In making the announcement, Obama claimed that the smart meters and demand-response pricing should enable consumers to save over $20 billion during the next decade, far exceeding the cost of the new program. Another $25 million is going to foster the development of a smart device manufacturing capability. AdvertisementĪnother $400 million will be used to modernize transmission lines, both to limit the losses during transmission and to allow greater long-distance shuffling of power, "so that a wind farm in rural South Dakota can power homes in Chicago," as Obama put it. The $2 billion will help cover these projects as well. In addition to getting the hardware in place, the utilities will be facing an enormous IT challenge, as the data has to be transmitted on secure networks, analyzed, archived, etc. The same sort of reporting and control provided by a smart meter can be provided at a variety of levels, allowing utilities to better handle issues like changes in demand, intermittent renewable power sources, and equipment malfunctions. These devices will be most useful, from both a financial and grid perspective, when they're coupled with pricing that encourages use during off-peak hours, so some of the funding is going to help utilities transition to these pricing systems.Ī larger chunk of the funding, $2 billion, will go toward putting the infrastructure in place to support these smart meters. These devices will allow homeowners to receive fine-grained information about their energy use, in some cases on a per-appliance basis, and exert greater control over its timing. The project list indicates that well over 5 million smart meters should be installed. But this is the first time that the projects that would be funded have been revealed ( a list, broken down by category, is available).Ī significant portion of the funding, $1 billion dollars, will be going to consumer-level technology, primarily smart meters. The funding has been in the works for a while, as the DOE solicited grant applications shortly after the stimulus bill was passed. The new projects would involve a total of $3.4 billion dollars of stimulus spending with matching spending by utilities, the total commitment would reach over $8 billion, and fund the installation of over 5 million smart meters. The two might seem unrelated, but a report released earlier this year by the National Academies of Science indicated that grid modernization was essential of the country's use of renewable electricity was to rise above 20 percent of its total. Earlier today, President Obama spoke at the opening of what's now the largest photovoltaic power installation in the US, using the opportunity to announce the funding of a different energy project: the modernization of the US electric grid.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |