2012 to bring more smart grid, less government support

It’s that time of year for annual predictions. CNN’s doing it. The New York Times is doing it. So, why not us at POWERGRID International magazine?

Keeping the concept to our own power industry, what will be on the horizon in 2012?

The obvious choice is: more smart grid. A lot more. That’s a bit of a no-brainer. This ball is rolling, and stopping it will take, as Newton said, a “greater force.” At this time in this industry, there is no force greater than the smart grid momentum. Granted, its growth will be slower now that the government cash tap has been cut down to a trickle, but that growth will continue. Everything about power is going to get smarter, and that’s the way it is.

This leads to a second prediction: Everything’s going to get smarter, but customers are still going to gripe. In the end, humans don’t like change too much. It’s scary. We fear it. It’s one of those things we hate most in life. Heck, we don’t even like it when the grocery store moves our favorite can of creamed corn over an aisle or two. We gripe about it. We grumble. So, smart meters---which are a heck of a lot of new---will continue to be a tough sell in 2012 in a number of areas. We’re gonna gripe about it. We’re gonna grumble. Customer communication (and an open-door policy) will help, but only time will make things more accepted---more a part of the norm and less new. So, I don’t see great mobs of average consumers embracing the smart meter/smart grid concept. They haven’t gotten to that level of acceptance yet. They will, but that will take time. So, utilities will have to practice a little patience.

Jumping off of the “consumers hate change” concept, here’s a third 2012 prediction that may not follow the typical industry fanfare: Electric vehicles (EVs) will be put on a backburner (yes, again). Why do I think this? Well, first, despite a whole lot of media coverage of electric cars, they aren’t selling very well. EVs are selling so poorly that analysts at investment website 24/7 Wall St. labeled the Chevy Volt one of the worst product flops of 2011. Lots of hype trumpeted the Volt’s entrance, but sales in July were a whopping 125 vehicles.

Second, it’s all about consumer acceptance. We can put up charging stations and complete studies on massive EV grid impact, but without the consumer willing to buy that EV, we’re stuck. And EVs are still too “wacky” for the average American. (And too expensive, unpredictable, scary and thought-/time-consuming.) Americans may come around to EVs eventually (as they will with smart meters), but it won’t be in 2012. Will this lag time mean a second death for the electric car? It’s possible, yes, unless the government’s willing to shore up the EVs trade until it becomes capable of standing on its own.

This leads to my fourth and final prediction for 2012, which is just basic writing on the federal wall: The government is going to take a step back in research, support and funding for anything outside of the traditional energy norm. It’s already happened with smart grid in 2011, and smart grids aren’t nearly as scary as intermittent renewable energy or cars that steer away from gas guzzling. So, with those scary areas, there’s going to be next to no movement. All actions will be gone over with a fine-tooth comb, especially after Solyndra’s messy collapse. While support from the government to help develop research and processes is a true American tradition and has brought us awesome stuff like relatively cheap air travel and cell phones, sometimes investments go wrong. In the time of a recession, however, wrong is amplified. Solyndra is now a symbol. This will make the feds a bit cautious in any approach to shore up new and unproven forms of energy from solar to EVs. They’ll be terribly skittish, especially with elections bringing in a spotlight on every penny spent. So, obviously, 2012 will be a time of investment contraction, which doesn’t bode especially well for the renewables side of the power equation since they truly need the support. But, they’re scary and new, not a sure thing. Not a definite. These days, the government is hedging bets.

So, four things in 2012: More smart grid, more cautious consumers having growing pains, more consumer growing pains means fewer EVs on the road, and more government contraction pains means less renewables investment.

What are your predictions for 2012? Send me an email at kathleend@pennwell.com and let me know. We’ll share more next week.

Give the gift of power

As Christmas fast approaches, most of us are in panic mode. We’re shopping the mall; we’re checking out specialty coffee and chocolate stores in our hometowns that most of us would never set foot in outside of the Christmas rush. But, what was once just too darn expensive now seems like an easy gift idea for Aunt Mabel or your second cousin who randomly shows up on gift-giving holidays without warning.

My father does all of his shopping on Amazon.com. He solicits lists every year around Thanksgiving and then hops online on Cyber Monday to complete the whole buying process in one fell swoop. Personally, I find that a little sterile. What’s Christmas without a little hustle and bustle and fighting for the last Frosty cookie jar with some lady in an overwrought sweater in Hobby Lobby one busy Saturday afternoon?

Christmas just isn’t the same without a little sweat equity, without a little mixed martial arts and the throwing of elbows.

But, if you are like my father and want to keep things sterile, I have the perfect gift for your friends with new and shiny electric vehicles (EVs): a vehicle charger.

And, you know what? You can order it from Amazon.

Yes, you can.

This week, GE Energy told the world that Amazon.com will sell GE’s wall-mounted EV charger the WattStation. No worries anymore about finding a charger or having to buy it at the dealership or through your utility. Now, you can pop online and pick one up on Amazon.com.

Noting that this is “just in time for the holidays”---which may be clever marketing or simply an odd accident---GE will gift EV users in both the U.S. and Canada with those WattStations just as soon as you click on the “add to cart” link on Amazon (and pay, of course).

“As demand and interest in the GE WattStation continues to grow, we’re excited to give our customers an easy way to purchase the charger,” said Sergio Corbo, chief marketing officer for GE Energy’s Industrial Solutions business in a release about the Amazon deal. “We believe the product is well-suited to an online purchasing experience.”

Well, OK. I’m not really sure about that one. Buying a DVD online? Sure. Easy-breezy. Buying some headphones, a new nose ring, some paperbacks and maybe a scarf? A-OK. But, a car charger?

Buying a car charger online seems---odd. Sometimes I breeze through the sporting goods equipment on Amazon and think, “Who buys a treadmill online?”

I had a similar reaction to the car charger announcement: “Who buys a car charger online?”

A $10 purchase online? Sure. A $1,000 purchase online? Really? And do you just slap that on your VISA and call it good?

Amazon lists the product features as:
• Easy-to-install mounting brackets,
• a power button allowing zero energy consumption when off, and
• peace of mind (in the form of ground fault protection).

And the description labels the WattStation “the EV charger you've been looking for!”

So far, there’s only one review on the GE WattStation on Amazon’s site. By AaronLephart---who has done no other reviews I can find on the site about anything other than the WattStation---the response is glowing:

I purchased this charger at a retail store long before Amazon carried it. The internals are made with overbuilt componants and are top quality. This same charger would have cost you $3000.00 a year ago, amazing how fast progress is being made. I recommend installing the charger on a dedicated 40amp circuit breaker. The J1772 connector is solid and does'nt feel cheap at all. The electrical wiring they use for the cord is VERY flexible and long. I cant stop looking at the lights on the charger at night. When not in use the charger has a button to take all power from the unit. No vampire power usage here!

Three out of four people found Aaron’s review very useful. Me, I’m still in awe over buying a $1,000 car charger online. I really need to get with the times, I guess.

Just for a rush, I added it to my cart for a second. Then, I opened the cart and immediately deleted before the thought of a grand on my VISA made me faint dead away.

So, I didn’t finish my WattStation charger purchase, though I gave it a whirl. Since I don’t have an EV, it would be a frivolous holiday purchase---much more frivolous than that peppermint bark from Williams Sonoma I’ve been eyeing. For someone with an EV, it could be a luxury holiday surprise, for sure.

One thing that does make my cheap soul happy about a WattStation purchase from Amazon: At least it qualifies for free shipping. (But, not if you want it by Christmas to gift to Aunt Mabel.)

Talking cyber in Phoenix

Security is a constant concern with the smart grid. As our technology grows more intelligent, it also grows more vulnerable. Every point of interconnection to another bit or byte of electronics is a possible intrusion point.

This week at the Grid-Interop conference in Phoenix, experts discussed practical implementations of cybersecurity in a session focused on solutions and practices.

In the session, Russ Silva from Telcordia Technologies noted that utilities are currently deploying millions of intelligent devices, some part of field area networks (FANS). While each intelligent device has a potential spot of vulnerability, the FANs, especially, tend to operate in open and vulnerable areas.

“There’s a lot of technology out there,” he said, adding that there aren’t a lot of vendor options available to keep an eye on FANs, or on the traffic flows and packet exchanges within.

Silva ran through a series of research areas that Telcordia is working on to address the FAN security issue.

Any bit of technology in the field is more vulnerable in all areas of security, including cyber, but the largest security issue at the moment centers around the largest number of implementations---namely smart meters.

Efrain Gonzalez with Southern California Edison---in fact, he’s their lead cybersecurity architect---joined Silva’s discussion with notes from SCE’s Smart Connect project.

“It’s been said that cybersecurity is more of a journey than a destination,” he opened with, detailing that SCE has surpassed 3.7 million meters installed at this point in the project. And, the utility did so by integrating system engineering principles and borrowing items from the defense industry in order to address security issues.

One of the biggest lessons SCE learned from this project was that security must be built into the technology, not “bolted on” as an extra.

In the end, there were a number of lessons involved in the process. Gonzalez revealed that the first meter the utility took to be tested for cybersecurity was broken into “in the first five minutes.”

But, they learned. A lot. And now, the utility has worked up specifications that they will share with utilities vendors and other associations (and require from vendors working with SCE). Based on open standards, the specifications will help promote cybersecurity interoperability, and Gonzalez said the utility hopes to have that set of specifications available for download in 2012.

Mike Ahmadi with consulting firm GraniteKey built on the journey analogy that Gonzalez brought up early in the session, pointing out that journeys can be inconsistent, as air travel is often these days: Security is different at different points in the travel process. Where will you have to remove shoes? At which airport do you have to empty your pockets or take off scarves? Which airport won’t require that?

The cybersecurity journey may be less consistent than air travel, at this point. The industry is juggling oppressive security issues.

“We moved into the idea of implementing the smart grid. Then, security issues snuck in, raining on this parade of ingenuity,” he said.

While focusing on the joys of a smart grid, the issues that those joys create, including cybersecurity, were latecomers. We brought in the smart grid for its positives and are now trying to keep the negatives at bay, but that’s a lag process.

“We’re in an active state of deployment,” Ahmadi added. “But we haven’t come up with any real standards---not just suggestions, but standards, things you have to have.”

Ahmadi noted that baseline standards are needed because some vendors do a better job than others with security issues, harkening back to that inconsistent journey concept.

Ahmadi pointed out that utilities carry a heavier burden with cybersecurity than vendors, as regulators and customers will come to them if something goes wrong, not to the vendor.

Gonzalez supported Ahmadi’s observation about the cybersecurity burden, adding that the industry has been “leveraging the utility” to press standards but that some of the onus needs to be placed with vendors.

In the end, the panelists are hoping to create a more consistent cybersecurity journey for utilities, vendors and customers.

Smart city evolves from concept to product

Amsterdam has a leading example of the smart city ideal: transportation, distribution, utilities, consumers, water sources and renewables working together to create a cleaner, greener urban utopia. They’ve been working on this concept for years, bringing in researchers, utility experts, consultants and even the common man to contribute to the cause.

Over the last few years, other cities---mostly in Europe but also a handful in the Middle East---have been gathering behind the smart city piper, following that tune to its proper end. Of course, no one is quite sure what that proper end will be, but most agree that smart cities are about cooperation and good planning. Cooperation and good planning usually end pretty well.

As the journey progresses, though, every good idea eventually becomes both a catchphrase---like “smart grid”---and a product.

This week, the concept of smart cities has moved past catchphrase to product in my mind.

Schneider Electric and the IT company it recently acquired, Telvent, announced a joint “SmartCity” offering that comes complete with an integrated suite of solutions centered around efficiency, sustainability and ways to make “more livable cities,” according to the press release.

Their specific SmartCity offering combines areas they label “smart grid,” “smart mobility,” “smart water,” “smart public services,” and “smart buildings and homes.” While the grid part looks for inefficiencies over local distribution, the mobility checks in on traffic congestion and electric vehicle integration. While the water side looks to reduce losses, the public services side reviews safety, lighting, healthcare and even admin stuffs. Finally, the suite looks into creating brighter, cleaner, smart buildings which ties it right back to the grid portion of the collection.

Now, this isn’t the first collaborative offering in this arena, but it was the one that struck me as evidence that the smart city train is still on track. Once an idea becomes a serious, sellable product, we’ve moved from “maybe someday” to today.

It’s nice to see a smart city of today, even labeled SmartCity.

I pinged Telvent to know a bit more about their product and whether any utilities are just foaming at the mouth to use it. I got a very lovely---and very quick, thank you---response from Jon Reifschneider over there. He tells me there were a lot of people involved in planning their SmartCity suite, including utilities, city governments and urban planners.

He went on to comment that they’re seeing a lot of “activity currently in Brazil in preparation for the major events there (World Cup and Olympics) and, of course, in China, where new cities are being built and current cities enlarged at an incredible pace.”

Reifschneider also noted activity in the U.S. and Europe, with the U.S. focus on energy management and led by utilities.

“One particular example of a smart city initiative we have implemented very closely with a utility is the Malaga Smart City in Malaga, Spain with Endesa, and we are working with them to explore projects in additional cities,” he added.

Both he and the company see smart cities as the evolution of smart grid, which I cannot deny. It does seem that change is in the works. The final result of this smart city journey may be the bundling of smart grids into the smart city overall product, making interconnections and cooperation the most key element.

And, if that happens, the “smart grid” catchphrase may go the way of “Xerox.” When’s the last time you used that catchphrase---based on a company---to say you’re making copies?

Technology, it does one thing well: evolve.

10 power game changers to be thankful for

This week, as Americans gather around turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce suspiciously shaped like the can it came from, we’ll all give thanks. In honor of that holiday, here’s a short list of power game changers to add to your list.

10. ARRA smart grid funding. It sure did lots to help a number of slower moving pilots get a real boost. It may not have started new projects, but it bolstered old ones, expanded them and is letting them see an end-date before the next century. More details by clicking here.

9. Smarter smart grid thinking. With the right plans in place, all could be right in the smart grid world, but we don’t get anywhere, really, without good planning. More details by clicking here.

8. Solyndra’s collapse. I know. I know. It was bad. But, we often learn best from our mistakes, and that one was a doozy. While I still find this to be a “hindsight is 20/20” moment, it can teach us a few things. And it’s gotten every side of the political equation at least talking about green energy. More details by clicking here.

7. Great moments in outage recovery 2011. Hurricanes and storms galore have hit the U.S. this year, and American utilities have weathered the weather well. More details by clicking here.

6. Linemen. Seriously. Linemen. Don’t think linemen are important? Really? Try climbing the pole to put out that transformer fire yourself sometime. More details by clicking here.

5. Learning to talk to customers. Not just sending a bill and “we’re done.” Customers showed they could be brutal about the smart grid this year. So, the time to keep those customers informed is now. More details by clicking here.

4. The rise of social media to inform those customers. To use an old motto: By any means necessary. And social media is today’s necessary means. More details by clicking here.

3. Virtual power plants. Not your daddy’s power plant, this shiny new source of system efficiency can bring together old and new, renewable and not, top-down and bottom-up generation sources. It may be the transitional power answer while only existing in the ether---or in the cloud. More details by clicking here. And here.

2. Efficiency. It’s the single fastest way to make that heavy power load a little lighter. You don’t have to add more generation if you can make it all a bit more efficient, and a number of utilities around the world have been doing just that this year. More details by clicking here.

1. The shadow potential of data. The smarter the grid gets, the more we know about it. We’re making that grid more intelligent from one end to the other, which will result in a lot of data points to play with. What a utility can do with all that data in the arenas of customer service, grid efficiency, renewable integration and business opportunities is still gray and amorphous. But, it’s a gray area with a ton of future possibilities. And, future possibilities are what I’m always most thankful for. More details by clicking here.

UPCE to show off robots, industry experts, and demos for all

The fourth annual Utility Products Conf. & Expo (UPCE) features an unusual surprise this year: three Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) robots demonstrating their mad skills onsite.

UPCE has everything a utility worker needs to do his job—from tools to cutting-edge technology to the latest insider information. UPCE is bringing a lot of hands-on expertise to Texas this Jan. 24-26 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio

Robots Galore
By far, the biggest UPCE buzz this year centers around that trio of robots. EPRI has generously agreed to show off two of their cutting edge power industry research robots, Ti and Scotty, at the show. The third robot will have its grand unveiling at the event and is a hush-hush secret until the reveal on Tuesday, Jan. 24 on the exhibit floor.

The first robot is nicknamed “Ti,” which is short for “transmission inspection.” Shaped a bit like a giant’s breadbox, Ti can be permanently installed and cover about 80 miles of power line a couple of times each year as it “crawls” along the line identifying numerous issues from grass and trees too close to the right-of-way to just how components along the line are weathering the wilds.

The second robot, Scotty, looks a bit like the classic NASA lunar lander. Scotty will demonstrate his lighting measurement skills in a roving display on the Utility Products Conference & Exposition's outdoor exhibit floor.

The third robot is still a secret, but it’s rumored to be an exciting advancement in inspecting tricky bits of equipment. More will be revealed at the show.


Session Details
Robots aren’t the only reason to attend UPCE, however. The show will offer a number of informative conference sessions.

UPCE officially kicks off with an opening keynote session on this Tuesday morning, Jan. 24, 2012. After the keynote, the conference itself is open for business with a bevy of learning opportunities.

Experts from the Electrical Industry Training Institute (EITI) will present a number of sessions during the conference, including a two-part session on managing electrical operations. This industry overview will provide utility management personnel with an orientation to T&D hardware and equipment, including underground distribution and substations. Session participants will leave with an enhanced knowledge of an electrical utility operations system.

Speaker Gerry Bramhill will helm both parts. Part 1 will cover maintenance, best work practices and field management. Part 2 will cover hazards, safety training, bonding and auditing.

Arkansas State University’s Dr. Duane Doyle will speak on developing occupation programs at local community colleges during the conference. Today, occupational options and certification courses can be found popping up in regional colleges all over the country. This session will look into creating and growing those programs in your community to educate the work force of the future.

UPCE will also present a two-part session on occupational grounding. Matt Dell with Hi-Line Utility Supply Co. will run the first part, giving an overview of best practices and standards. Steve Gordon with Hubbell Power Systems/AB Chance takes over the second hour with an insider’s look at equi-potential grounding including its history, the effects of current on man and the use of mats, among other topics.

Our EITI experts return with a session on understanding switching best practices. Tim Lollar will show the best ways to use switching for maintenance, fault clearing and reliability.

Bill Neiles with the National Utility Industry Training Fund (NUITF) will discuss crafting training and development for line workers during UPCE. This session will draw on the expertise of NUITF’s partnership between utilities and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to give attendees a peek into their hands-on utility boot camps to screen newbies.

Finally, local utility CPS Energy discusses adopting lessons from local smart grid work. This session will offer first-hand experience and lessons from a utility’s actual and on-going advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and distribution automation (DA) implementation.

Additionally, EITI will offer some precourses on qualifying employees to work near high voltage substation equipment and high voltage substation grounding and bonding on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, before the show begins. More information on those precourses can be found online at http://eiti.us/upce.html.


Other Informational Options
Outside the hour-long conference sessions, UPCE will include half-hour robot demonstrations multiple times daily Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Jan. 24-26.

Bulli Ray will present thirty-minute attack prevention courses to teach field workers to fend off an aggressive dog. Those demonstrations, which will include live dogs, will be ongoing in the outdoor exhibit area twice daily Tuesday, Wednesday and Thurday during the show.

Omicron will bring the company’s product bus to the show, offering show ten-minute courses on testing reclosers, sectionalizers and power quality meters, setting up a protection test library, understanding transformer diagnostics, and utilizing IEC 61850.

Also, each UPCE exhibitor will set aside 15 minutes during the show to offer a product demonstration, showcasing the company’s product or service to conference attendees.

All of these demonstrations, along with times and locations, will be listed in the show guide available onsite.


Just for Fun
All UPCE attendees should plan to kick up their heels at the Round ‘Em Up Networking Party on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. Pack your cowboy boots. It’s time to party western style. This year’s even will include the Texas Unlimited band, food, drinks and bucking a mechanical bull.

The UPCE exhibit floor offers other options for fun as well, including an opening reception with drinks on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, and the “It’s 5 O’ Clock Somewhere” happy hour with exhibitors on Wed., Jan. 25, 2012, right before attendees rush to the boot-scootin’ network party.

As you walk the floor, watch carefully for a few Hooters girls. A handful of the local beauties will be available for snapshots and autographs, along with their duties as hostesses at the cash prize giveaway.

The cash prize giveaway will be featured on the UPCE exhibit floor all week. All attendees are eligible to enter the contest. Just get your passport stamped by all the sponsors, and your name may be called to get a few minutes in our money machine. The Hooters girls will escort your trip in and out of the booth. You may go in broke and come out ready to buy the next round.

So join us for UPCE 2012 Jan. 24-26, 2012, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. I look forward to seeing you there. (I'll be the girl in the cactus-design cowboy boots.)

More information on the show can be found at http://utilityproductsexpo.com.

PNM’s social media saves Santa Fe adventure

Earlier this month I spent a long weekend in Santa Fe, NM. It’s an annual trip, and we purposely go in the minutes before winter hits the high desert in order to avoid fellow tourists just like us. We’re careful planners, since we know the weather in northern New Mexico at this time of year can be brutal and turn on a dime. In early November we suddenly become addicted to Weather Underground, we pull up Google maps and pull out furry earmuffs. We know all the wind channels and dust storm possibilities in the hundreds of miles of I-40 between here and there.

Due to that careful, obsessive planning, waking up to snow on that first Santa Fe morning wasn’t a surprise, but the massive power outage was. In all our minute attention to minute detail, we hadn’t counted on the emergence of chaos theory---things rarely go as perfectly planned.

So, we’d planned to sit by the fire a bit, enjoy the snow. We had that mental picture in our heads. But, we hadn’t planned to eat M and Ms and road trip snack foods for breakfast because the restaurant was closed, nor that we’d have to sit huddled together by that gorgeous fire in the hotel lobby with four layers of clothing squinting to read by the gray light that filtered through snow flurries.

Turns out the light and lovely snow wasn’t to blame for this outage, however. A tree fell onto some transmission lines and knocked out power to downtown Santa Fe for a little over three hours. Even without power, I knew this within an hour of the first light flicker. How? My phone still had juice and the local utility, PNM (formerly Public Service Co. of New Mexico in full), has a Twitter feed.

Now, I’ve never been one of those people who adore social media. I often think it’s odd that everyone believes I want to see pictures of their dogs, know what they had for breakfast or comment on their latest viewing of American Horror Story. What I realized during this Santa Fe trip, however, is that social media like Twitter allows utilities to send out valuable information to thousands without the necessity of massive phone banks or even having to adjust HTML coding on large and unwieldy websites. It’s simple and easy---and in this case, incredibly effective. Within two minutes and 140 characters, I knew exactly why the power went out.

PNMtalk: 10,450 w/p power due to 9 a.m. Santa Fe transmission outage. N-Tano Norte S-Camino Sudest E-Paseo Primero W-Legacy. Crews working.

PNMtalk: PNM crews removing tree from a transmission line and making repairs. Estimating a noon restore for Santa Fe customers.

Those two tweets made me a convert. We knew what happened and an estimate of restoration. So, we bundled up and went outside. We enjoyed the snow and the cold and, in fact, were in a Santa Fe café by 12:30 eating huevos rancheros with all power restored.

Pike Research recently released a new report on utilities and social media, labeling the use “somewhat chaotic” in our industry. There are concerns about controlling information and conversations between the employees and the consumers on the utility end of things. Those concerns may be valid, but, from the consumer side of the equation, up-to-date, quick information during outages is invaluable and worth a little risk.

In the report, Pike estimates that about 57 million customers will talk to utilities over social media in 2011, with that number leaping to 624 million by the end of 2017. So, perhaps others should take note from PNM’s clever use, as social media isn’t going away anytime soon. In an outage, what I've got is my phone. And Twitter is easiest to access from there. It's simple, and it's logical.

There’s nothing worse than being in the dark---both literally and figuratively. With a couple of tweets, PNM lit up on our dark situation, allowing us to figure out a good timetable. Hooray, the outage wasn’t going to last forever. The darkness wasn’t going to eat our vacation. We weren’t going to run out of M and Ms and start eyeing each other’s femurs. PNM used 140 characters to put our minds at ease, and that is the power of social media, especially Twitter---a lot of consumers in the know instead of in the dark. That has great potential.

And, while I was impressed that PNM was on the cutting edge of Twitter-adoption, I was even more impressed with their estimate of restoration---they were bang on the money. We noticed that lights were back on in shops and businesses at about 12:08, and we went about the rest of our vacation more thankful for PNM’s Twitter feed than for our Google maps, furry earmuffs or road trip M and Ms.

And, before next year’s Santa Fe trip, I’m going to take a look at their Twitter feed. Just in case.

Could an investment in Greek energy save world stock markets?

I think we can all agree that Greece has been a bit of a problem lately. I think even the Greeks might admit that at this point. And, it’s not that we don’t love the Greeks. We do, but we don’t much love their economy right now. To put it mildly: Their economy is in a bad, bay way. All of Europe is trying to fix it. Now, whether or not Greece will accept that European Union (EU) “we’ll-pull-your-bacon-out-of-the-fire” bill full of “haircuts” and bailouts is a matter for a people’s referendum at this point. And the idea that, perhaps, the Greek people might just let their bacon sizzle, thank you, is enough to send the international stock markets into a depression this week.

Now, you may be like me and marvel that a country with about the same amount of citizens as the New York City metro area could singlehandedly bring international economies to a grinding halt. But, the fact remains that it obviously can or the stock market insanity of the last week would have been---well, a little less insane.

It traces like this: Greece is in the European Union. If they fall out or are kicked out---and there really is no clean exit plan either way---it could destabilize the EU and pretty much the continent of Europe. The makes other continents, like Asia and our own, decidedly fidgety. So, like people tossing heavy luggage off a sinking boat to get a few more minutes above water, stocks start to get chunked over the side to lighten the load.

We may not like it, but it seems someone, anyone, has to save Greece to save all our economic necks. So, is there a solution?

The International Energy Agency (IEA) thinks there may be a rescue plan for the Greek economy hidden inside the country’s own energy market.

In late October, IEA released a report on Greece stating that allowing competition and ratcheting down the government’s role in energy could help the problematic country with economic recovery. (In fact, all EU member states recently adopted the third Internal Energy Market Directives which basically says “you will deregulate”---or ‘liberalize,’ to use the European term.)

“Reforming Greece’s electricity and gas markets is a policy imperative that should add efficiency and dynamism to the Greek economy. This, in turn, should help generate self-sustained employment and prosperity for the country,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said as she presented the study titled Energy Policies of IEA Countries – Greece 2011.

The IEA had a few recommendations for Greece to make the electricity market, in particular, more attractive. First and foremost is more competition. (State-run Public Power Corporation [PPC] pretty much still dominates both the wholesale and retail markets in the country, along with owning all the transmission and distribution assets and having a huge stake in the operator for the transmission market.) The IEA wants a “strong and independent regulator” in place to pry PPC away from some of these monopoly positions, which is understandable. The only problem is: Who’s in place to do that? Pretty much no one.

One area that the IEA points to with great potential is Greece’s renewable arena, especially wind and solar. IEA gave Greece brownie points for a renewable sector that already offers increased feed-in tariffs and simplified licensing. The agency even applauded Greece’s “determined” effort to fulfill the country’s renewable potential. Again, like the increase in competition, this may be a product of overall EU policy since there’s a 2020 renewable energy target in place for all member countries. Still, in nice to see some positive Greek news.

There was a caveat in all the renewable happy talk, however---namely that it “will be crucial that framework conditions to investment remain stable.”

That was pretty much the gist of the entire report on Greek energy: Keep things stable so people will give you money cuz you need it. The report's summary states:

Investments and competition are needed for ensuring the financial efficiency of the electricity sector. Investments by independent power producers in both renewable and flexible conventional generation will be necessary in the transformation to a low-carbon, green electricity market. Competition can also drive prices down and help mitigate the costs of necessary network investments and renewable energy supports.

Well, that may be the kicker. It’s that old “you have to spend money to make money” adage. Greece needs an influx of cash in order to get their power markets in order so that those, in turn, can help with the teetering Greek economy. But, who will start the ball rolling? Everybody here wants someone to invest in Greece to save all our collective bacon, but no one really wants to be the investor and put personal funds where our hopes are---not with financial reforms and not with energy market investments.

At least, not today.

So, yes, investments in energy infrastructure could help the Greek economy---but the cash isn't going to come right now, nor will it come quickly enough to save our stock market bacon. Infrastructure and market building could be a way to ensure Greek stability in the future, but it's certainly not a cure for the current and immediate crisis.

If that EU bill passes the Greek referendum, however, we may be humming a different tune. There is infrastructure and energy reform tied up into that package of haircuts and loans. But, first, the Greek people have to tell us just how much hair they are willing to trim or whether every lock will remain in place. Then we'll talk about energy market reform.

UPDATE: Thurs. Nov. 3, 2011. Greek prime minister has declared "no need" for a referendum, but has not officially called off the planned vote.

Illinois back in the smart grid game

A few weeks ago, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed Senate Bill 1652, the “smart grid bill” set to pump up funding for new technology in the state. Yesterday, the General Assembly overturned that veto, and the state, once again, has a sunny smart grid future.

Just a couple of weeks ago, right here on this blog, I noted that resuscitating that bill was highly unlikely. Today, I have to eat those words.

It passed---this despite a last ditch effort from local mayors writing in the Chicago Tribune calling ComEd to the carpet for “inadequate” responses to power outages and lamenting that the smart grid bill doesn’t address outage issues like ComEd claims.

The mayors wrote:
But does Senate Bill 1652 adequately address ComEd's inadequate responses to crisis and non-crisis related power outages? Does it ensure communication of accurate information to local governments and customers during an outage? Does it resolve downed power lines blocking a fire station driveway for four straight days?

Sadly, it does not. The fact is that Senate Bill 1652 fails to address ComEd's systematic shortfalls or hold ComEd accountable to its customers in a meaningful and transparent manner.

ComEd, on the other hand, says that’s exactly what 1652 does---help address issues like communication and response time.

"Today, the General Assembly took a historic step toward creating a stronger Illinois that will help us deliver more value and better service to the 3.8 million customers we proudly serve," said ComEd President and Chief Operating Officer Anne Pramaggiore. "We thank our supporters in the General Assembly for their leadership."

Now, there were a few concessions to get this override. A trailer bill tightened performance standards, dropped return on equity and established an assistance fund, along with redirecting about $200 million to undergrounding lines, since the area had such a horrible time with storms this year.

But, the governor wasn’t going down with a final punch or two. He released a statement when the trailer bill came along saying “unfortunately, this movie still has the same unhappy ending: blockbuster annual rate hikes for consumers and businesses.”

In the end, though, ComEd and the advancement of the smart grid did get at least a Star Wars-esque movie ending in Illinois---they got “new hope.” The 10-year, $2.6 billion program is back on track---faster than anyone expected.

Solar outlook sunny despite Solyndra

Solyndra’s messy and expensive collapse a few weeks ago dominated the news. This week, it’s been replaced by a bevy of solar positives.

Bloomberg has some toes on the ground at the Solar Power International conference this week, and the ears above those toes caught some interesting info on solar. Duke Energy’s James Rogers was quoted as noting that U.S. utilities, with their access to “low-cost capital” will have a leg up in expanding solar options for consumers, especially if a carbon tax materializes. (Rogers is well known for being in favor of a carbon tax or a federal cap-and-trade option. His passion for renewables is common knowledge, though there is speculation that some of that passion has to do with the subsidies for those projects, which ups returns much higher than traditional energy sources.)

Whether Rogers is right or wrong about the utility position in the solar equation, there’s no doubt that activity in that arena continues to thrive. NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy and a sister company to Florida Power & Light, announced the commissioning of the Hatch Solar Center in New Mexico.

According to the company, the five-megawatt Hatch facility is comprised of 84 Amonix 60-kilowatt units and is the largest operating concentrated photovoltaic solar power plant in North America. NextEra Energy Resources owns and operates the plant and sells the power to El Paso Electric under a 25-year power purchase agreement.

Down in Georgia, sentiment over solar has changed the mindset of Public Service Commissioner Lauren McDonald. McDonald is pitching an interesting funding idea for solar---charging Georgia Power customers a nickel a month on top of their current bill to put into a solar power rainy day fund, essentially.

AP reported that other members of the commission were surprised at McDonald’s new concept. McDonald is proposing a type of budget compromise, connecting what Georgia Power wants to pay to what developers say they need to make a profit on projects. No word on requiring Georgia Power to buy renewables, but one wonders what would happen to that pile of nickels without a solar mandate. And, since Georgia doesn’t have a renewable portfolio standard, utilities aren’t forced into a “must have” demand situation, making the world of solar building---or any renewable building, really---a bit of a risky business equation.

Still, it’s interesting that McDonald, a Republican, is pitching such a green/green idea (green cash for green energy).

And, despite the dour trading of solar stocks recently, there still appears to be green cash in that sunny form of green energy. Google-backed SolarCity, which makes rooftop systems, recently signed on Robert Kelly as the company’s CFO. Kelly managed Calpine’s 1996 IPO, so there’s industry speculation that SolarCity may be looking to go public, pulling in key players to help with that option.

At the start of this month, it felt like Solyndra’s collapse was trumpeting the death of the solar subsidy, if not the solar industry altogether. As the end of this month approaches, it appears that Solyndra was just a minor glitch in the matrix and the solar industry has already moved on to bigger, brighter, greener pastures---at least as long as the subsidies and renewable energy portfolio standards remain.

Illinois at center of “As the Smart Grid Turns” controversy

This Illinois smart grid struggle is starting to look a bit like a daytime drama.

Hopefully, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and Ameren aren’t holding their corporate, collective baited breath on that legislative stamp of approval for their smart grid programs. The Illinois smart grid bill is unlikely to be resuscitated anytime soon. Unlike soap characters, bills rarely rise from the dead.

And, the handful of senators and representatives who beat the drum for an overturn of Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto may be laying low for awhile since the Chicago Sun Times and the Better Government Association laid out a lot of links this week---links between campaign donations and politicians who approached the smart grid bill favorably in the last session.

Now, the appearance of impropriety isn’t proof of impropriety, it’s true. But, it often muddies the picture.

A bit of history may be in order. Back in September, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn vetoed Senate Bill 1652, set to raise electric consumer rates in increments over the next decade to pay for system upgrades, resulting in approximately a $3 billion cash pool.

At the time Quinn vetoed the bill, he called it a “sweetheart deal” that basically erased all accountability for “big utilities.” The veto was supported by various organizations ranging from AARP to the Environmental Law and Policy Center. ComEd was, of course, disappointed at the veto, releasing a statement that the bill, despite Quinn’s description, “does not guarantee profits.”

Some politicians had discussed overturning the veto at the next legislative session, but that was before the big reveal this week.

The Better Government Association (BGA) released information through the Chicago Sun Times that ComEd and Ameren gave more than $1.3 million in campaign funds in the state. That cash was distributed, according to BGA, between January 2010 and the end of May 2011. More money came along over the summer, pushing the total to near $1.5 million. Both the politicians and power players have said that the money didn’t influence, and wasn’t intended to influence, the vote on the smart grid bill that passed in May.

BGA pointed out, however, that House supporters of the bill received six times more cash than opponents of the bill. Senate supporters came in at three times more.

Overall, however, there are 177 legislators in the Illinois chambers. Only 20 of them didn’t receive donations from ComEd and Ameren during the period recorded by BGA. Ninety-eight people voted for that bill, with eight of those not receiving a dime, leaving a whole lot of people who did get some campaign cash voting against, despite the money rolling in.

Once again, though, we’re back to the appearance of things. While the rights of corporations to freely spend political capital has been upheld by the Supreme Court, the average ComEd customer will still wonder if utilities giving cash to politicians was the only reason 1652 existed. And the benefits of smart grid will be lost in the hunt for meaning in the donation trail.

It’s human nature to assume a tit-for-tat response, though. When given a gift by a relative or friend we didn’t plan for at the holidays, how many of us run out and buy return gifts? They’ve given us something; we feel the urge to give something back.

ComEd and Ameren gave a lot of gifts to Illinois politicians. Did a few of those politicians feel the need to reciprocate with a legislative gift? That’s not something that can ever be proven or disproven, really. Money’s written down and accounted for. Good and bad intentions usually are not.

In the end, though, it appears that Illinois’ smart grid portrait is growing increasingly more Dorian Gray than traditional, stately over-the-fireplace staple. Impropriety, cash, anger and consumer backlash may end up making that portrait unrecognizable, with its owners covering it up and hiding it away.

Whether the sins of the portrait are real or imagined, it’s still the appearance that appears to matter most.

Obama wants to build a better grid right now

This week, the Obama administration told Americans they want to build stuff. Now, Obama has said that to Americans before with the stimulus package. That version of building stuff looked more like the WPA of the 1930s---roads, bridges, hard and solid infrastructure.

This time around, Obama wants to build infrastructure of the less concrete and more dynamic sort---namely, power lines.

He’s focused on seven specific projects in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Wisconsin, and his contribution to the projects isn’t financial. It’s regulatory---or reducing regulatory red tape, you might say.

Oh yes, and the president says it will create thousands of jobs.

To create those new gigs, Obama wants to speed up the federal permitting for those seven projects: getting all the players together, working out a game plan, and making it happen. But, power line siting is more difficult than just getting everyone to chat. After all, Congress chats all the time, and the American people still see a lot of gridlock on that front.

Gridlock on the permitting and siting front is almost inevitable, chatting or no chatting. While it’s certainly an admirable concept to get more power flowing to the people, the people can be rather picky about seeing the inner workings. Everyone wants power; no one wants to live near power lines.

Now, a lot of Obama’s proposed “lucky seven” are in the West. That will help with speeding up siting and permitting. More elbow room, less people. Less people living near those lines means less people complaining about living near those lines. So, a lot of these have at least a decent shot in getting a good, swift kick in the pants to hurry completion.

The projects where Obama’s “hurry up plan” may work include a new 500 kV transmission line proposed by Idaho Power running a 300-mile long, single-circuit from Boardman, Oregon to Melba, Idaho; an Idaho Power/Rocky Mountain Power project between Glenrock, Wyoming and Melba, Idaho once again; the SunZia Transmission plan to construct and operate up to two 500 kV transmission lines in New Mexico and Arizona; and the TransWest Express to assist wind projects in Wyoming.

Those are likely to go off with fewer hitches because they go through a lot of uncharted country and involve not so many folks in the mix. With transmission siting, less is more: less people, less entities, less complications.

The Cascade Crossing Line that involves a lot of substation upgrades around lean and green-leaning Salem, Oregon may have a few hurdles, as might the CapX2020 project in Minnesota and Wisconsin and the Susquehanna-Roseland power line in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that’s heavy on substations and people interaction.

A lawyer for the Citizens Energy Task Force in Wisconsin, which opposes the CapX2020 project, has already been quoted in a local paper asking if the government would just “ram it through no matter what.”

And, locals near the Susquehanna-Roseland line already have a history of protesting the capacity upgrade for a number of reasons: aesthetics, energy fuel source, the location of the line through a recreation area, and because of the tower height required. (Current towers are about 80 feet tall. The new ones could be closer to 200 feet.) The New Jersey Sierra Club has a lawsuit against the proposal as well. There’s even an entire website dedicated to the opposition called “Stop the Lines” which claims the proposed project is about utility “greed” at the state’s expense.

After the White House announcement, Stop the Lines issued a statement saying, “Corporate profit should not be given priority here. Fast-tracking the destruction of a priceless national treasure---the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area---must not be allowed.”

So, all may not be so quick in this expedited expedition.

And, of course, on top of the issue with people living near power there’s the issue of the government’s concept of time. Transmission line siting is considered speedy if accomplished in five years and can take decades. By expediting the process, Obama may only be shaving a few years off. So, in 2015 we might see those New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming lines start up. By early retirement, I may hear of the Susquehanna-Roseland completion. But, in the end, there’s no way Obama is seeing a foot of new power line before the next election.

So, I hope transmission siting wasn’t a large part of his new campaign.

Autovation shows innovation

The D.C. suburb of National Harbor saw a lot of action this week as exhibitors and attendees of Autovation descended upon the Gaylord National to discuss the automated side of the utility equation.

Autovation is run by Utilimetrics, an association with the goal of bringing together “diverse stakeholders of electricity, water and gas distribution utilities to promote and share best practices for smart grid/smart metering, communications, utility automation and data management.”

Autovation is now in its 24th year and, this week, it offered a bevy of options from breakfast with utility peers to big picture sessions on today’s hottest power topics.

A couple of utilities opened and closed the week. Pepco Holdings revealed how they are taking a look at new technologies and transmission projects, even chatting up the smart grid, in the opening session. Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) closed the show painting a picture of the perfect smart energy home, which could include smart meters, demand response options, energy efficient appliances and other “killer applications” of smart grid technology.

And smart tech did end up in interesting spots at the show. While AMI and communications have always been an Autovation staple---and is now a smart grid one as well and should be, given the need for those items---electric vehicles (EVs) got their own series of sessions this year at the show, a whole track, even. Topics ranged from managing the distribution system impacts to identification of utility and customer issues with EVs. (Last year, Deloitte predicted that EVs and other alternative fuel/green would be a third of global sales by 2020. J.D. Powers, on the other hand specifically hailed EVs at a whopping 3.5 percent by 2015. Whichever prediction wins, EVs have certainly garnered a lot of conference attention this week.)

My favorite Autovation session, by far, featured Portland General Electric (PGE) insiders Eric Spack and Steve Sprague who revealed how the utility is using new meter tech to not just examine revenue protection but to bust pot growers in the area who are stealing a whole lot of power. The packed session was treated to some fabulous shots of home nurseries found and local news reports on PGE’s work. (And how often do you get to hear a speaker admit that his favorite part of the presentation is the marijuana part that will come later? Not too often, and it got some good chuckles.)

In other Autovation news, Hydro One and San Diego Gas and Electric were award winners at the show this year. Hydro One received the 2011 Excellence in Project Management Award for its smart meter deployment in Ontario. These days, almost all of Hydro One’s customers have smart meters and over a million have switched to time-of-use pricing. San Diego Gas and Electric won the 2011 Consumer Outreach Award for the utility’s smart metering program and its communications plan to keep the consumer in the loop.

In the downtime between sessions and awards, breakfasts and receptions, attendees could visit the Autovation show floor which featured both industry staples like Elster, Aclara and Itron and niche companies like Mad Dash and Ecologic Analytics.

Communications and open standards provider SmartSynch announced a major contract at the show. Michigan’s Consumers Energy has chosen the company to provide the metering system for the utility’s modernization program, to the tune of 1.8 million electric customers.

“As we develop our program, it will allow us to offer new options to customers and allow them to use our system to integrate new technology---such as smart appliances and plug-in electric vehicles---into their daily lives,” Consumers Energy President and CEO John Russell said in a release about the SmartSynch partnership.

Those EVs were just popping up everywhere at Autovation, I swear.

Next year’s Autovation is scheduled for Sept. 30-Oct. 2 in the hometown of the Queen Mary, Long Beach, California.

Utilities contribute backbone and Benjamins to the economy

We talk a lot about utilities being the backbone of our economy, since electricity is the maker of the modern world. (You can't go through a single business transaction these days that doesn’t rely on electricity in some way, from powering lights and computers at the local bank to massive Wall Street stock transfers.) But, utilities are also a very profitable business by themselves, contributing to the economy in both backbone and Benjamins. Run correctly, utlities bring in cash and rising share prices for stakeholders.

(In case you're not up on the urban slang: Benjamins started as a slang term for $100 bills, since Ben Franklin is on the $100 bill. It's now grown into a general slang term for all large amounts of dollars and cents.)

So, let’s take a look at some of the dollar-and-cents power news this week.

Barrons is so happy with Southern Company that they’ve downgraded the utility’s shares. No, really. Not kidding. It seems that the cash gurus always thought Southern was an A-number one investment in this sector, but now the prices of Southern shares have popped up to reflect their goodness. So, it’s not a steal anymore. That being said, Barrons shifted their rating for Southern to Above Average from Buy.

In other cash and power hot spots on the web, Motley Fool is labeling National Grid a “cash king.” (They define their “cash king margin” as cash flow divided by sales, with that number topping 10 percent.) According to Motley Fool’s calculations, National Grid is at 13.2 percent (up a couple of percentage points from last year and up 10 from three years ago). American Electric Power (AEP) took second in their overview at 7.8 percent. Like National Grid, AEP showed “significant growth” from last year.

The other two utilities reviewed for potential “cash king” status by Motley Fool didn’t do quite as well as AEP and National Grid. Exelon came in at 0.8 percent, down over 10 percentage points from last year, and Duke Energy was in negative numbers, even more negative that last year’s but less negative than five years ago.

Investment website Seeking Alpha labeled utilities “boring,” but noted that they are a good buy since utilities represent a stable foundation for any investment portfolio. (In bad economic times, even investors look for less risk and less crazy. It may mean slower returns, but it’s not a rollercoaster ride that could end in one long drop.)

Seeking Alpha wasn’t looking for Motley Fool’s “cash king.” Instead, they examined the net profit margin. For those of us not watching our investments like hawks, a net profit margin is a formula figuring a company’s profit per dollar generated.

Looking at a net profit margin above that coveted 10 percent---like Motley Fool’s “cash king”---Seeking Alpha suggested ten good utility purchases that they labeled “cheap” but with “strong profitability.” These included DPL Incorporated, which sells electricity in West Central Ohio; Wisconsin Energy; CPFL Energy in Brazil; El Paso Electric; and Duke Energy, among others. (Editor’s note: If you’re interested in the power markets and distribution options in Brazil like CPFL Energy, check into the new DistribuTECH Brasil conference at this link.)

So, Duke didn’t make “cash king,” but it did get the thumbs up on net profit margin.

And, speaking of Duke and money, the Duke-Progress Energy merger that could make the combined company a monopoly of sorts in the Carolinas is still jumping regulatory hoops and hearings. The hearings were opened to the public this week with customers fearing high rates to support the combined entities' profits.

Duke and Progress, however, believe the merger is necessary to spread higher rates over a wider consumer base, since the companies see a whole lot of generation spending coming.

“In order to meet future demand for electricity, both companies will have to invest in new generation that will be more costly than the companies' current embedded costs," said Duke CEO Jim Rogers and Progress CEO Bill Johnson in a prepared statement at the hearing’s opening.

Over at the Wall Street Transcript, Ali Agha, managing director in the equity research department of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey gave some tidbits from the recent “Alternative Energy and Utilities Report.”

Agha recommends AES and AEP. Agha sees AES accelerating in 2011 through 2012 in the area of earnings growth. He stated that AES may hit $1.70 in earnings by 2015.

Agha likes AEP because it’s cheap. Like Barron’s once saw Southern, Agha views AEP as a sweet deal, trading below value.

Utilities remain sound business sense for many shell-shocked investors. And, according to the experts, some are still trading on the “cheap and sweet” deal level. As utilities---and the rest of the economy---continue to recover, the bargin prices may disappear, but the value won’t. It's hard to argue with an investment that brings you both comfort and profit.

China out Wal-Marts the Waltons and Solyndra collapses

Last week, the FBI raided the California offices of thin-film solar maker Solyndra, once a poster child for the new energy movement that was to bring green jobs across the country in a giant wave of momentous change.

But, that was 2008. Now it’s 2011, and the momentous green wave didn’t happen here. That wave never reached our shores. Instead, that wave is stuck inside the country outline of China.

It fizzled out at the borders.

Here’s the deal: The Chinese are sharp. They see the potential in the green market for massive future energy needs. They’re also unified and interconnected in ways we individual Americans are not. So, being a communist country and an industrial powerhouse, they pulled the ultimate Wal-Mart: They stole the market share.

How’s that done? Well, for a lot of years Wal-Mart was the king of this philosophy, some would say. (Honestly, though, they aren't the only ones to use a strong arm to rule a market.) Here’s the basic concept: Go into a small market, undercut prices by taking a loss that can be balanced nicely across your wide network, force the mostly small and mostly independent competition out of business when they cannot meet your low, low prices competitively, and then become the sole player in the game---which lets you set prices any way you’d like from that point forward. Now, Wal-Mart may quibble with this characterization, but it’s a view of “market hogging,” if you will, that’s always followed them as they expanded. They have a bad reputation for running smaller companies out of town on a rail with those low, low price guarantees. And, factually, smaller manufacturers, suppliers and retailers can't get the big group deals that Wal-Mart can. They're leveraging their size.

Now, think of China as government Wal-Mart, a state-run powerhouse capable of taking a large financial hit up front and more than willing to leverage its size. So, they develop huge state subsidies in order to flip a switch on green manufacturing. Instantly, everyone’s up and running, pushing a product out that’s cheaper because they’re not having to carry the burden of production costs or start-up money at this point. (They’re the runner who jumps the gun with the blessings of the establishment.)

Now, American green companies have gotten some help from stimulus cash, but nothing like the funnel of dough the Chinese have contributed. The Chinese help is overwhelming, full and even overreaching. Americans, on the other hand, are putting together guaranteed government loans, some venture capital, some cash from friends and family, their maxed out credit cards---they’re struggling for a product they believe in. But, the emphasis in on struggling here. And it’s a heavy emphasis indeed.

So, as the FBI sorts through the lost belongings and paperwork of Solyndra---where the Walton family ranks as venture capital investors, actually---there will be a lot of speculation about whether the government did enough due diligence in choosing Solyndra for that suddenly very unpopular green loan.

But, perhaps that’s the wrong question. Perhaps, instead, we should ask if the government really invested enough given how quickly China was able to flip the green game to its favor.

AEP Ohio case finds settlement amid controversy

On Sept. 7, AEP Ohio called it quits---not in offering power but in a series of cases pending before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO). In the end, the final settlement gives AEP the OK to merge Columbus Southern Power (CSP) and Ohio Power (OPCo) into a single unit.

There are other issues laid to rest as well, including a mandate to transition to a competitive generation market by 2015.

AEP Ohio seems pretty happy with the outcome, but not everyone in Ohio is thrilled.

On the happy side of things: AEP Ohio, of course.

"After a decade of legislative and regulatory changes to Ohio's market for electricity, this agreement allows an appropriate transition to a fully competitive electricity generation environment for AEP in the state," said Nicholas Akins, AEP president, in a written statement. "With the clarity this agreement provides, AEP is adopting a new Ohio business model that transforms the company into two entities---a regulated energy delivery system and a separate generation business. It also advances key state policies while sustaining investment in Ohio."

And the agreement was signed by a lot of stakeholders---20 or so organizations that AEP Ohio dubbed as “representing a broad range of customers.”

Among the biggest features of the agreement: a timeline for that open market move that has AEP supplying capacity to retail at a discount for three years, a fund to bolster economic efforts and a continuation of the company’s low-income fund, and an option for customers to choose renewable sources.

According to AEP, in 2012, typical CSP customer bills will decrease a bit (about $4) while typical Ohio Power bills will increase a bit (about $4). But, right now, it’s not the customers who are doing the complaining about this deal, it’s retail provider FirstEnergy Solutions.

They sent out a release in response to the deal that claimed customers would “be forced” to fork over a billion above competitive price values.

"The settlement filed today is no better for customers than AEP's initial plan which was overwhelmingly opposed by consumer and business groups," said Donald R. Schneider, President of FirstEnergy Solutions in another written statement. "With this settlement, customers will be denied the benefits of low prices from the competitive market and be illegally burdened with high electric prices for years to come---all to benefit AEP shareholders at the expense of customers. The plan also unfairly favors large industrial customers by providing them with cheaper electric rates at the expense of residential and low-income customers."

Details on how that billion breaks down or number supporting the claim that the settlement favors industrial customers at the expense of others were not provided in the release, although it is fairly common for all power companies to cut higher end/heavier use customers, like commercial and industrial users, a break.

As with any deal ever made, it seems this one has winners and hecklers. Since this settlement is a compromise, it seems to fit the very definition of it---that nobody is totally happy.

Irene pushes utilities to show off recovery skills

Hurricane Irene wasn’t as bad as predicted. When it hit most of the East Coast, it was a lower category hurricane, or even a tropical storm, than originally feared would smack into the beach communities aligned along the Atlantic.

But, since we still have most of our power strung into the sky, category 1 winds still do a ton of damage to the power infrastructure.

Eastern utilities have been working nonstop since Irene blew threw to get power back on to millions of Americans.

Dominion had a goal of restoring service to 75 percent of their customers today, Aug. 31st. As of 11 a.m., they’d flipped the switch for 77 percent (or more than 920,000 customers) in Virginia and North Carolina.

That took a lot of work at about 8,500 locations---and that’s just for Dominion.

FirstEnergy has turned the lights back on for 770,000 customers so far in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. About 150,000 customers are still in the dark: 130,000 with JCP&L in Jersey, 21,000 with Met-Ed and 2,000 with Penelec. (They have a great image gallery of hurricane work available for viewing at their website: www.firstenergycorp.com/newsroom/hurricane_image_gallery.html.)

But, while winds blew lines aloft and snapped poles, problems weren't reserved to just the delivery side of the power equation. Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant suffered damage from the hurricane, though repairs are nearly complete, according to Constellation Energy.

What often complicated the repair process is road damage in many places, especially flood-ravaged Vermont. But, the Associated Press is reporting that some roads have been opened to previously isolated communities, allowing emergency vehicles, like a convoy of power trucks, to move into the area. (The convoy is headed to Rochester right now.)

Given that we started this week with a bold CNN headline about millions without power, I am amazed at how quickly well trained crews and good response teams can move a disaster impacting millions to one impacting thousands in just a few days. Their work in the aftermath of the storm should be commended. That’s efficiency in action.

Hurricanes on the horizon

It’s that time of year again---the time of year when we give friendly names to large storms with terribly deadly gusts of wind. It’s hurricane season in the Atlantic. Now, honestly, it’s been hurricane season for awhile now---since June 1. But things normally get up and running full speed about now, as Hurricane Irene, which is expected to reach category 4 status any day, can attest to.

Now, Irene isn’t forecast to hit Florida, which I like to call Land of the Hurricanes (though they refuse to put that on their tourist brochures for some reason). But, the 2011 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated forecast estimates 14 to 19 named storms this season and 7 to 10 hurricanes. The last hurricane to make landfall---which basically means the eye of the storm hits land, not its edges---in the U.S. was Ike in 2008, and, while last year saw a lot of activity in the Atlantic, nothing actually hit us. Still, as those boy scouts tell us, it’s always good to be prepared.

Whatever the final number, the locals with Kissimmee Utility Authority (KUA) are bound to be ready for the first one to wander across Florida this season or next. Founded in 1901, KUA is Florida's sixth largest community-owned utility providing electric and telecommunication services to 64,000 customers in Osceola County. Each year, that local electric company prepares a hurricane handbook. This year’s comes in full color and even in Spanish.

The comprehensive guide gives a nice list of local utility, cable, gas, weather, transport and emergency numbers along with its practical preparation advice. (I’d love for my local AEP affiliate to have a similar tornado guide, actually. That would be quite handy.)

After all, how many of us really have items prepared for emergencies? We talk about it, but we rarely get around to doing it. That's back burner stuff. We have more pressing problems. Granted, after the ice storm of 2007 here in Tulsa knocked out my power for nine days, I do now have things like lots of candles and a stack of canned goods in my cabinets. But, KUA challenges you to be über prepared.

1.) Have an inventory of your property (with pictures, if possible).
2.) Have an indoor safety plan so you remember which areas of your house could be dangerous during a storm. (Here's the advice of a farm girl who has seen a lot of tornadoes: Stay away from window.)
3.) Have an outdoor safety plan (to keep those potted plants from becoming flying weapons).
4.) Have a financial plan in case you need to stay in a hotel for awhile or need to be able to access cash for repairs quickly.
5.) Have that traditional disaster kit (that’s where my candles and canned goods come in).
6.) Have a plan to secure your house (and the supplies stored somewhere on your property).
7.) Have an evacuation plan.

The guide even has advice for rescuing and securing pets and cleaning up after the storm, including the proper use of a generator, along with a layman’s guide on how the utility restores power.

You can download a copy of the guide from their website: http://www.kua.com/hurricane/2011-Osceola-Hurricane-Handbook.pdf

With the exception of the local emergency numbers that would only apply to Florida, the guide could be handy for anyone weathering a storm. And, these days, it seems like more and more of us are experiencing extreme weather---whether those storms are named or anonymous.

Thinking about boxes, robots and endless possibilities

We all know that old saying about thinking outside the box. We're supposed to do it. We're supposed to be the only people doing it. People tell us to do it, but do they really mean it? Now, I tend to joke that even the people who use that phrase don't actually want "outside the box" thinking. Not really. Not truly. Instead, they simply want you to paint the same old box a different, shiny color. That's what they mean by all those boxy thoughts.

This week, I spent some time in a very hot and very humid San Antonio preparing for our upcoming Utility Products Conference and Exposition and doing some thinking that's all about a box---well, a box-shaped robot, anyway. I made a special trip to South Texas to discuss details about hanging the Electric Power Research Institute's (EPRI's) transmission robot, Ti, at the show. (More info on Ti can be found by clicking here.)

Ti really is a bit of compact dramatic irony. It's outside-the-box thinking shaped into a very boxy package---a very boxy and very heavy package. It's new cutting edge transmission research wrapped in what we've always traditionally label as an old-fashioned, out-dated concept---that dreaded box. In this case, the box is neither old-fashioned nor out-dated. Instead, it truly represents the newest options for technology in our field. And we are delighted to get to show it off to all of you at the upcoming show.

This week, with the great help of Tom from EPRI's partner Southwest Research, we had some unique thinking about how to properly display and show off that cutting edge box. (Southwest Research helped bring Ti to life, and they're local to the San Antonio area. So, it's great to have them in the mix for logistics.)

Ti will be moving and grooving across the ceiling of the combined DistribuTECH and Utility Products Conf. and Expo exhibit floor Jan. 24, 25 and 26, 2012. Zipping along nearly 90 feet of cable above the heads of show attendees, Ti is poised to be a center attraction at the event, and, with each step closer to the January show, I grow more excited about these robots. (Yep, there will be more than just Ti.)

I hope you guys are equally excited. For more information on the robots and other Utility Products Conf. and Expo attractions, click here.

Speaking of outside-the-box thinking, Davy Crocket is quoted all over the San Antonio area for famously saying "You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas" to his Tennessee political opponents (and then President Andrew Jackson, whose policies he truly hated) before giving his life in a showdown at the Alamo. Perhaps Texas wasn't the best choice for Davy, but it is a great choice for you this coming January. With Ti in the mix, we'll bring outside-the-box thinking directly to the town that lured Crockett.

And, unlike Davy, you can visit the Alamo without planning for a military onslaught this January---though I might suggest prepping for an onslaught of information, data and friendly little robots.

Got the best project in the whole wide world? Tell us all about it.

About three inches below this blurb on the website is a shiny brass icon that says “Projects of the Year.” When you get the time, you should scroll down there and give it a hit.

Once again, it’s time for the editors of POWERGRID International magazine and PennWell Corp. to select the best and brightest grid projects for our annual awards program.

The winners will be selected for four specific categories: Smart Grid Project of the Year, Smart Metering Project of the Year, Demand Response/Energy Efficiency Project of the Year and Renewable Grid Integration Project of the Year.

The awards will be given out during the keynote presentation at the DistribuTECH 2012 conference in San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 24, 2012.

Each year, the judges select winners based on five specific criteria:
* Ingenuity
* Scope
* Practicality
* Vision
* Follow-through

Any interested party may submit an entry for consideration by Oct. 28, 2011. One award winning utility company will be named in each category. All companies involved in transmission and/or distribution of electric power are eligible, including investor-owned utilities, federal power agencies, municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives. Also eligible are RTOs, ISOs, independent transmission companies and other T and D-owning/operating entities.

Project/implementation (or significant phases of a phased rollout) must have been completed between Dec. 1, 2010, and Dec. 1, 2011.

Submit an entry form along with a description of the project/implementation (1,000 words maximum). Project description must include history of the project, project details, major participants (customer, vendor, consultants, etc.), and reasons the project/implementation should be considered for Project of the Year. Include significant dates (contract signing, project start, project completion/go-live date) in the project description.

Award winners will be recognized in an exclusive feature article in POWERGRID International magazine (formerly Utility Automation & Engineering T and D magazine) and Jan. 24-26, 2012 during the DistribuTECH 2012 Conference & Exhibition in San Antonio.

Winning entries will work with a POWERGRID International editor---yeah, OK, it's going to be me; you caught me---to develop the article and award video between the closing Oct. 28, 2011, and the official award ceremony Jan. 24, 2012. High-resolution photos/graphics/artwork (up to 10) and additional details on the project will be required.

For questions, you can contact me directly at kathleend@pennwell.com.

So, tell me all about those groundbreaking projects, that fabulous smart grid work and how you program benefited the consumer. I’m all ears.

Exelon, Constellation still feel the urge to merge

This past April, Exelon, one of the big-dog power utilities in the U.S., and Constellation Energy announced the desire to join forces. This week, the Public Utility Commission of Texas said they could---at least as far as Texas is concerned. So, one more hurdle jumped in the race to a 2012 merger completion. Despite both of them having generation located in the Lone Star State, it appears the Commission isn’t too concerned that a merger will give them a significant market advantage.

“We are pleased that the PUCT has approved our application,” said Exelon President and COO Christopher M. Crane. “This is a key step toward completing the merger, and we remain on track to do so in the first quarter of 2012.”

“Because Exelon and Constellation both operate in Texas, securing the PUCT’s approval was an important step in completing our merger,” said Constellation Chairman and CEO Mayo A. Shattuck III. “We will remain focused on obtaining the remaining federal and state regulatory approvals and seeing the merger through to completion.”

And Shattuck and Co. will have many more approvals to jump, including A-OKs from the Federal Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Maryland Public Service Commission and the New York Public Service Commission. Plus, they’ve got to get a pat on the back from the shareholders, which they hope to do by the end of this year.

Exelon and Constellation are so dedicated to this merger prospect, that they’ve even created a singular go-to website to the subject: www.exelonconstellationmerger.com.

On that website, you can learn all about the “strategic fit” of the combined companies and the key benefits the merger will achieve. Among the highlights are: increased scale and financial strength (or a “bigger is better” philosophy), a use of “complementary businesses” to grow (once again that “bigger is better” philosophy), more spots across the U.S. (even more of that “bigger is better” philosophy that will have their fingers in 38 states, D.C. and a little bitty bit o’ Canada). “Bigger is better” also spills over into the “enhanced utility platform” discussion (where being the second largest regulated distributor of electric and gas” is super good for customers) and the “clean power” discussion (where those customers also benefit from all that bigness with lots of renewable options).

So, basically, what we’ve learned is: Bigger is better. Gotcha. (Anyone else having AT and T flashbacks?)

And, you know what? That philosophy may indeed be true for Constellation, which is having a bit of a bad time this year. They’ve already lowered their 2011 earnings forecast by a nickel a share because of nuclear issues. And they adjusted their April-June profit down by a dime a share to 76 cents. Shattuck noted that the merger would help them diversify, making the risk of gray areas like nuclear a little less, well, risky. So, perhaps hooking themselves onto the Exelon star can help.

Exelon, unlike Constellation, seems to be having a heck of a good 2011. They raised their range for adjusted operating earnings to $4.05 to $4.25 a share from the $3.90 to $4.25 range. They also revved up the second quarter generation income from last year by about $60 million, are working on their Texas acquisition of natural-gas fired Wolf Hollow and they’ve filed with FERC for the RITE line along the Indiana/Ohio border.

So, the Exelon/Constellation merger keeps chugging along and, so far, it appears that Exelon will remain on top and perhaps pull Constellation up with it. Perhaps bigger really is better.

Baby, it’s hot outside

When I was small, I used to march around our farmhouse in the winter singing a version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” that old popular jazz tune that was revived multiple times by more artists than I can personally count. I still admit to humming that tune on occasion. Okay, yes, sometimes I still sing it, too, but this summer I’ve done my own adaptation of the chorus to “baby, it’s hot outside.”

As summer temperatures cook not just the relatively small percentage of sweaty people here in Oklahoma, who are rather used to summer heat, but also folks in places as far north as Minneapolis and Boston, concerns about whether our power infrastructure can keep up with the demand are inevitable. And, with a few minor exceptions, this major heat anomaly hasn’t really caused too much trouble for utilities. But, then again, utilities are planners. It’s the job of planners---you might even say their calling---to be prepared for anomalies.

And some of that planning includes demand response (DR) programs. This week, Con Edison's New York customers used a terawatt hour, or 1 trillion watt hours of electricity, according to the utility. (I love the wording of the press release on this heat wave response. They wrote: "That's a lot of juice. In fact, it's about the amount of electricity Vermont uses in two months.")

Con Edison gave credit to their DR program for curbing what could have been an even more record-breaking response. They assured people that, while a terawatt is a whole lot of power, things could have been worse if they didn’t have customers willing to respond to “calls for conservation,” as the company labeled them.

EnerNOC, Inc., a provider of demand response applications and services, announced that its DemandSMART network was dispatched at record levels this July as well in response to the heat wave---or “heat dome,” as the weather guys have been labeling it.

EnerNOC's network responded to a series of dispatches from grid operators and utility partners, providing about 1,230 MW of DR overall. One of the grid operators that EnerNOC works with, PJM Interconnection, set a new record for peak power use in July at 158,450 MW.

Demand response has been so helpful, it even got press in The New York Times this month. The paper discussed demand response options with North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s (NERC’s) John Moura, manager of reliability assessments. Moura labeled the DR available around the country as “imperative” in weathering the heat.

The Christian Science Monitor also did a piece on the wonders of energy efficiency and demand response in this oppressive heat, and they also quoted NERC, though they chose Mark Lauby, vice president of reliability assessment. (And, along with DR, they cited a weak economy as a factor. The concept is: We didn’t being this race at the starting line, but, instead, a few feet behind the starting line. So, the recession dip has helped demand not get too darn crazy, even with the heat. What they’re basically saying is that things would be a lot worse if the recession hadn’t already cut back on that power demand.)

So, worries about whether we have enough power seem unfounded, even as temperatures continue to break regional glass ceilings and power use sets national records. There are small issues in isolated pockets: Oncor is currently struggling to return power to a Dallas neighborhood for an outage cause by trees and not heat, though heat is exacerbating the problem. Baltimore Gas and Electric is getting complaints about their demand response program from people who think their air conditioning was turned off for too long during the blistering heat. And here in Tulsa, the local news is reporting record setting power use for the city and surrounding area.

Overall, though, we have to all admit that this old, cobbled together, partially updated, partially archaic power system that we have is doing very, very well for the stress we’re putting her under this summer. She keeps working, chugging along despite the desire we all have to sing “baby, it’s hot outside” and turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees.

Post show: Texas linemen conquer in Seguin

The 2011 Texas Lineman's Rodeo in Seguin, Texas was quite the event last weekend.

That humid Saturday in late July, the gray of potential rain gave way to the type of fluffy white clouds normally wallpapered onto a child's bedroom wall.

But, clouds weren't the only items in the sky that day. There were also a lot of linemen hanging from poles, posted inside buckets at the long-line end of work trucks' mobile arms or crawling up to T-poles with clouds nipping at both toes and hard hats.

There was no keeping those boys from the bright Texas sky.

Working from 7 a.m. into the afternoon, the competition was fierce. Winners this year include individuals, cooperatives, munis and IOUs. The first place overall journeyman award went to Ryan Voges, Justin Green and Darin Koehler of New Braunfels Utilities with the division winner for cooperatives going to John Hernanez, Brad Downum and Mark Jebbia with Bandera Electric Cooperative.

Gergory Chelette, Richard Schwartz and John F. Kent brought in the overall journeyman team for investor-owned utilities, while that Voges-Green-Koehler team grabbed the municipal top spot. In the overall journeyman team, senior division, the winners were David McDowell, Danny Moss and Larry Terry with Farmers Electric Cooperative.

All the 2011 rodeo winners are listed on the Texas Lineman's Rodeo website at http://www.tlra.org/.

Additionally, keep an eye out for the September issue of POWERGRID International magazine which will feature more photos from the rodeo in living color, as they used to say.

Linemen tough out a blistering rodeo

As you read this, I’ll be in Seguin Texas for the 15th Annual Texas Lineman’s Rodeo. Seguin is a small town about thirty minutes outside of San Antonio along I-10, and I fully expect it will be a hot spot this coming weekend, in both competition and summer temperatures.

The Texas Lineman’s Rodeo is sponsored by the Texas Lineman's Rodeo Association, Inc. (TLRA), which is “a non-profit organization created to offer line workers in the great State of Texas a way to showcase their pride in the profession of high voltage line work.” Comprised mostly of volunteers who offer their time, efforts and organizational skills for free, the TLRA works hard to put on this rodeo every summer. Having been personally corresponding with volunteer Gloria Christmas for about a month now, I have to say that the TLRA is both highly organized and highly friendly. She’s been a real sweetheart in getting information out. (And, in case you’re interested in coming down to Seguin this weekend, she let me know yesterday that some hotel rooms have opened up at the Days Inn in Seguin.)

2010’s rodeo winners included folks from Farmers Electric Cooperative, Hilco Electric Cooperative, Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, CenterPoint Energy, Austin Energy, New Braunfels Utilities, Hamilton Country Electric Cooperative, Mid-South Synergy, Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, Trinity Valley Electric Cooperative, Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative, Bryan Texas Utilities, Perdernales Electric Cooperative, Garland Power & Light, Midwest Electric and Navasota Valley Electric Cooperative. Those winners stretched across a number of categories: journeyman awards, division winners (including a 45-and-older senior division), event awards (like changing a single phase capacitor, doing an amp switch change or a pole climb) and rescue events.

If you’re thinking of joining us in the wild Texas heat for the 15th Texas Lineman’s Rodeo, the activities start Friday night on Nolte Island in Seguin with a t-shirt trade and a fish fry, but all the rodeo action happens on Saturday. That’s when you’ll see those linemen skills put to the test and rewarded for their efforts---with rewards in both awards and barbeque form.

More information on the rodeo can be found on the TLRA website: www.tlra.org

Amsterdam gets smarter and smarter, and we get left behind

If you’re an American reader of this blog, chances are good that you don’t live in a smart city. I certainly don’t. Not that Tulsa is peopled by the ignorant, no. This isn’t about individual intelligence or grading our education system. It’s just that our power isn’t exactly the cutting edge smart grid stuff of legend. We’ve been talking about the smart grid since 2007---how it can save us all from a bleak energy future with smarter meters, smarter switchgear, smarter energy delivery, even interconnected and informed (and therefore smarter) consumers.

But, few of us here in the U.S. have seen any real smart grid progress. A small percentage in some well-funded pilot hot spots has seen smart meters being installed. Some have tried out a few pushes in energy management concepts---although both Google and Microsoft’s energy management goals have fallen decidedly short. Both companies have called a halt to their consumer-oriented smart grid visions. But, no real vision of smart cites and collaboration is popping up in these parts. We seem to take one step forward and two steps back with smart grid on U.S. soil.

Still, there are cities in this world that are pushing forward and showing significant progress in the smart grid concept, even moving ahead to incorporate other options and other utilities in an overarching concept of a “smart city.” One of those is Amsterdam.

Last year, I took a personal guided tour of “Climate Street” in Amsterdam. A long row of traditional looking shops along a narrow street, these businesses were all invested in the idea of energy management and smarter consumption. From bars to record stores to chocolate shops, they partnered with the city and the local grid operator Liander to put in smarter equipment and keep an eye on the energy bottom line. And all that collaboration and progress didn’t seem to impact the end product one bit. The beer was still tasty, the bitterballen still toasty and the chocolate still melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

Even though I don’t cover Europe much anymore, I still keep up with Amsterdam’s Smart City initiatives, including Climate Street. Perhaps I’m just fascinated that a culture, a group of business people, a city, residents, and the local grid company, along with a research group, can all get along so well. As an American who still sees our sense of rugged individualism in myself and pretty much everyone else in this country, including utilities and businesses, it’s positively amazing to witness such smooth and steady cooperation.

This week, Amsterdam’s Smart City announced a new partner, KPN. (I admit to being on their e-mail list. As I said, I’m fascinated.) KPN is a fiber optics connection. So, Amsterdam has a new partner that can bring all sorts of smart grid consumer options to the equation, as well as positioning the city for a very collaborative, very interactive, very digitally high tech fiber future. And the announcement must have mentioned the word “cooperation” eight times in four paragraphs.

Perhaps investing in the smart grid, at its core, doesn’t start with the technology or even with cash on the table. Perhaps there’s a real lesson in Amsterdam’s Smart City progress that we can mull over in the U.S.: Can we get further ahead if we set aside “who’s paying” and “who’s benefiting right now” and “how does this make my personal life better immediately” and start thinking a bit more collectively?

Is cooperation the first step to a smarter grid and smarter cities?