Utilities will want to note an unmistakable shift in the wind with the President’s proposal: more money for renewables and a generous nod to reviving the all but dormant nuclear sector — and less free money for fossil fuels and gas.

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President Obama’s $28.4 billion FY 2011 DOE budget request asks for more money for renewable energy and a secure, reliable Smart Grid, research and innovation and for almost tripling loan guarantees for renewable and nuclear energy. It also whacks over $2.7 billion in tax subsidies for the oil, coal and gas industries and cancels planned expansion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The proposal is also, in a very big way, about creating jobs.

The budget request, $2 billion more than the 2010 budget proposal, includes:

· $217 million in new cash for science research and discovery;

· $300 million for DOE’s Advanced Research Project Agency — Energy (ARPA-E);

· Lending authority for about $40 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy progams;

· $108 million in new money for more research in wind, solar and geothermal energy.

It also includes well over $1 billion for a broad range of nonproliferation, security and research for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Losers in the proposal include:

· Oil, coal and gas industries that would lose more than $2.7 billion in tax subsidies;

· The Ultra-Deepwater exploration program which would be deep-sixed to save $50 million;

· The Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s planned expansion would be cut, saving $71 million.

“The President’s budget cuts wasteful spending while making wise investments in innovation, and clean energy that will put Americans back to work, save families money and keep our nation competitive in the global marketplace,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. “This budget supports new approaches to clean energy research and invests in the next generation of scientists and engineers, and it will spark new clean energy projects nationwide, including restarting the American nuclear power industry.”

GridWise Alliance President Katherine Hamilton called Obama’s budget the best budget document from a Smart Grid perspective to date. “Today the White House announced a beefed up budget for Smart Grid, which will allow the Department of Energy to increase its staffing to ensure that recovery projects are carried out successfully,” she said. “The $40 million slated for the Office of Electricity is a 30 percent increase and is a 300 percent increase for energy storage, one of the key components of a smarter grid.”

Among what surely will be several sticking points in the budget request is the proposal to almost triple loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. It was immediately criticized as a massive waste of money and an additional burden on taxpayers. Opponents pointed to earlier government reports that the risk of default in new nuclear plant construction projects could reach 50 percent.

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From the source …

· EERE press release

Smart Grid: Obama Boosts Smart Grid Again, But Its a Lump of Coal for Fossil Fuels and Gas Subsidies.

via YouTube – Smart Grid: Part 1 of 7: High Performance in Data Management — Moving from Overload to Insights.

News Analysis

Finally, Sophisticated Command and Control Comes to Smart Grid

There’s still a long way to go, but the Smart Grid is finally getting the sophisticated ‘situational awareness’ it deserves. As utilities modernize their grids, they also need to modernize their control rooms. A while back Jesse did some consulting to Lockheed Martin. In the process, he learned that the company has decades of experience in real-time command and control of ultra-complex systems. Now they are putting that know-how to work in behalf of the Smart Grid. (He also got a sneak preview of LM’s new product and came away impressed.) Take a look yourselves and use the Comment form at the bottom to tell the rest of us what you think.

Global security giant Lockheed Martin has released its Smart Energy Enterprise Suite, SEEsuite^TM that provides improved command and control for utility Smart Grid investments.

SEEsuite takes advantage of Lockheed Martin’s experience in systems-of-systems integration, service-oriented architectures, cyber security and mission-critical systems development geared for the specific needs of utilities.

The advanced Smart Grid management applications helps customers manage electricity load when the grid is under stress or market prices are unstable, integrate and balance load from distributed energy producers, increase situational awareness when advanced decisions are necessary and deploy and manage microgrids, those elements of the electric grid that work independently of the overall grid.

The applications include SEEload^TM for Distributed Energy Resource Management, SEEview^TMfor Smart Grid Situational Awareness (image below) and SEEgrid^TM for Integrated Grid Management.

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“We are excited to provide utilities and defense customers with improved command and control and situational awareness of their Smart Grid assets,” said John Mengucci, president of Information Systems & Global Services-Defense. “We are helping our customers not only make the grid smarter, but also more reliable, more resilient, more secure and more flexible to meet the growing needs of our increasingly electricity-based economy.

Maryland-based Lockheed Martin provides a wide range of energy solutions to an even wider range of customers: DOE, DOD, EPA, utilities, state and national energy organizations and others.

You might also be interested in:

· Future Control Centers (pdf)

Related SGN resources …

· Smart Grid Command and Control

· Asset Management

Smart Grid: Finally, Sophisticated Command and Control Comes to Smart Grid.

Jan 25, 2010

If Smart Grid renewable integration is causing problems or concerns, you’ve got FERC’s ear.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is asking for help as the agency works to be sure its policies are keeping up with the growth of new renewable energy sources.

The agency is re-examining its policies to ensure that they can help integrate renewable energy into the Smart Grid efficiently and fairly while also ensuring grid reliability.

That’s where you come in. FERC is asking for comment on that integration and how new energy resources will affect the following:

· Data and reporting requirements, including accurate forecasting tools

· Scheduling flexibility and incentives for accurate scheduling of variable energy resources

· Forward market structure and reliability commitments

· Balancing Authority Area size and coordination

· Suitability of reserve products

· Capacity market reforms

· Re-dispatch and curtailment practices

Comments on the notice, Integration of Variable Energy Resources, are due 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff acknowledged the accelerating growth of renewables and said, “To accommodate that expansion, it is our job to ensure that FERC has in place the market and operational reforms necessary to ensure that all wholesale electricity tariffs are just, reasonable and not unduly discriminatory.”

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From the source …

· FERC press release

Smart Grid: Smart Grid Renewables: FERC Wants to Know What YOU Think.

By Jacob Grose

The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced $620 million for Smart Grid demonstration and energy-storage projects. These include two grid storage projects, from AEP in Ohio and Detroit Edison in Michigan, which incorporate community-scale energy-storage (CES) pilots. These CES projects use lithium-ion battery packs similar in capacity to electric vehicle packs (about 50 kWh), placing them in residential areas to smooth neighborhood loads and help integrate distributed solar and plug-in electric vehicles. The goal is to improve local service reliability while also behaving as a single larger energy-storage system by aggregating the systems together through the utility’s data network.

These installations show a new way in which lithium-ion batteries can be used to take advantage of their strengths relative to other storage technologies: they don’t require high temperatures, large volumes, or pumps or other moving parts that are challenging for consumers to accept and for utilities to service. If successful, CES projects offer another market for lithium-ion cell manufacturers, like A123Systems and BYD. Both of the DOE grant recipients will use S&C Electric as the integrator that builds the CES systems, with the Detroit Edison units using A123Systems’ cells and the AEP units using an undisclosed third-party supplier’s cells. S&C was previously the dominant integrator for sodium-sulfur battery installations in the U.S., and this contract will establish it as the leader in CES, as well.

One important challenge for CES is that though the utilities deploying the CES system will likely benefit electrically and operationally, they won’t benefit much financially from it. For instance, commonly in the U.S., utilities must categorize grid assets as one of three things – generation, transmission and distribution, or load; since this application crosses these boundaries, determining a rate case that captures all the value the CES system creates is not possible. There is discussion about ways to restructure utility compensation in the U.S. at high levels, such as at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but it’s too early to say what the eventual regulations will favor, and currently the value proposition for such systems is unclear. Readers interested in CES should monitor these pilot projects closely to see how much real-world operational benefit is gained, and also monitor associated regulations for signs of progress before committing serious capital to distributed storage.

Jacob Grose is an analyst for Lux Research, which provides strategic advice and on-going intelligence for emerging technologies. Leaders in business, finance and government rely on Lux Research to help them make informed strategic decisions. Through their unique research approach focused on primary research and their extensive global network, they deliver insight, connections and competitive advantage to their clients. For more information, visit the Lux Research site or contact Carole Jacques to become a Lux Research client.

More from the source …

· Lux Research home page

Smart Grid: Two DOE-Funded Pilots Will Test New CES Strategy with Li-ion Batteries.

Voltage and Var Optimization (VVO) will help by optimizing reactive resources and voltage control capabilities continuously throughout the year.

Differing from the traditional approach using uncoordinated local controls, VVO uses real-time information and online system modeling to provide optimized and coordinated control for unbalanced distribution networks with discrete controls.