U.S. Smart Grid Status

U.S. Smart Grid Status   by Bill Sweet The U.S. Department of Energy, in a report issued in July, takes stock of its Smart Grid Investment Grant program, which with funding from the 2009 stimulus bill, provides US $3.4 billion in direct grants to be matched on a one-to-one basis by private funds. The aim, says the report, has been “to achieve wide-reaching, sustainable benefits by supporting early adopters of smart grid technologies and systems, and [by] collecting performance data to evaluate and document realized benefits.” As of the end of March 2012, the program had provided close to $3 billion for smart metering, $1 billion for electricity systems, and roughly half a billion dollars each for electric transmissions and customers systems. More than 10.8 million new smart meters—8 percent of all electricity meters in the United States—have been installed in the program, and 287 network phasor measurement units (PMUs). One of the most ambitious programs supported by the stimulus bill (or more formally, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, ARRA), is one undertaken by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California. SMUD is spending upward of $360 million on advanced metering, distribution automation, and customer applications, among other things. The improved infrastructure is enabling SMUD to conduct trials of time-of-use and critical peak-price systems. Read morehttp://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-grid/us-smart-grid-status-report-describes-a-strong-beginning