Electric Co-op Today

Rick Schmidt doesn’t blame anyone who leaves a tech expo thinking you can buy Smart Grid in a box.

“If you look back at other kinds of automation programs,” he said, “you can buy a turnkey package to install it, to integrate it.”

In reality, he noted, “All of these are all pieces of the Smart Grid that really need to flow together.” Schmidt, vice president of utility communications at the consulting firm Power System Engineering, spoke at the forum: “What They Are Not Telling You About Smart Grid, Plug-in Hybrids and Carbon Capture.”

For co-ops, he said, it all starts with “the building blocks of Smart Grid.”

“Does [the co-op] have an AMI system in place?” he asked. “Does it have a SCADA system in place?

What kind of tower assets are in place? What kind of communications infrastructure is already there?”

Because the answers for each co-op are different, he said, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

“A technology plan for one cooperative that might have 50,000 members and another cooperative that [also] has 50,000 members actually might have a lot different look to their road map,” Schmidt said, “because the starting point could be different.”

While noting that vendors and IOUs often have “incentive to talk up the Smart Grid,” Schmidt offered his own view: “We really see the Smart Grid as giving you the tools to better proactively manage the supply side of the business.”

“On the other side of the coin,” he added, “you have the meters being smarter. And then on the member side, having demand response programs going beyond load management. The Smart Grid really is an enabler of these activities.”

Tags: Annual Meeting, Smart Grid, Transmission and Distribution