By Rich Heidorn Jr.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — There are more than 50 million smart meters and more than 1,000 phasor measurement units (PMUs) deployed in the U.S., the product of a rollout funded in part by federal Recovery Act spending following the 2008 financial crisis.

What have we gotten for our money?

High bill alerts, proactive service calls, peak shaving abilities and self-healing transmission, among other things, a panel of technology executives told the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners summer conference last week.

Now, with smart grid technologies more widely deployed, it is slower-moving regulators and utility procurement practices that are hindering innovation, Silver Spring Networks’ Eric Dresselhuys said.

“If you’ve got energy technology cycles that are happening in 12-, 18- and 24-month cycles and utility adoption cycles and regulatory proceedings that are happening in the three- to five-year range, ultimately what you do … is by the time you make a decision, that decision is outdated, because [technologies] have moved on,” said Dresselhuys, executive vice president of global development for the company, which provides smart grid networking platforms.

High Bill Alerts

Alex Laskey, president and founder of Opower, said utilities have reported a 20% drop in customer calls regarding high bills following a smart meter-enabled program that alerts ratepayers of spikes in energy use. Opower provides “customer engagement” platforms for utilities, a niche growing so fast that technology giant Oracle agreed in May to buy the company.

“Not unlike those fraud detection alerts [used by credit card companies], we alert customers on behalf of their utility via text or email or a phone call. … ‘You’re on track for a high bill. It’s only eight days into the month, but you’re on track for a bill that’s 30% higher than your typical bill this time of year and here are some things you ought to do to try and reduce your usage,’” Laskey explained.

“Customers like it because instead of getting [a large] bill at the end of the month when it’s too late, you’re being alerted in advance that something is amuck and you can make a change,” he continued. “Particularly for low-income customers — for whom electricity represents 8 to 10% of their income — the ability to give them predictability and transparency on what their costs are going to be is critical.”

Shaving the Peak

Laskey also cited Baltimore Gas and Electric’s peak time rebate tariff, which rewards customers for saving energy on the hottest days.

“PJM has measured more than a 15% reduction now at peak for BGE,” Laskey said. “This is just by giving customers better information and a financial incentive.

“You can do that across the country. [Rocky Mountain Institute] estimates $60 billion a year in customer benefits and none of it is possible without regulatory incentives and reform … but on the same hand it can’t be enabled without reliable software.”

The Value of Power Quality

Commonwealth Edison is using big data analysis to identify areas on its grid where customers are receiving voltages below the nominal 240 V, allowing it to “drop in better voltage regulation,” Dresselhuys said.

“When you combine this with things like conservation voltage reduction and other advanced analytics that are being done, the amount of optimization that can be built into the grid on a daily basis is pretty dramatic.”

But Dresselhuys said “the ratemaking and procurement processes within utilities really struggle with the idea of futures or what is the option value that comes from technology.”

“What’s the value of good consistent power quality? The utility doesn’t make more money on that and they didn’t show savings by doing that. And so it doesn’t get put into the rate case and if you don’t put it into the rate case, it doesn’t make the technical requirements because you can say, ‘Well you’re gold-plating the system,’” Dresselhuys said. “So one of the things we have to figure out is, if we’re implementing techs that we expect to last for five, 10, 15 or 20 years, how can we make sure that we’re building platforms … that will continue to add value to consumers over time?”

Proactive Service Calls

Dresselhuys recalled the beginning of smart meter deployment. “Ten years ago people said, ‘Why would we ever need hourly data?’ Now people are cranking that up to five-minute data and one-minute data in some cases.”

He said one Silver Spring customer has been able to use the increasingly granular data to change its maintenance procedures from the “break-fix mentality of ‘let’s just wait until there’s an outage and we’ll go there and fix it.’”

The utility, which serves a seaside location, can identify momentary outages at customer locations, an indication that their service drop — the wires running from the utility pole to the house — has suffered corrosion.

“Worst-case scenario, it starts a fire. The best-case scenario, they just lose power,” Dresselhuys explained. “The customer wouldn’t even notice this because it’s just maybe a flicker if anything.”

The diagnostics allow the utility to schedule proactive service calls to replace the defective wiring.

Financial Reporting

Tim Healy, CEO and co-founder of demand response provider EnerNOC, said the increase in data is crucial to large customers, such as the 700 commercial real estate firms that are now reporting their Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) scores on more than a trillion dollars’ worth of assets.

“It is one of the key metrics that investors are using in order to make investments in the real estate sector,” Healy said. “What we’re seeing with our customers is they have an acute need that goes not just right to the bottom line but it goes to their access to capital to run their businesses. The information technology and the needs of the financial reporting organization need to intersect more than ever before.”

Dave Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board in Illinois, said consumer advocates are having to become more tech savvy to determine the costs and benefits of new technologies and avoid stranded costs resulting from the replacement of systems that have not been fully depreciated.

“Traditionally, IT investment has been something of a black box,” he said. “It’s not something that … we have much expertise in.”