May 2007
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Getting Grid Wise at GridWeek

   Ken Sinclair, Editor Owner

The first GridWeek ever was a great success.  Although I thought I had been keeping on top of the GridWise movement by reading all the articles and interviews on our web site, GridWeek provided many opportunities to learn more. A $900 billion market opportunity was identified for the industry to make the national grid smart and wise with interactive connectivity.  I was pleased to learn that GridWise Demand Response (DR) and GridWise devices are able to provide quicker response time than existing generation control. This provides yet an other reason for the generation folks to invest in our industry. Conservation and DR coupled with smart grid approaches are being billed as the new fuel for the electrical grid. Hybrid and electrical vehicles, which are appearing as strong solutions in the transportation industry, present an opportunity to help with peaking and DR.  This involves the ability to do what has never been done before on a large scale - provide the storage of electricity off peak in an incredible distributed network that is part of where the energy is used. Opportunities abound and the hallways were buzzing with excitement about the next steps in modernizing the US electrical grid.

Extracted from from this month's interview with Anto DC to Chicago, the road to Buildings 2.0

Sinclair: It seems that GridWeek was an incredible success!

Budiardjo:  Yes, for a first time event, we exceeded expectations on all fronts.  The number of attendees was 50% over expectations, the content and lineup of speakers were very strong and more importantly, the mood was very optimistic on the event that is triggering the future of electricity in the U.S.

Sinclair: Congratulations, how does this effect BuilConn in Chicago?

Budiardjo: Very positively, the subject of energy is now center stage, and a great deal of relevance exists for the buildings industry. Much of it relates to Demand Response that I have written about separately in this issue. Let there be no mistake about this, DR is the biggest single opportunity for integrators and contractors.

Sinclair: Yes, in DC it seemed that utilities had problems giving money away!

Budiardjo: The amounts of money they are prepared to spend to avoid peak load is significant; their challenge is implementing these DR programs, which is something that many of your readers can help them with.

National Town Meeting on Demand Response was a very interesting format which allowed presenters to explain progress achieved to date and allowed all to speak from the floor providing their input. Open sessions like these at GridWeek allowed a comfort level to be gained by all stakeholders while feeding the ground swell that was occurring.

Recognition for Outstanding Leadership in the Advancement of a Smart Grid
Recognizing the progress toward a modern, 21st-century smart electric grid, on April 25, 2007 six organizations and individuals were honored for their collective work in advancing a smart grid. The Outstanding Leadership for the Advancement of a Smart Grid awards were presented at the first GridWeek 2007 conference, a gathering of business, research, academic and government leaders exploring the path toward a new, reliable and competitive power grid in the United States.

Recipients of Smart Grid Awards at GridWeek 2007:

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Smart Grid Research & Development Leadership

PNNLMuch of the fundamental thinking behind the smart grid sprouted from PNNL more than 20 years ago. In the middle 1980’s dozens of researchers at PNNL were already designing first generation data collection systems that were installed in more than 1000 buildings to monitor near real-time electricity consumption for every appliance. Huge data sets were created and analyzed that fundamentally changed the way buildings and equipment were analyzed. Much of this work is still relevant and being used today. Based on this early work, PNNL developed a broad suite of analytic tools and technologies that resulted in better sensors, improved diagnostics, and enhanced equipment design and operation. From phasor measurement and control at the transmission level to “grid-friendly appliances”, their imprint on the creation of the next generation electrical system is unparalleled.

Senator Jeff Bingaman

United States Senator - New Mexico and Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

Smart Grid Policy Leadership

Sen. Jeff BingamanSenator Jeff Bingaman, as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is one of the Senate's principal advocates for promoting sound energy policy. He co-authored the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which embodies the Electricity Modernization Act. In addition to the 15% national renewable energy portfolio standard, committee Chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and other Democrats are calling for policies to encourage "smart grid" development. The envisioned smart grid "will create a more reliable energy system, ease integration of new renewable resources and distributed generation, and create demand-response incentives for industries and individual consumers," committee Democrats said in a Jan. 23 news release.

Southern California Edison

Smart Grid Implementation & Deployment Leadership

SCESCE has taken a unique clean sheet of paper approach to a new kind of metering device that envisions migrating vendors to a more open standards based AMI system. Their "3 by 3" approach offers interoperability between 3 meter manufacturers and 3 communications providers. SCE has made their use cases, requirements document and specification of their work open and available to the industry. In the end, this system will improve customer service, save energy, save money, and offer new rate options.

EnerNex Corporation

Smart Grid Implementation & Deployment Leadership

EnerNexThe Wikipedia definition of the “Smart Grid” would certainly not be complete without liberal references to EnerNex and their work. In fact, there is a high probability that EnerNex wrote the definition. No other organization has done more to make the “smart grid” something real and tangible. From Open AMI, to Intelligrid, to GridWise, to Modern Grid, and more, EnerNex is not only at the table, but they are doing the analysis, writing the specifications, creating concepts and documents that are becoming widely used throughout the industry. We need more of them and more like them to truly design, build and operate a smart grid. Under Erich Gunther’s leadership, the EnerNex team has clearly driven how we implement and deploy smart grid technologies from coast to coast and everywhere in between.

GridWise Architecture Council

Smart Grid Advocacy Leadership

GWACIn his two and a half years as chairman of the GridWise Architecture Council, Rik guided and shaped the Council as one of the primary advocacy bodies for a smart grid. He remains instrumental in advancing the benefits of improving the interoperation between automation systems needed to enable smart grid applications. Rik demonstrated the courage to rally the thirteen members of the Architecture Council around notions of interoperability and the need to develop a crosscutting electricity community of people and organizations representing industrial system, buildings automation, home automation, and economic and regulatory policy in addition to electric service providers. The concept for a “constitution” of interoperability principles, the interview process to engage a larger community and the GridWise Constitutional Convention originates with Rik.

Robert W. Galvin

Retired Chairman & CEO of Motorola

Smart Grid Visionary Leadership

Bob GalvinRobert W. Galvin's experiences at Motorola in dealing with the inefficiency and unreliability of the nation's bulk power supply system, coupled with his leadership in transforming the telecommunications and electronics industries, lead to his personal initiation and financial sponsorship of the non-profit Galvin Electricity Initiative. This comprehensive initiative has defined and is now implementing advanced smart grid architectures in cooperation with EPRI. Robert Galvin's leadership and vision have lead to the comprehensive design and implementation of smart grid architectures with the goal of providing "perfect power service" for all consumers.

The Congressional Reception (Hart Building, Capitol Hill) enabled the GridWise industry to show in simple presentation, working examples of what had been achieved to date in various parts of the country.

 The example below shows the quality of the clear simple picture presentations. Click here for a pdf of all the six posters.

 

The excitement in the room made it difficult to hear the actual presentations, but I listened carefully to all
and found them great snapshots of an intelligent grid that helps gel my understanding of what
GridWise and GridWeek have come to mean.

The Ronald Regan Building provided a great venue with lots of room for growth. This was the setting for our first day lunch.

I am sure that the next GridWeek will be even a larger event reporting on the exciting progress that will have been achieved in modernizing the nation's electrical grid.

Presentations are now available online for download.

Want to see what it takes to get a electron to your home? Watch this fun video

http://www.gridweek.com/2007/content/video.asp

To locate presentations, visit the GridWeek web site http://www.gridweek.com/2007/default.asp to navigate to the session or tracks you are interested in, by using the agenda page or the list of speakers. If the speaker presented a PowerPoint, it would have been converted to PDF and a link will be displayed (see examples below).
 


 

NOTE: If the link to the presentation is not displayed, no PowerPoint was provided by the speaker in question.

 

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