The Sunday Boulder Camera (Feb 21) published a pointed commentary by Anne Butterfield about Xcel’s Smart Grid City. I agree with Anne and the PUC that a certificate of public convenience and necessity is needed to convey to the public if there is some substance to all the SGC hype.
I attended two presentations by Xcel that provided much hype for a smart grid system, but delivered little insight into deliverables. Most of the presentation was pie in the sky talk about shaving peaks with electric vehicle battery storage, and controlling a customer’s thermostat. The only realistic near-term advantage of the SGC is that of monitoring voltage at the customer’s service and locating outages without relying on telephone messages from the customer. This is a huge advantage for Xcel – reduce truck rolls for outages or problems on the customer’s side of the meter.
I worked for Xcel for 8 years on their control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), and in planning department. I have a pretty good idea what is driving them. Xcel management realizes they can use this SGC hype to get money for capital investments for their needs, and worry about deliverables later. However, the “cutting edge technology” excuse for delay and cost overrun is getting thin.
I have 7 smart monitoring systems online and operating, compared to 8 for Xcel! My systems cost only a few thousand dollars instead of millions, but I don’t have the hype!
