Smart Grid grant to help give usage control to users

By 2011, thousands of customers at five municipally owned utilities in Connecticut will be able to determine for themselves when it costs the least to run clothes driers or air conditioners.

The Norwich-based Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative won a grant Tuesday for nearly $9.2 million in federal stimulus funds to build systems of so-called Smart Grid technology. CMEEC will match the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant in funding and in-kind services.

More than 13,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers who volunteer to participate could benefit from the three-year project, dubbed the Connecticut Municipal Utilities Smart Grid Project, said John Bilda, general manager of Norwich Public Utilities, and Maurice Scully, chief executive officer of CMEEC.

"This really is big news for us," said Bilda. "This is going to be deployed with the consumer in mind … to help lower their cost. That's what is important."

Besides NPU, the utilities include Groton Utilities (which includes Bozrah Light & Power), Jewett City and two small systems in Norwalk: south Norwalk and the third taxing district in Norwalk, Bilda said.

Using the federal funding of $9,188,050 and the match, the utilities will build new management systems, first for distribution of electricity, enabling remote control during outages, and second, for metering price and energy load, also known as Advanced Meter Infrastructure, or AMI.

The funding will also pay to educate and serve some 11,664 residential consumers and small businesses and another 2,168 commercial and industrial users, Bilda and Scully said.

The AMI system will use a mix of time-varying rates, advanced two-way meters and other technologies, says the proposal submitted to DOE.

"It will require customers to make energy decisions based on price signals," said Bilda. "They'll know in real time what it would cost to do that load of laundry."

In the most likely scenario, the smart meters would be attached to the home's or business's exterior and relay information about pricing and energy load to the customer's online account or on thermostats or television screens, Bilda said.

"You can watch in real time the consumption occurring in your house," Bilda said. "It's going to be important that this is all user-friendly. If it's complicated, it's not likely to bring a lot of success and lower the cost for the end users and reduce the need to build more generation."

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, helped pitch the project to the U.S. Department of Energy, said spokesman Brian Farber. Sens. Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd also advocated for the proposal.

The funds are part of a $3.4 billion ARRA investment in Smart Grid technology that could help reduce electricity use by more than four percent by 2030, saving businesses and consumers $20.4 billion.

Scully estimated CMEEC customers could save $16 million over 10 years. Smart meters may be available to consumers by late 2010 or early 2011, he said.

"All the municipal utilities have been very active in terms of energy conservation (and) trying to reduce peak demand," Scully said. "This is really the next step. It's the customers being able to empower themselves, and to help use energy more efficiently and save costs."

Groton Utilities has a demonstration project already in place in which 2,000 customers are using smart meters, Scully said. GU officials could not be reached for comment.

"How much the average business or residential customers save remains to be seen," Scully said. "But we're trying to figure out ways to benefit everybody. The best thing we can do is use energy wisely and reduce costs, and we believe there's a lot of untapped potential in the ability to be more energy efficient. There's a lot more we can do."

p.daddona@theday.com