Intelligent Utility Jan-Feb 2013

Con Edison crews at work in lower Manhattan the day after Hurricane
Sandy hit New York City. They worked through the night pumping water
from basements and substations. Courtesy of Con Edison.
benefits. A smarter grid would also reduce CO2 emissions by
12 to 18 percent.
Amin’s cost estimates range somewhere between $338 billion
and $476 billion for a smarter grid, and about $82 billion for
a stronger grid. When those dizzying numbers are recast as
a 20-year project, that’s a cost of $25 billion to $30 billion a
year for 20 years. (Hurricane Sandy’s
impact led New York alone to request
$42 billion in federal aid, and
in December 2012, economists were
crediting the storm with significantly
slowing the national economy.)
“Don’t forget, this investment
means job creation,” Amin added.
“And it’s cheaper to pay for now than
down the road. Interest rates are
at an all-time low. Investment in a
stronger, smarter grid means that for
every dollar we spend, it’s going to have an economic return
of $2.80 to $6 per dollar that goes into smart grid. To reach
these numbers we used a very narrow definition of ‘smart
grid.’ If you widen that definition, the benefits would increase.
Conservatively, for every dollar spent on smart grid, including
localized upgrades, the benefit would be about 3 to 6 times
return on investment in terms of jobs and economic output.”
“A lot more needs to be done for the benefit of smart grids
to kick in,” Amin concluded.
Sandy exposed the
Smarter practices, including customers
Smart grids are only a piece of the puzzle to greater resiliency
Amin and Mansoor both suggested. Other utility practices,
such as using small, camera-equipped drones and mobile
imaging technology to assess and pinpoint damage should
be added to the tool kit, they suggested.
Better-prepared, more self-sufficient homes, businesses
and communities should take steps to weather events.
“
tremendous opportunity
we have to partner with
consumers to speed up
the restoration process. ”
Microgrids, solar arrays that can island when the grid is
down, hand-cranked radios and cell phones can provide
emergency communications.
“Sandy heightens the opportunity for innovation,”
Mansoor said. “The changes on the customer side? How
many of us had iPhones and tablets five years ago? Today, 30
percent of utility customers don’t have landlines. Sandy exposed
the tremendous opportunity we have to partner with
consumers to speed up the restoration process. We’ll have to
educate our customers.”
Hurdles to forward progress
Lewis, whose clients include utilities, is concerned that faultfinding
may trump progress.
“I think there’s merit in looking at [utility responses],”
Lewis said. “The utilities didn’t do everything right, by any
means. I just fear that with the number of investigative agencies
and lawsuits involved, it’s really going to distract utility
managers from their day job.”
Amin called attention to the process
under which change must occur.
“One important constraint is the
regulatory oversight of grid modernization,”
Amin said. “Jurisdiction over
the grid is split: the bulk electric system
is under federal regulation, but
the distribution grid is under statelevel
public utility commissions. And
those local regulations essentially kill
the motivation for any utility or utility
group to lead a regional or nationwide effort. So we need a
policy framework to provide incentives for a collaboration in
grid modernization and for research and development.”
The bigger picture
The 20th-century grid exceeded our expectations for basic
services, rural electrification and economic development,
Amin said. But the power grid, like water, transportation
and communication, are in need of serious investment to
maintain national competitiveness, let alone resiliency in a
major storm.
“We have not advanced our infrastructure sufficiently,”
Amin said. “The World Economic Forum’s recent competitiveness
report ranked our U.S. infrastructure below 20th in
most of the nine categories of infrastructure, and below 30
for quality of air transport and electricity. We wouldn’t have
settled for something like that in the 1950s or 1960s.”
Phil Carson is editor-in-chief of Intelligent Utility Daily.
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