 smart grid meters were to be installed by Aug. 2009, with 50,000 meters installed by Dec. 2009, at a cost of "up to $100 million". I noted back in March 2009 that Xcel was running into some delays and that hard projections were becoming scarce to locate. That trend has continued. There is plenty of information available to participants in the program, but Xcel has understandably not advertised the kind of information they were when the program was announced. As best as I can figure out, there are far fewer than 50,000 participants in Boulder's smart grid program today.
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Comments, 583 words in story)
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Tue Nov 16, 2010 at 07:48:10 AM MST
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Expect more of this kind of news: General Electric has seen the writing on the wall and has decided to buy 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet by 2015. They will make an initial purchase of 12,000 GM cars, beginning with the Chevy Volt.
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Comments, 176 words in story)
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