“We're in this together.” - Kauai Island Utility Cooperative

16 KIUC CURRENTS
By Anne Barnes and Shelley Paik
KIUC’s Grid: A ‘Smart’ Move
Picture many systems talking to one another, back and forth, each component
helping to move electricity to transmission lines, distribution lines and your
home as efficiently as possible.
As an electric cooperative member, you have a
stake in the future of electricity availability,
reliability and efficiency—all the things the new
smart grid technologies are intended to manage.
These technologies can even give you the tools to
control and monitor your energy use. And today,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says,
electric co­ops are leading the way in the
deployment of smart meter infrastructure
penetration.
Currently, KIUC has a supervisory control and
data acquisition with automatic generation
controls (SCADA/AGC) system. That real­time
operating system automatically controls our
generation to run at its most economic set point
based on current load. It also communicates with
our substations to collect real­time data and
remotely control devices on KIUC’s transmission
and distribution system, such as breakers,
switches and digital relays.
In the event of an outage, SCADA provides the coop
with the status of affected areas and provides
power plant operators with the information they
need to assess the situation and remedy the
problem. With the advent of advance metering
infrastructure (AMI), communications will
continue from KIUC substations to individual
home meters.
In November 2009, KIUC and 26 other electric
cooperatives from 10 states were awarded a $33.9
million matching grant from the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) under the American Reinvestment
and Recovery Act (ARRA) for Smart Grid
Demonstration Projects. DOE awarded the National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s (NRECA)
Cooperative Research Network (CRN) half of the
project’s total cost of $67 million to test and
develop technologies that operate together to
make the grid more efficient and reliable.
The cost of KIUC’s project is $11 million, of which
$5.5 million is being provided by ARRA.
The project involves replacing about 33,000
meters with smart meters, along with
communications infrastructure that will allow
two­way communication between the meter
and KIUC. AMI will enable KIUC not only to do
meter readings remotely, but to demonstrate
the effectiveness of load control and demand
response options within households, manage
and detect outages to the household level,
and evaluate different rate designs depending
on usage.