WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Vermont Pursues Smart Grid

Vermont Pursues Smart Grid

Montpelier, Vermont -- August 13, 2009

The state of Vermont is pushing ahead with plans to use federal economic stimulus money to upgrade the statewide electric grid. State officials call it an investment in technology that promises a payback for consumers and Vermont's future economic well-being.

The advantage of a smart grid becomes apparent inside the control room at Green Mountain Power Corp. in Colchester. Real time communications from substations and consumers' electric meters would monitor the electric load all over the utility's grid, which hooks into the larger Northeastern-wide system.

GMP CEO Mary Powell told reporters at a Montpelier news conference, "To me, it really is about creating a smarter grid, a smarter consumer."

Utility officials say consumers will benefit by avoiding higher electric bills while automatically adjusting power usage during peak demand hours. The companies will benefit by avoiding expensive market rate power purchases during periods of peak demand.

They say the entire project will cost $133 million and could be complete within three years. GMP's chief information officer, Brian Otley, told Channel 3, "So that the consumers benefit from lower prices, utilities benefit from a more predictable load profile, and we start to minimize the amount of peaking activity that happens."

At times of peak electric demand the whole system can crash, which is what happened across most of the Northeast six years ago. The utility officials have joined forces to apply for a federal economic stimulus grant of $66-million -- half the total cost. They say the project will get underway even without the federal money. The transmission company VELCO will install dozens of miles of fiber optic cable on top of its transmission poles to help interconnect the state. This part of the project will be covered by ratepayers.

Tom Evslin, Vermont's Chief Recovery Officer in charge of monitoring the federal money, said the state appears to be a good position to win the grant money, even though the awards are competitive. He said, "It's great to be able to say that the VELCO backbone that we've been talking about -- that's going to be built whether or not we get the grant money. So we can say when we've applying for the grant, hey, this is on top of that. We're not asking you to fund the communications infrastructure, which is necessary to make this work. We're doing that."

Although there's no guarantee that Vermont will win the $66 million federal recovery grant, there's a high level of confidence at the statehouse, based on the fact that the smart grid is already in the works. It would just happen faster with the federal money.

Andy Potter - WCAX News