Learning season kicks into high gear
Last week’s IEEE PES T&D conference and exposition gave me a great opportunity to talk to a multitude of transmission and distribution experts. In the process, I learned quite a bit more about the areas of our electricity grid given fairly short shrift by the popular media as they discuss “smart grid.”
In combing my notes, a few comments in particular stood out, and I wanted to share them here, in hopes that we can discuss them further in the Comments section, below, and in articles to come.
I sat down with John Brewster, who is chief commercial officer of Composite Technology Corporation and president of CTC Cable Corporation, based in my adopted home of California. We talked about the transmission system, a foundational support for the addition of renewables to the energy mix. And we also talked about the upcoming energy and climate change legislation, and environmental decisions currently being faced by electric utilities.
One point, in particular, that Brewster made really struck home with me. He said, “Utilities are not incentivized to make the right decision for the environment.” Consider, for a moment, what might happen if utilities were duly incentivized, for example, by receiving tax credits for replacing conductors with those that are more energy efficient.
I thought about that comment for quite a while. In the present regulatory environment, for the most part, electric utilities currently have one product—electricity—and two responsibilities, making money for investors (in the case of the investor-owned utilities), and reliability.
Adding intelligence to the grid means spending money, and that has to be recouped in some fashion. For now, the answer to that question reaches into the consumer’s pockets via rate case increases. Or, as Guerry Waters, Oracle’s vice president of industry strategy, said yesterday in an interview with Intelligent Utility Daily’s writers, “We’re asking the current customer to pay for future benefits…but we’ve got to make the investments now to enjoy (a cleaner future) and perhaps reduce the escalation of cost over time.” Waters told us, “The story’s got to be told. It’s a future returns story, and it’s a tough sell.” (Intelligent Utility Daily editor-in-chief Phil Carson will be sharing more of Waters’ insights later in the week.)
In the meantime, advances continue to be made, with and without federal stimulus assistance. As well, intelligent T&D technology continues to evolve and improve, and many of the smarts currently in play in transmission are moving into distribution efforts, too.
We’re all looking for the proper mix of answers, and hoping those answers are reflected in upcoming legislation, as well.
I’ve tossed the first ingredient into this new discussion stew. Like the classic Stone Soup, would anyone care to take a crack at the next ingredient, or to pull this one out and take a further look at it?
