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.