North American energy utilities are investing billions to create a smart grid to enhance service for retail electric customers. The smart grid, a disruptive technology, will provide utilities and customers with access to information about how electricity is used that they’ve never had in the past. More importantly this information can empower customers to take ownership of their consumption profile and demand different products and services.

(December 2011) Lafayette Utilities System selects Elster’s EnergyAxis as its AMI system; ABB wins contract from Hydro-Quebec; Sapphire Power Holdings acquires gas-fired power generation from Morris Energy Group; Consumers Energy awards contract to Babcock & Wilcox; plus announcements and contracts involving BP Wind Energy, Abengoa Solar, Samsung C&T and others.

The advent of the smart grid is sparking interest in intelligent rate design. But while state and federal goals encourage more efficient rate structures, regulatory and political considerations complicate the process. Getting to a next-generation rate design will require a phased transition.

Technology Corridor

Increased business and regulatory challenges have utilities lagging in investments to meet energy demand a decade from now.

A primary rationale behind the restructuring of the electric utility industry 10 years ago was that competitive markets manage supply and demand, incent innovation, and allocate investment more effectively than centrally regulated monopolies.

ECM

Demand-Side Management & Metering Tech

Combining real-time usage data with the newest technology can earn benefits for utilities.

Some amount of confusion on the part of end-users of electricity is inevitable as the electricity industry evolves. Confusion seems to be a necessary ingredient of change. At PJM Interconnection, we see fusion as the answer to confusion. First is the fusion of technology-both computing and communications technology-with the electric industry.

State PUCs

Gas Capacity Rights. The New York PSC told retail suppliers that to serve firm retail gas load they must have rights to firm, non-recallable, primary delivery point pipeline capacity for the five winter months, November through March, or else must augment secondary capacity with a standby charge payable to local distribution companies holding primary rights.

My electric company, Potomac Electric Power Co., has announced a joint venture with RCN Corp. of Princeton, N.J., to offer local and long-distance telephone service to callers in Washington, D.C., and nearby areas, plus cable television and high-speed connections to the Internet. With stockholder money, PEPCO would compete head-on against Bell Atlantic, which won approval from the Federal Communications Commission on Aug. 14 for its $25-billion merger with NYNEX.

Reporting the story, The Washington Post quoted PEPCO President John M.