Vermont the Latest to Adopt Smart Grid Tech
Nothing but blue skies CREDIT: John Johnson (CC)
Vermont has become one of the latest to adopt a smart electrical grid system in an effort to enhance efficiency and customer service. The Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO) and IBM have announced a partnership that will bring its grid into the 21st century and also meet federal mandates.
“The primary purpose of the fiber project is to improve transmission grid reliability, security and communications,” said VELCO representative Shana Duval. “The completed project will host a network that enables high-speed, 24/7 communication between VELCO and our distribution utility owners to better manage the electric grid and meet strict federal reliability requirements.
VELCO plans to lay over 1,000 miles of fiber optic cable in order to support the project. While Vermont may be small in size, it’s rural nature and volatile winter weather present reliability challenges that a modern sensor network will be able to meet.
Utility customers are slowly warming to the idea of smart grids as they become more educated about their benefits. According to a recent study released by the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, customers are beginning to recognize benefits beyond lower utility bills.
Those surveyed were asked to rate the importance of seven potential benefits of smart grid and smart meters, including reduced outages, new cost-saving rate plans, fewer new power plant investments, availability of near real-time energy use information and more accurate billing among others. Most of the participant ranked all those as being very important.
Back in the Green Mountain State, VELCO’s initial plans are only the start of a long process towards a fully functional smart grid. Currently, the sensor network is being installed. Once this is complete other systems will be able to use real-time data to control the flow of electricity to deliver it to where it’s needed while avoiding blackouts. In addition, customers who have smart meters installed will be able to view their usage in real time.
This final fact is one of the more compelling reasons to institute a smart grid as consumers are ultimately responsible for how much energy gets used or wasted. Already, some utilities are including the power usage of neighbors in an effort to tap into people’s competitive nature and reduce consumption. Some ideas have even arisen for the gamification of power usage where instead of monthly snapshots of usage, users can compare their usage in real-time against other.
In the US and around the world, smart grids are coming on-line at a growing rate, but as always, more work through both government and utility initiatives needs to take place. Perhaps in the near future smart grids will stop being headlines and will simply be a part of everyday life.
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Does your utility use smart grid tech? How so?