When Will We Get Smart Grids?

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 05/03/15

Kristin Majcher reports that through grants from the 2009 stimulus legislation, the U.S. government and businesses have committed more than 9 billion dollars to fund smart-grid projects. The goal is to upgrade the aging electricity infrastructure so that it is better adapted to the intermittency of renewable energy sources and people can use energy more efficiently. But such a smart-grid would also work to select the cheapest resource such as natural gas - at present - and nuclear power, where available. Navigant Research estimates that fewer than 1 per cent of U.S. households are seeing dynamic rates, a report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission points out. But new pricing models have led to big savings in some areas. In Illinois, where the electric provider ComEd has installed more than one million smart meters and hopes to deploy more than four million by 2018, about 10,000 customers are enrolled in a program where electricity prices vary by the hour. On average, these customers save 15 per cent on their bills every year and use 4 per cent less electricity than customers charged a flat rate, says Jim Eber, the company manager of demand response and dynamic planning.