PROJECT EASY GREEN

When it comes smart grid, Italy is best known for its aggressive smart meter rollout. The country embraced advanced metering infrastructure mostly to cut down on theft, and not to empower customers, although that is starting to change. Enel, Italy’s largest electric company and the second largest in Europe, has installed smart meters for all of its 32 million customers.

Enel was out in front in meters, but the focus of stopping theft meant that more simplistic automatic meter reading, or AMR, technology was the choice in the early days. Although Enel continues to update their meters with the latest technology, the sheer volume of meters does not mean that it is a leader so far in layering applications on top of smart grid data.

But Italy, and Enel in particular, is gunning to be out front in a variety of smart grid areas, from EV integration to smart home integration and solar penetration. Here’s what to watch in Italy.

Renewable Energy. In 2010, Enel took its subsidiary, Enel Green Power (EGP), public. The company has more than 6,000 MW of capacity worldwide, including wind, hydro, geothermal and solar. “The company has concentrated all of its renewable generation in ENEL Green Power and has set an ambitious goal of doubling its wind capacity by 2020 and becoming a leading player in solar PV generation,” according to Geert-Jan van der Zanden, a European smart grid expert at GTM Research.

Solar. Solar is heating up in Italy, which had generous feed-in tariffs to help reach its goal of 30 gigawatts by 2020. There is some debate about how much is currently installed, with government figures being disputed by industry insiders. Either way, Sharp and EGP are opening a 160MW solar plant in the south of Italy, which is expected to be expanded to 210 MW by 2012. The government is also shifting the focus from large-scale to rooftop, although the current financial instability could undermine some of Italy's solar ambitions .

Energy@Home. Enel has partnered with Telecom Italia and Electrolux for a communications platform for a home area network that will allow for some of the value-added services that the metering hasn’t provided up until this point. The network will leverage its broadband gateway and Google is reportedly developing web applications. 

Enel is also a leader in the European ADDRESS research project, which is looking to create a network that is “flexible, reliable, accessible and economic.” The project is developing an “energy box” for small and medium consumers — including residents — to join in energy markets, according to IEEE member, Lorenzo Peretto. The energy box will interface with everything from rooftop PV to dishwashers in order to balance the demands of the grid with distributed generation and end loads.

EV Integration. The electric vehicle plans of Italy are in line with other European countries, including Germany and France. Enel is part of the European G4V project and Green eMotion. The E-Mobility Italy project anticipates that one-third of participants will depend on public charging infrastructure. Enel has partnered with Daimler for pilots in Pisa, Rome and Milan (including 400 charging stations) that will seek to identify the right mix of charging and how to centrally control charging to mitigate grid impact.

Italy is also further ahead than many other European countries on distribution automation, something that it will continue to focus on as it prepares its grid for EV integration.

For more information about Italy’s smart grid and other countries in Europe, look for GTM Research’s upcoming report, "The European Smart Grid 2012-2016: Technologies, Market Forecasts and Utility Profiles." Also check out the first installment in this series, Smart Grid Australia.

When it comes to smart grid, there are a lot of countries that get people excited. China comes to mind. So do Ireland, South Korea and California (which often just acts like its own country).

Another nation that is popping up more on the list these days is Australia. The country has a lot going for it when it comes to smart grid and smart energy: It has morphed into a solar powerhouse; it’s dabbling in smart cities; the government is connecting 90 percent of Aussie homes and workplaces with broadband; and there’s some interesting projects going on with distributed storage. Australia is also a deregulated market with a very high rate of customer turnover. Just as important, the government — both at the national and local level — is firmly committed to a range of initiatives to promote renewables and smart grid.

Here are the trends to watch Down Under:

• Smart Grid, Smart City.  EnergyAustralia (now EnergyAustralia and AusGrid) won the $100 million project that will include distributed storage, distribution generation, home energy management, substation automation, electric vehicle charging and time-of-use pricing. It involves more than 50 organizations (including IBM, GE Energy, AGL, Sydney Water, Hunter Water, Transgrid, and Australia’s national science agency (CSIRO) and will look at the advantages of integrating technologies across water, gas and broadband networks. Unlike some other smart grid projects, Smart Grid, Smart City is not just about technical issues but also how retail electricity providers can understand how the technology will impact their business case and how it will impact the entire community. “Australian smart grid projects have a stronger community-driven component than in the U.S.,” said Chet Geschickter, Senior Smart Grid Analyst for GTM Research. "Australia is trying to tackle broader sustainability issues that include water, transportation, homes and businesses."

• Storage. One of the ways that there is a greater focus on community solutions is distributed storage. For the Smart Grid, Smart City initiative, storage will come in the form of lithium-ion batteries, such as the ones that could still be used after their useful lifespan as a power source in electric vehicles has run its course. According to GTM Research, there are four small-scale trials overall, including ammonia to hydrogen/nitrogen, graphite, zinc bromine and ultrabatteries. Some of the most dynamic homegrown startups (Wizard Power, ZBB Energy, RedFlow, Ecoult) are also located at the intersection of renewables and storage.

• Solar. Australia has actively been in small-scale residential systems in recent years, a single retailer has more than 50,000 solar residential customers. But large-scale solar also contributed to the nearly 500 percent increase in solar PV in 2010. This was driven by the continent's Solar Cities initiative, solar credits, feed-in tariffs, PV price drops, and a favorable exchange rate, according to Eric Wesoff, who recently wrote about big solar in Australia.  

• Broadband. Most of Australia’s utilities will likely leverage the National Broadband Network, which is being built out now and will bring fiber optic cable to 90 percent of homes Down Under. While most of the country’s population is in urban and suburban areas, there are also vast areas that need to be covered to reach the most rural communities. However, a government-sponsored broadband rollout will free up utilities from having to individually build a communications network to every home and business. But that doesn’t mean that mesh, WiMax and cellular aren’t being used for specific applications.

• 20 by 2020. The Australian government has adopted a 20 percent renewable energy target for 2020. Although there are some individual states in the U.S. with equally aggressive goals, Australia wins for its comprehensive national framework. There are only seven states and just over 22 million people, so any decisions made on a national level are also likely to be adopted much faster than they would be in larger, more fragmented markets, like the U.S.

• Proximity to Asian Markets. Not only is Australia seen as a lily pad into China and other Asian markets for smart grid and renewables, but some of Australia’s largest electric distribution companies, such as CitiPower and Powercor, are majority-owned by Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings and Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited. Both China and Australia are also some of the most interesting countries to watch in terms of long-haul transmission, according to Geschickter, especially for linking renewables back to urban centers.

Distribution automation, especially with high penetration rates of residential PV, is also moving forward. Home energy management could also heat up in coming years. Australia has a high churn rate in the residential market amongst electric retailers, so retailers are looking for new ways to get and keep their customers. Australia can also be expected to stay out ahead on water issues, since the country is already facing severe water shortages. Smart Grid, Smart City includes some smart grid water components. “They’re going to run out of water before they run out of power,” said Geschickter.

When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg held his regular radio show live from City Hall on Friday, he urged New Yorkers to keep their air conditioning no cooler than 79 degrees during the day and throughout the weekend.

If you hadn’t been listening, you might have missed it. Most New Yorkers did. Consolidated Edison also asked its customers to curb electricity demand via a press release. Again, not very effective.

The urging comes as Con Edison, which serves New York City and Westchester County, is experiencing record-breaking power delivery and has already reduced voltages to some parts of Queens and Westchester, resulting in brownouts. It’s the same everywhere: hot.

PJM Interconnection set a new record for peak power use on Thursday, delivering 158,450 megawatts of power across its mid-Atlantic territory. On Wednesday, the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator hit a record too, delivering 103,975 megawatts across 12 Midwest states. MISO’s record power delivery forced the organization to declare an emergency alert.

The brownout for some 100,000 Con Ed customers is not ideal, but many argue that it could be worse (think 2003). “Con Ed has done a great job so far,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Friday. But it could be a lot better.

"System operators refer to a rolling blackout or brownout as 'load shed,'" said Chet Geschickter, Senior Smart Grid Analyst at GTM Research. "But to a customer, losing power is an outage, and a nasty one at that if it's during a heat wave. None of this would be necessary if a reliable demand curtailment program was in place. It's better to take a little from a lot of people than it is to take everything from a few people."

Although Con Edison and other utilities have various demand response programs, mostly in the C+I sector, there needs to be a whole lot more, and a whole lot more automation on the residential side to be able to manage peak loads as effectively as possible.

“With today’s smart monitoring, diagnostic, control and in-home technologies, utilities can ensure they meet this demand in a cost-effective and sustainable manner and that consumers have better information to manage their usage and costs,” said Bob Gilligan, President & CEO of digital energy for GE Energy. The technology is here. It’s time to deploy it. 

Sweltering summers have become the norm, not the exception, across much of the U.S. It is during these peak hours that a smart grid can deliver on its promise. The sun is beating down on most of the U.S., so solar panels could help alleviate some of the stress on the grid by providing power during peak. However high penetration of renewables requires a smarter, more dynamic grid. 

Technologies from companies like ThinkEco or Ecofactor could help deliver residential solutions. Even Wi-Fi thermostats could allow people to turn down their air conditioning remotely after they leave the house, and turn it on right before they come home so that it isn’t running all day long.

Even more demand response, from every possible sector, which will take more finely tuned automation in the industry, could greatly reduce peak.

Distribution automation upgrades allow for better power delivery, meaning that a slight reduction in voltage might not lead to as many brownouts at the end of the line.

Interestingly, PJM Interconnection said that Thursday’s peak load was met and demand response was not needed.

How hot is it where you are? How you seeing the advantages of smart grid technologies coming into play? Where are the shortcomings?