Reliability, Deployments Are Works-in-Progress on Smart Grid, Study Finds

Utility companies' main concern with a nationwide smart electricity grid is improving service reliability, according to a report released this week that also found that only 20 percent of utilities have started working on a systemwide smart grid deployment.

The report released this week, titled Smart Grid Challenges & Choices: Utility Executives' Vision for the New Decade, from Oracle Utilities, a division of the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software and hardware giant, highlights what utilities are expecting as the smart grid starts to become reality. Oracle surveyed American and Canadian utility executives to determine what the next decade has in store for smart grid development.

Only one in five utilities is actually moving forward with systemwide deployment of the smart grid, said Brad Williams, vice president of product management for Oracle Utilities, in an interview with Government Technology. Thirty-four percent said their activity on smart grid deployment currently is nothing more than waiting and watching. "Most are looking or evaluating, watching what others are doing or are doing pilot initiatives," Williams said.

As many consumers already know, smart meters are the most visible element to date of smart grid deployment. According to the Oracle report, 63 percent of utilities say smart meters are the smart grid components that will be adopted the quickest.

Interestingly only 30 percent of respondents said the integration of renewable energy sources are likely to be adopted on a large scale through the smart grid. And among those sources, hydrologic and wind power were deemed far more likely than solar power to be integrated into smart grids.

Executives at large utilities said that over the next decade, smart grid deployment will result in more or better energy usage information to enable smarter energy choices. Executives at smaller utilities shared this belief but also tended to be likelier to perceive smart grids as being environmentally friendly.

Though few utilities have actually started an enterprise smart grid deployment, the Oracle report found consensus on what needs to be done. According to executives surveyed, for smart grids to be successful, the following need to take place:

• sharing best practices with peers (80 percent of respondents);
• developing an information architecture strategy (76 percent);
• developing smart grid industry standards (71 percent); and
• publishing results of pilot projects and internal research (63 percent).

Williams said the information architecture piece was particularly interesting.

"This is one of the issues a lot of utilities are thinking about: approaching smart grid as a series of projects," he said. "Not that many have really approached it as the life cycle of managing these technologies and, more importantly, managing the information associated with these technologies. A recommendation from utility executives is to establish an information architecture that will deal with this exponential growth of data."

Building information architecture is also where state and local technology leaders can step in to help make smart grids a reality, Williams said.

"[Government CIOs] can help establish these practices and policies around some of the standardization activities, how to structure the information so it can be shared, as well advising policymakers and collaborating with utility CIOs on an information architecture smart grid," he said.