Seeking Utility Partners for (DOE) – SHINES Funding Opportunity

Pate & Associates is supporting efforts by Carnegie Mellon University to develop, test and commercialize software for dynamic control of power systems.  We are seeking interested utility partners for participation in the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s “Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV” (SHINES) (FOA) Number: DE-FOA-0001108 funding opportunity.  This FOA was issued on October 29, 2014 with a full application submission deadline of March 19, 2015.  The DoE expects to provide funding of $500,000 to $5M for teams working on the integration of solar PV and storage into utility operations.

Carnegie Mellon’s software could be a key component of such efforts in that it enables dynamic and distributed decision making of all resources (generation, load, storage) in a power grid.  Our solution provides value for optimal control and operation of the power system encompassing utilities, regulators, PV manufacturers, inverter manufacturers, and consumers in the design and development.

We are looking for utility partners to help complete the commercial implementation phase of “Distributed Robust Economic Dispatch in Power Systems: Consensus + Innovations Approach” project.  The original paper was presented by Gabriela Hug and Soummya Kar both of whom are Assistant Research Professors for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

The utility partners will be an integral partner in providing critical insights and value for developing a solution plan that can be deployed to scale. The utility partner will help to build and demonstrate a sustainable solution of value to both utility and consumer.

 

FOA Summary:

With the anticipated proliferation of solar power at the central and distributed scales, the variability and uncertainty of the solar resource poses challenges for reliably integrating photovoltaic (PV) with electric power systems, both at the distribution and bulk system levels. The goal of the Department of Energy, EERE, SHINES Funding Opportunity is to enable holistic design, development, and widespread sustainable deployment of low-cost, flexible, and reliable solutions that have energy storage as one of the key components, for successful integration of PV power plants.

Interested utility contacts please contact me at the below:

Richard G. Pate

Pate & Associates, Principle

rgpate@pateassociates.com

http://www.pateassociates.com

Follow us on Twitter: @pateassociates

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Wait Just A Moment More…

As I stated in my last blog, “…all you need to do is wait a moment and something else will happen to highlight what you have been saying for years”.

In that blog, it was the Illinois Attorney General’s office report on the ComEd outages last summer which made the claim that last summer’s outages were not unpreventable acts of God, but were mainly caused by years of neglect of equipment and lack of tree-trimming by ComEd.  The latest report faulting a utility for poor maintenance practices comes from Massachusetts.  A recent article in the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, Insult To Injury, states that there has been a quadrupling of major power failures in Massachusetts over the past five years. These major outages were once a somewhat rare occurrence but now have become annual occurrences.

The article goes on to quote Representative Daniel Winslow, “They (the major power companies) are gambling with the weather and they gambled and they lost.”  Representative Winslow has proposed legislation in the Massachusetts House that would result in millions in rebates for customers stuck without power for days on end.  This is growing evidence of the publics’ impatience with more frequent and longer power outages.

The report goes on to say that the Massachusetts Municipal Association has taken a different path than the larger IOU utilities.   The municipalities have more linemen per 10,000 customers than the larger IOUs’.  This is singled out, in the article, as a major reason the municipalities were able to restore power faster after the storms than the larger utilities.  If larger utilities were to match the number of linemen per 10,000 customers to that of the municipalities, the large Massachusetts utilities would need to hire an additional 613 new linemen.

To further back up these claims of poor grid maintenance, the report turns to a couple of academics, John Sterman, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Massoud Amin of the University of Minnesota.  John Sterman was quoted in an article in the Boston Globe, John Sterman on the Great October Snowstorm: Utilities need to cut trees, not costs where he states, “The US electric grid is failing. From 1991 to 1995 there were 41 outages affecting more than 50,000 customers each, but nearly 350 from 2005 to 2009”.  In the same article, Massoud Amin is quoted as saying, “Building a smart grid would cost $17 billion to $24 billion per year, but generate benefits of $69 billion per year from greater reliability and efficiency while cutting carbon emissions and stimulating the economy”.

These types of conversations are beginning to have an effect and several states are now considering legislation to fine utilities for outages.  But, you say in your mind that this could not happen.  Yet, as an example to this, the article states that since 2010 airlines can now be fined $27,500 per passenger for tarmac delays exceeding three hours.  It is noted in the article that since enacting the airline law, delays have fallen dramatically.  Needless to say, everyone wants to kick the utilities over their growing frustration with more frequent and longer outages, so such laws are a real possibility.

I for one, have been saying for years that utilities need do their homework and realize that the smart grid is really about better reliability and efficiency.  Those utilities that are still waiting to see what happens with smart grid development need to realize that there are bigger fish to fry than just reading meters.  The early AMI adaptors have recognized this for years and have already made their moves.  The remainder of the industry still waiting to see what will happen may already be in trouble and sliding down the slippery slope.  A good indicator that you are on the slippery slope is the growing public anger over the increasing frequency of outages.  These outages could become even more frequent if impacted by the Solar Maximums which is just beginning its peak cycle.  The Solar Maximums will continue into 2013 and the sun is the biggest influencing factor on weather.   Couple it with the increased pollution in the atmosphere and you may have a very toxic mix.   All of this on top of the public’s mood of not being very tolerant of continued excuses.  Utilities will need to utilize every tool they can to stay in the game going forward.  But, I don’t think utilities, which are still waiting, are sure which quarter it is and how much time is left on the clock.

What’s In Your Disaster Recovery Wallet?

It never seems to fail that if you wait long enough the unthinkable will happen and prove what you were trying to say all along.  The article “AMI Extends Alabama Power’s Outage System Effectiveness in Historic Storm“ drove home the message I have been voicing for some time.  I adapted the tagline from a popular charge card commercial, which fits this situation nicely, and used it for the title of this blog.  Derl Rhoades’ explanation on how their AMI system extended the effectiveness of the Alabama Power Outage System highlights the importance of the following question for every utility:  What’s In Your Disaster Recovery Wallet? 

As a disclaimer, I need to let you know that in various roles over the years I have worked with many different Southern Company teams.  I wanted to point this out and commend them on their active pursuit of understanding as to what the Smart Grid should be.  They are a recognized leader in the industry and for years have pushed the envelope in applying technology to their utility operation processes.

You only have to compare the public’s response to Southern Company’s restoration efforts after the tornados to the public’s response to the utilities on the east coast after last year’s hurricane to get a clear picture of the importance of a “disaster recovery wallet”.  Granted, a hurricane usually causes a wider area of destruction than a tornado, but the tornados that hit Southern Company were unprecedented in numbers and size.  I believe the greatest factors in the public’s response toward their utilities in these two events had to do with how well the utilities either handled or did not handle the unexpected.  Southern Company had the advantage of having its AMI systems almost fully deployed and working in Alabama and Georgia.  Since they were ahead on the AMI curve and had been working hard on it for several years, they were able to take advantage of the AMI benefits that they had integrated into their processes.  A key point I want to note here – they have worked hard for several years to integrate the AMI technologies into their legacy processes.  This helped them to be better prepared and afforded them greater flexibility in handling the unexpected.  Responding as they did proved to the public that the AMI technology could deliver on its promises.  Granted, it was only one of the pieces to the puzzle, but it was a critical piece that opened up a view into the unknown and made quick assessment of the situations possible.

Oh, Oh, Wait A Moment…

I started this blog to compliment Southern Company on its success story, but as I said earlier, all you need to do is wait a moment and something else will come along to highlight what you have been saying for years.  Even before I could finish giving my kudos to SoCo, this article from Illinois hit the wire: “State investigation – ComEd should pay for outages“.  It highlights the next shoe to drop for utilities, and I hope all are paying attention.  Note the opening paragraph in the article:

“Prolonged outages that at one point left more than 800,000 people in Northern Illinois without power during last summer’s storms were not unpreventable acts of God, but were caused by years of neglect of equipment and lack of tree-trimming by ComEd, according to a report from the Illinois Attorney General’s office.”

This should strike fear into the hearts of every utility executive because it reveals an escalation in the dissatisfaction the public has with utilities.  The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), the PUC body for the state, is now on the hook to agree or disagree with the Attorney General’s office findings.  Illinois has been in a battle with ComEd about who should fund its AMI deployment.  Another interesting thing about Illinois is that their state legislature passed a law, by-passing the governor’s veto, on behalf of ComEd to support its AMI deployment.  The law placed a timeline and unprecedented, tight performance restrictions on that AMI project.  With the filing of this new report with the ICC, it will be interesting to see if these performance restrictions are not tightened even more.  This has been a very public battle between ComEd and the governor’s office, so the stakes are high.

Many utilities (IOU’s, COOP’s, and Municipalities) may wonder why this should be important to them.  Well, if you have been out of touch for the past couple of years, you may have missed the California, Maine, and other growing smart grid pushback movements across the country.  I have said for years that utilities are in this together whether they like it or not, and all utilities that do not have the public’s confidence are the same in the public’s mind no matter where they are located.  News travels fast, and today it moves at internet speed.  The Illinois situation is being closely monitored along with the smart meter pushback with the city of Naperville’s municipality.  The promise that AMI will improve outage performance should be voiced carefully; utilities will be held to those words.  So my suggestion is to speak them carefully and, most of all, know what your chosen technology can and cannot deliver.

Those of us who have worked with and touched many different systems know that not all AMI systems are equal.  Some may not be as effective as others under stressful situations such as those faced by the Southern Company operating units last year.  Yet, this type of benefit is usually the first, if not the major, selling point that utilities use to win support for deployment of an AMI system.  Utilities that do not do their homework to understand their own processes, including how the technology will impact those processes, could be setting themselves up for serious failure.

I recently saw statistics that said about 67% of the utilities who have said that they are going to deploy smart grid technologies have not moved forward; many are still stuck at start.  That may be a good thing or a bad thing.  It is good news if the utility is working HARD to understand how to implement the technology into its legacy processes as Southern Company has done.  It is bad news if the utility is still at the same old “analysis by paralysis” phase, because there is a real danger that events outside of their control will overwhelm the their ability to deliver, and the public will be looking for heads to chop.

Many utilities still need to do their research and then think long and hard before deploying AMI systems.  You really need to know, What’s In Your Disaster Recovery Wallet!

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Wade Back Into The Smart Grid Waters

It has never ceased to amaze me how frequently the utility industry inflicts pain upon itself.  It seems as though they just keep shooting themselves in the foot on purpose.  Unfortunately, when one of them shoots themselves in the foot, it oftentimes damages the entire industry’s reputation.

Case in point, the very recent actions by BGE and the article, “Energy-saving plan angers BGE customers as AC goes out“ from The Baltimore issue dated Sun July 23, 2011.  These actions put a major nail in the coffin for the consumers’ future uncontested acceptance of smart grid initiatives.  It is like a sad comedy of errors, and I believe it will cause a major, if not impossible, hole for the industry to climb out of.

With the smart meter backlash and Opt-Out movements going-on across the country, this could not have come at a worse time for the industry.  Considering all of those utilities who have worked hard to win the trust and hearts of their consumers in Smart Grid and Home Area Networks (HAN) concepts and technologies, it saddens me to see so much of their hard work go down the drain.  They will now have to work 4 times as hard just to maintain their present position in the avalanche of negative press that will flow from this.

It is really hard to know where to start to repair all of this backlash because it is almost too unbelievable.  With all the negative press about smart meters and Opt-Out issues already simmering, the recent heat wave has just unloaded additional fuel on the firestorm of negative customer perceptions out there.  They have invented “Smart Grid Frankenstein” for every utility in the country.

First of all, in the Baltimore Sun’s article, a section states:

“The extreme heat triggered the first “emergency event” in the four-year history of the program, and the effects were different from what customers had come to expect — many wondered why they couldn’t override the shutdown.”

Note, “the effects were different from what customers had come to expect“.  This means that the program that customers had signed up for did not live up to their expectations.  Marketing 101 tells you that when this happens, the product is dead in the water.  The second part of that section then hammers the stake in the heart:

“..many wondered why they couldn’t override the shutdown.”

What we are talking about here is a Demand Side Management (DSM) program that went into effect and then, during the worst heat wave in 4 years, allowed end-customers air conditioners to be shut down for up to 10 hours.  If you have been reading the same backlash articles I’ve been seeing, then you know that this is the one thing that all smart meter/grid opponents feared – a  utility taking control of their equipment and then not returning it to the customer’s control in an emergency.  The privacy groups will have a field day with this situation, and I think you will see litigation as a result since some households were put at risk during the crisis.  We can only pray that the utility’s actions caused no personal injuries during this heat wave.  It may still be too early to know the full ramifications for sure, but you can bet that the legal bagels are all over it.

Unfortunately for the industry, it will not just stay in Baltimore but will travel the nation, if it has not already done so.  The article also stated,

“Customers complained en masse Friday — on social networking sites, over the phone and by email — about the company’s energy-saving program. Many people thought that the program was misrepresented in promotional materials.”

Unlike Vegas, what happens at one utility does not stay at that utility. This will be hitting the newswires once the media runs out of deficit spending, phone hacking, and madmen news to report.  It will certainly surface at every future PUC public hearing when a utility wants to implement smart meters or DSM programs.  Remember, the customers in Baltimore got a different effect than what they had expected.  No amount of marketing spin or tap dancing is going to erase that from the minds of the conspiracy theorist or privacy advocates.  Every energy management program devised by utilities will have to jump through new hoops, and the old marketing gimmicks will no longer work.  Not many of them, if any, were really working anyway.  (California Utility HAN Numbers: Very Low)

I implore you to read the article and see if it strikes you as hard as it did me.  Mark my words, this has happened before, and, once again, the results will not be pretty for utilities.  Each utility had better come up with a new plan – and come up with it quickly.  I have already begun to adjust and position my strategies and thinking in light of this event.  You can bet that the opponents have their guns loaded with this new ammo and pointed at Smart Grids and Home Area Networks.

I realize that most utility employees are trying their best to do their jobs, but it seems like a new breed of fix-it leaders are marching the utility industry down the path to a self-fulfilled Armageddon.  Many new faces have emerged in the industry with ideas that may look great on the surface, but they seem to fail to realize the sensitivity of the markets served by utilities.  These dominant voices start speaking and have all the right annunciations and presentations but lack the basic industry facts.  Utilities are businesses that are allowed to be oligopolies with restraints that result in close public scrutiny when things go wrong.  There are issues that utilities need and want to undertake, but they must not take on unnecessary or reckless risk.  The unfortunate incidents in Baltimore will play out across the country and, every utility will have to now rethink its’ strategy and presentation on Smart Grids.

The Polls Have Opened, Who Will You Put Your Money On?

Back in an earlier blog, Will Bluetooth be the HAN “Sweet Tooth”?, I brought up the issue of Bluetooth vendors looking to capitalize on the emerging Smart Grid market.  Well, a couple of the 800 pound gorillas grunted a week ago and introduced new products for the Home Energy Monitoring market, (Google, Microsoft).  They can market these products without the help of the utility or the need for a smart meter.

This spells more trouble for utilities who are trying to position themselves as the smart grid owners and energy experts.  This is the beginning of non-utility entities developing new paths to the end consumer and offering opportunities for the them to understand how to use energy more cost effectively.  We have seen this same scenario played out before with the industrial and commercial users.  They have gone down this path without utility help for years and choose to do so because it is about savings to their bottom line.  Surprise, surprise, why would anyone not think that all end customers would want to cut costs and increase their bottom line!

Presently structured peak demand rates are really about ways for utilities to increase their bottom line and not about the end customers reducing their costs.  In reaction to the smart meter backlash, many utilities are turning their attention away from the smart grid and buying up other utilities as a means of increasing the return to their share holders.  Do not be surprised to see more announcements of utility mergers or acquisitions.  According to a CFO for a major utility holding company that had gone on an acquisition binge a few years back, either scenario (merger or acquisition) has both a winner and a loser.

So, what does all of this have to do with what we’re voting on?  As I said in my original blog on the subject of Bluetooth verses ZigBee, the big players are starting to get onto the playing field.  I now believe that those who have chosen the ZigBee option may find themselves swimming upstream against a very strong current.  The 800 pound gorillas have been saying for a few years now that they see the electric meter as irrelevant in the Home Area Network (HAN) market.

I don’t believe that many utility industry leaders have been paying attention or want to acknowledge this.  Burying their heads in the sand does not mean that their other body parts are covered.  I believe the 800 pound gorillas will begin to take chunks of financial flesh off the back end of utilities.

The long anticipated industry change is going to come but not in the way that most in the utility industry have envisioned it.  An intelligent business strategy is to decide how to dissect your cash cow before someone else figures out how to do it.  Your competition will not be so gentle nor care about your piece of game.  The utility business has a significant cash cow that’s now up for the slaughter.

Now with that said, this is a very ironic twist of fate.  A reverse “eminent domain” ploy for the utility’s cash cow, the end customer, could be used against the utilities by the new players with the specific purpose of benefiting the whole and reducing their costs and consumption.  As seen with the smart meter backlash, the public will not lend a compassionate ear to utilities singing. “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”.

The Utility Call Center “Twitter”

With the impact of Twitter in recent events happening in the Middle East, it has once again prompted my thoughts about people and how they use new technology. I’m always amazed at the different ways people come up with to use new technologies that the inventors never envisioned. I truly admire the positive creativity of others as they use these new technologies to improve their lives.

One of the major hurdles facing utilities is explaining the benefits of AMI systems to the general public. The rising pushback from the public and the media about the cost and need for these new AMI systems has shown that utilities have fallen far short on this PR front. Part of the problem is getting utilities to thinking outside of the box. The industry, and its management, tend to be risk adverse. Because they do not promote thinking outside the box, they have trouble leveraging and capitalizing on new technology usages beyond their original vision.

Some utilities may have already begun to implement what I’m going to suggest, and I say, “Good for you for taking the initiative”. For those who have not crossed this threshold of thinking yet, you can consider this a freebie.

Smart meters connected to AMI systems offer outage notification to the utility’s back-end without the end customer’s involvement. This can happen in minutes versus the hours it might take to get calls from the end customers to inform the utility of outages. Surprisingly, most utilities have some type of automated outage response programs at their call centers. These programs collect the outage calls and pass them to outage management systems to process the information and predict where that outage may be on the utility’s distribution system. Smart meters connected to AMI systems can expedite this process much faster. Most utilities have gotten that message and intend to use their AMI systems for that purpose.

The low hanging fruit that I’ve not heard from utilities is how to use this existing and future capability in a manner that gives a direct and identifiable benefit to the end customers. Yes, most utilities say they will post the outage information on their web page for customers to access; but that does not benefit all customers who may be affected by the outage. Many of these customers may not have internet access.

Simply telling end customers that the utility will be aware of outages faster with this new technology does not prove to them that you have made or will make improvements in restoration timeframes. You can put up the SAIDI, CAIDI, SAIFI and MAIFI graphs and charts once a quarter or annually showing improvements, OR you can use the new technology to work real-time for you to win customer approval of your performance.

In today’s world, most end customers have access to at least one cell phone. During power outages, end customers use cell phones to contact the utility because most land line phones have to be plugged in to a power outlet to operate and thus quit working during a power outage. The utility call center does not usually recognize cell phone numbers since most only have the land line number stored in the center’s database. Having to key in answers to numerous identifying questions to just report a power outage does not endear customers to the utility.

There is really no big secret to winning over customers. It can be as simple as being proactive when they have needs you can solve for them. Everyone knows customers have a variety of important information needs during a power outage. So why not be proactive and push information directly to customers in those situations? Most of this capability is available now by simply using the existing call center outage management systems to tap into the “Tweeting” and “Text Messaging” capabilities of cell phones. This can be implemented quickly by most utilities. Leveraging cell phone technology to push messages to affected customers makes much more sense than just putting it up on a web page. Yes, it will take some thought and planning to implement; but it can be done right now by most utilities and can actually cut costs and reduce the amount of incoming calls to the call centers during a power outage. If implemented correctly, it can offer information that is currently not available to customers during an outage.

This idea is within reach for most utilities, and I can think of at least 5 other ways they could use this technology. Do any of the readers have other great, out of the box ideas on how to offer benefits to end customers with AMI systems that you’d like to share?

Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost!

ERCOT – Power Emergency – Conservation CRITICAL – Rotating Outages Have Begun

News Release 02/02/2011

Due to the unexpected loss of generators during the recent snow storms crossing the nation, ERCOT was forced to issue “Rotating Outages” across its territory.

Smart Meter RF Report for Utility End Customers

For those who may not be aware of a recent report that was released by the Utilities Telecom Council in November 2010, I wanted to make it available on my blog for your personal education and use.

The Smart Meter backlash going on across the country will continue, and this report may help the general public understand some of the RF issues surrounding Smart Meters. This group makes up about 80% to 90% of the end customer base that utilities normally do not hear from. They’ve heard all of the hype around the Smart Meter controversy but are not usually the ones who jump up and down at the PUC meetings.

The other 10% or less of the end customer base are the ones who are usually very vocal and contest everything done by utilities. It is their right, and they are indeed usually very vocal about it! A good example is the recently published article, “Opting out of smart meters: déjà vu all over again?“, where 10 customers from the state of Maine filed a PUC complaint asking for the detailed training information given to the contracted meter installers. As a result, the Maine PUC started a major public hearing and is investigating the matter. This type of complaint action is basically the only effective means that end customers have to contest a utility’s policies or actions, and it definitely draws attention!

This is the best and most reliable engineering-based study I’ve seen to date. It is an excerpt from the full report and should help the average “reasonable person“. So, here is the link to the report: “No Health Threat From Smart Meters”

About UTC
The Utilities Telecom Council (UTC) is a global trade association dedicated to creating a favorable business, regulatory, and technological environment for companies that own, manage, or provide critical telecommunications systems in support of their core business. Founded in 1948 to advocate for the allocation of additional radio spectrum for power utilities, UTC has evolved into a dynamic organization that represents electric, gas, and water utilities; natural gas pipelines; critical infrastructure companies; and other industry stakeholders.
From its headquarters in downtown Washington, DC, UTC provides information, products and services that help members:

• Manage their telecommunications and information technology more effectively and efficiently;
• Voice their concerns to legislators and regulators;
• Identify and capitalize on opportunities linked to deregulation worldwide; and
• Network with other telecom and IT professionals.

UTC is also an authorized certified frequency coordinator for the Private Land Mobile Radio Services below 512 MHz and 800-900 MHz frequencies. UTC is also the sole frequency coordinator authorized to coordinate channels previously allocated exclusively to the Power Radio Service. In addition, UTC maintains the national Power Line Carrier (PLC) database for the coordination of PLC use with licensed government radio services in the 10-490 kHz band.
Serving the industry for over 60 years has given us a unique position as a market leader for utility telecommunication advocacy and education.
For more information, take a look at the 2009-2010 UTC Membership Report.

The Perfect Storm

No, I’m not kidding. It is The Perfect Storm.

Wait until they start plugging in PEV’s…
I have delayed writing this blog in the hope of getting better information about the coming Plug-In Electric Vehicle (PEV) market that is gaining popularity and momentum. After reading many articles and listening to the “Electric Vehicles: A Tale of Three Cities” webinar on January 6th of this year, it became clear that the Perfect Storm is rolling in on the utility industry quickly. During the webinar, I sent in a question asking if DTE Energy, one of the presenting utilities, had done any research on the affects the PVE charging station’s harmonic distortions could have on distribution systems. Apparently others on the webinar had concerns too, as my question was partially addressed in the Electric vehicles and smart grid integration article posted the next day. After reviewing the article and its reference pieces, it only confirms for me the concerns and warnings about the reality of the issues utilities will soon face.

DTE Energy presented data during the webinar showing that 25kVA transformers, the most widely used on residential services, would be under stress during high usage days on their system. Any electrical distribution engineer worth their salt should be sweating bullets on that news alone; but I believe the additional power load will only be part of the problem with PEV’s. What many aren’t thinking about or aren’t aware of is that these charging stations are most likely switching power supply designs similar to those used in computer equipment.

Most distribution engineers know that switching power supplies are notorious for causing harmonic distortions on electric distribution systems. For those not familiar with harmonic distortions, it is like shooting photon torpedoes at the shields of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek, but in much more rapid succession. The result is a break down in the typical protection of undersized transformers until they fail.

“Scotty, we need more power to the shields!” “Captain, we’re giving her all she’s got!” then . . . BOOM!

Now why is this The Perfect Storm? Well, one of the key issues is the philosophy of the utility procurement departments, senior utility management and many PUC directives to reduce or keep the utility cost to a minimum. This includes the business practice of not buying or installing larger capacity equipment at a site other than what is reasonably needed at the time. After all, that larger capacity equipment costs additional dollars. Distribution engineers build their present systems with enough capacity for the initial installation and room for some calculated growth over the expected 20 life of the equipment. Now here is the killer tsunami that will be caused by each PEV charging station placed on the system: Each one of these PEV charging stations is equal to adding an entire new residential load on that transformer. And to make matters worse, the distortion from the switching power supplies will compound the damage at the sites. The common 25kVA transformer may already be servicing multiple residences which will cause them to become quickly overwhelmed as the public purchases and installs PEV charging stations. Most customers will do this without informing the utility; and thus determining how these charges will be deployed will be totally out of the utility’s control and visibility.

Adding to these storm signs, many utilities as well as state and local governments, are downsizing their workforces. Many of the groups being downsized are engineers on the utility side and building inspectors on the state and local government side. These workforce groups are typically undersized in the first place in both the utility and government organizations. State and local inspectors’ legal authority to approve or disapprove local building codes is key to public safety. The reduction of these jobs already increases our risk by overwhelming those who remain with taking over the workloads of their former colleagues. Add to that the increased demand of their time and skills that PEV’s will bring and we are definitely in the red.

Imagine telling the American public they will have to wait 3-6 weeks before they can bring their shiny new car home and charge it in their garage. It would set off a public fire storm that would make the present Smart Meter backlash look like a slight breeze. The result will be many sites installing charging stations without oversight and without concerned for distribution capacity. Wiley contracts unafraid of operating without a permit will be focusing on getting the job done and realizing the revenue opportunity, not the risk or the consequences.

All of these events around the PEV’s will lead to an increase in distribution outages, which are already on the rise. The public will be outraged, screaming louder and louder at the politicians who will call for investigations, hearings and so on and so on. I feel that most utilities are already too far behind the eight ball on this issue. Presently, there is a shortage of skilled labors who can manage mass transformer replacements in our workforce and over half of the linemen in the US are currently eligible for retirement. The market alone is not going to pull people off the street, train them and get them working on this issue. How do you quickly handle the replacement of 75 failed transformers every 2 days under our current operation practices without causing a public outcry?

We will have to buckle down now rather than later and put the processes in motion that will help us ride out this storm in all its fury. After all, the PEV’s are an opportunity for the auto industry to turn itself around, as well as opportunity to clean up our environment. I am an optimist and believe that the sun will eventually shine on the other side. But we have to start building the ship that can ride the waves now rather than later when we’re smack dab in the middle of this Perfect Storm.

Will Bluetooth be the HAN “Sweet Tooth”?

In my past positions in the utility industry, I wasn’t always free to question the company line; and now that I am the company line, I want to focus some attention on area that has been of growing concern to me for some time. In my years of watching our industry grow, I have come to believe the utility Home Area Network (HAN) strategies are being herded down the wrong path.

The communication standards for the HAN market seem to be at a point similar to where the Beta and VHS video decks were back in the early 80’s. All of the so-called engineering types loved Beta. Because it was technically superior to VHS, most of the big technology companies got on the Beta bandwagon and pushed it as the main standard. Their engineering experts thought Beta would win the battle in the end and were seeing visions of new revenue to the corporate bottom line. In the frenzy that followed, it seemed that no one checked with the general public to see what made sense to them or to verify the expectations of this new technology. The biggest miss of all was what the consumer was willing to pay for a video deck; and as with most mass consumer products, price eventually became VHS’s winning feature over Beta.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

   – The Life of Reason (1905-1906) by George Santayana

I believe that when Wi-Fi/Bluetooth begins to really focus on the HAN market, they will dominate and become the new 800 pound gorilla in the industry. It makes total business sense that they would eventually come after this huge market opportunity and it seems this gorilla is already awake and taking direct aim at HAN:

Bluetooth SIG Formally Announces Smart Energy Effort, October 18, 2010

I was having a conversation with a California regulator at a trade show earlier this year and she asked me why I wasn’t gung-ho on the recently “ACCEPTED” ZigBee standard for HAN networks. I told her, “Show me a ZigBee enabled appliance you can buy at a Best Buy store today.” She just looked at me with the “The Deer in the Headlights” look. Then I dropped the real bomb when I said, “Wi-Fi/Bluetooth is on almost every major consumer smart electronic gadget you purchase today and it can be secured by the user. So, you tell me, which do you think is the 800 pound gorilla?”.

The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth vendors have much more consumer marketing experience and I believe they will easily dominate the HAN market. Their market branding and budgets are much larger than anything utilities have been willing to do or spend on promoting HAN networks thus far. These two factors in and of themselves put utilities at a great disadvantage when it comes to offering HAN networks to the end customer.

I personally fought these types of arguments for years from inside the utility industry and was supported by marketing focus group studies again and again that showed the end customer does not care about the meter or AMI technology. Many of them do not even know where their meter is – or, for that matter, if they even have one! What they care about is, “what will this stuff do for me?”.

The utility industry, as a whole, has not made a strong case for promoting these new technologies that appeal to the end customer. This is evident from the smart meter backlash going on across the country.

My purpose in writing this blog is to raise a final flag for utilities so they can truly begin to look at what AMI can really do for them and for their customers. If they put good strategies in place now, they stand to benefit when this market revolution happens. If a utility believes it can compete head-to-head with its present utility branding and funding, it’s headed for a blowout game that will not be pretty.

I look forward to continuing our discussion on topics that I have been bandied about since the mid 90’s, but are still not widely understood in the industry. I welcome and encourage your thoughts and comments.