Smart Grid Today Podcast

EnergyHub VP of Business Development Matt Johnson shared with us details of the progress his firm has had deploying its distributed energy resource or DER management system (DERMS) with utility firms to help them see true value from the DERs deployed on their grids in the form of energy management and even voltage response. Of the firm’s 40-plus utility clients, mostly in the US, about 10 are now using the EnergyHub system with batteries deployed in customer premises, and this is up from about zero not too many years ago, he told us. The industry is quickly jumping past the piloting stage with full deployments, and the DERs being used include Wi-Fi enabled water heaters and more, he told us.

Marina Donovan returned to the podcast to tell us about a report the firm prepared based on surveys of the electric industry and its customers about emergency preparedness. She is vice president of global marketing and public affairs at Itron and shared what the utilities are doing, what their customers perceive them to be doing, and what more can be done as technology helps the industry cope with nature’s wrath to offer the best possible preparedness and resilience.

Joshua Wong is founder and CEO of Opus One Solutions, an electric grid software firm that works with top electric utilities putting the intelligence into grid operations. The firm started with DER management software (DERMS) but has grown in recent years to offering grid management systems covering many problems and opportunities for its utility clients including transactive energy, and he offered lots of insight into what his firm is doing and what the changing industry can achieve.

Arutyunov is VP of Product Management and a co-founder of Xage Security and returned to the podcast, this time to share details about how Chicago utility Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) is using Xage technology to secure distributed energy resources (DERs) – a timely subject as many experts are telling the electric industry how serious an issue this is today.

Activu Vice President John Stark is a long-time veteran in the utility control room view monitor space and, at Activu, is well versed in the latest developments in serving control room technology for utilities of all sizes along with transmission organizations including ISO/RTOs, along with many other industries that use similar technology. He explained how the control room at the top of today’s smart grids benefits from the latest in digital technology his firm offers and the systems it can interact with and help make more beneficial.

Centrica Business Solutions VP and Head of Sales for North America Kate Sherwood told us about how her firm offers services and technologies – including software, hardware, consulting, and energy procurement, especially focused on DER applications and management and planning for financial risks – for large energy users to help them modernize their operations to best take advantage of the digitalization of the energy world. This is an area of smart grid with big payoffs and she explained details and examples of how her firm delivers these.

Smarter Grid Solutions offers distributed energy resources management software – or DERMS – that answers maybe the most critical dilemma of our time: How to deploy lots of renewable and variable distributed generation onto the grid. With headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland, and a laboratory in New York City, the firm is playing a key role in helping some of the largest utilities in the UK and the US, including Southern California Edison, understand the importance of overbuilding and compensation for curtailment risk. And he explained why.

Viking Cold Storage uses a proprietary technology with a patented approach to creating ice to store energy for industries that need to keep products cold or frozen – such as food, medicines, and others – and is as much a software firm, managing sensors, meters, and controls, as it is a hardware firm. He described incredible energy savings, up to half, that his firm has delivered to its clients, including household name food vendors like Whole Foods, and others across the US and the world. He definitely sees his product and service as a distributed energy resource and he told us about his vision for its role in the modernization of the energy world.

Urjanet gets data from an astounding number of utilities around the globe on behalf of its clients who then can use the data for their own benefit and savings, or pass those services and benefits to end users. The services that are created from the data cover a wide range of opportunities that vary depending on the type of utility the data comes from – not only electric but all kinds of utilities are involved – and can include not just energy savings and efficiency but many others including financial services and even identity verification, such as proving to a bank or other entity that residents live where they say they do. He explained for us how it works...

John Di Stasio is president of the Large Public Power Council (LPPC). He represents the larger municipal electric utilities in advising lawmakers and government officials in Washington, DC, on how laws and regulations can best support the goals his members share with the general public, namely foregoing command and control regulatory models in favor of allowing the ingenuity of the utilities to flourish in creating desired outcomes. His 35-year career in the electric industry includes having been CEO of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD, for multiple years the utility was implementing smart grid. We talked about that and lots of relevant topics including how his group thinks the discussions in Congress about infrastructure upgrades need to include the electric industry.