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NISC Member News: Vermont Smart-Grid Project Modeled on Vermont Electric Co-op Success

Story courtesy of Dan D'Ambrosio, Burlington Free Press

Assistant professor Paul Hines at the University of Vermont is focused on researching ways to improve the nation’s electrical grid, which is why he was invited early on to participate in discussions between the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and Vermont leaders on a joint effort to help bring the grid into the 21st century.

Monday, officials announced the culmination of those talks — the creation of a Center for Energy Transformation and Innovation, a $15 million effort over three years funded by the Department of Energy, Sandia and Vermont entities, including state government and UVM.

Sandia Vice President Rick Stulen said the center will focus on research in three areas:

Integrating renewable energy onto the power grid. Vermont could become a national leader in this area, Stulen said.
Ensuring reliability and security of the burgeoning smart grid and smart meters.
Providing the capacity for “electrifying the fleet” as electric vehicles move to the fore in coming years.

Hines spent a month at Sandia’s laboratory in Albuquerque last summer investigating computer software that could simulate “how the power grid can fall apart in interesting and terrifying ways.” He said the new collaboration would place Vermont at the forefront of research to make the electrical grid more efficient and resilient with so-called “smart meters.”

“The smart grid is using information technology to make electricity work better,” Hines said. “The obvious way people will notice the smart grid is on the customer metering side.”

Hines explained that on a hot summer day, when power demands peak, the grid relies on expensive electricity from the “dirtiest, nastiest” sources, such as diesel generators.

On a cool day, the grid draws on much cheaper and cleaner power — from an emissions standpoint — such as hydroelectric or nuclear power. Smart meters will help to address that situation by allowing consumers to understand how much power they’re using, and when. Running a dishwasher at 10 p.m., for example, may be cheaper than running it at 7 p.m.

“Having a meter that’s cognizant of that will allow utilities and customers to negotiate better ways to consume electricity, shifting consumption between peak and off-peak hours,” Hines said. “The customer gets the financial benefit. That’s the most obvious benefit people will see.”

Behind the scenes, Hines said, smart meters will also improve the ability of utilities to respond to emergencies, because they will know exactly where the problem in the grid lies “within seconds,” and will be able to dispatch crews to the right places. Otherwise, Hines said, it’s “a lot of linemen going up and down the line trying to figure out what’s going on.”

Announcing the new center Monday morning were Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Gov. Peter Shumlin, Green Mountain Power President and Chief Executive Officer Mary Powell and officials from Sandia and the University of Vermont. In a meeting earlier Monday with the editorial board at the Free Press, Sanders cited the example of Vermont Electric Cooperative, based in Johnson, which has smart meters connected to 80 percent of its members.

“Vermont Electric Co-op is the first in the state to have almost universal coverage of smart meters,” Sanders said. “During Irene, they were able to get electricity restored very quickly, and they saved substantial amounts of money doing it.”

Stulen, vice president of Sandia’s California laboratory, said Vermont Electric Co-op had cut the time required for restoring power in half.

He said Vermont is particularly well suited to a collaboration with Sandia because all of its “stakeholders” in the grid, including the utilities and the renewable energy sector, are already working together — not necessarily the case in larger states.

“What we see in Vermont is a unique situation in the country,” Stulen said. “The state is small, but that’s an advantage for us because it has all the complexities of what other states face in terms of deploying the modern grid, so we consider it a great lab to work in with the private sector to deploy some of the solutions.”