The region”™s electrical grid is on track to get smarter, but at a more remedial pace than proponents of a better grid were anticipating.
Despite Fairfield County being listed as one of the nation”™s four problem corridors for electricity reliability, Connecticut”™s lone federal stimulus funding recipient for electric grid upgrades was the New London County-based Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (CMEEC), which is receiving $9 million for 13,000 smart meters and related systems.
Northeast Utilities, the largest utility operating in Fairfield County and New England, recently was denied in its bid for more than $125 million in stimulus funding for “smart grid” systems that bring about more efficient use of electricity generators.
ISO New England Inc., the nonprofit overseer of the regional grid in Holyoke, Mass., did receive nearly $4 million to install “synchophasors” needed to speed the response time to failures in the grid, with benefits expected for Connecticut.
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But New Haven-based United Illuminating Co., which provides power in the Bridgeport area and which had applied for $38 million in funding for smarter meters, was denied.
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Next-generation meters are expected to offer variable rates depending on time of day and could reimburse producers of homemade electricity.
Days after appearing in Stamford at a fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, President Barack Obama revealed $3.4 billion in funding for more than 100 smart grid projects across the country, ranging in size from $800,000 for a town on Martha”™s Vineyard to $136 million for Consolidated Edison Inc. in metropolitan New York.
Dodd and fellow U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman released statements praising the funding for CMEEC, while remaining silent on the failed bids by Northeast Utilities and United Illuminating Co.
Hartford-based Northeast Utilities owns Connecticut Light & Power Co., the dominant utility in Fairfield County and Connecticut. The company had applied for funding to purchase smart meters for 200,000 customers in Connecticut, many of them in Stamford and Greenwich. Northeast Utilities would have also used funding to install “smart appliances” from Fairfield-based General Electric Co., with the first installation slated for an apartment complex under construction in Stamford.
Northeast Utilities estimates the grant would have produced more than 500 jobs.
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“We are disappointed for our customers that we didn”™t receive the funding, but we still believe in the benefits of smart grid technology,” said Al Lara, a spokesman for Northeast Utilities. “So do our states ”“ existing regulations in Connecticut ”¦ and Massachusetts encourage us to deploy smart grid technology to our customers.
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“The proposal is not off the table,” Lara added. “We are still considering proceeding with it even without the funding. Our next step will be to assess the cost and value of bringing smart grid functionality to each of our states without that funding. That is going to be a process that is going to be taking a while.”
One thing Northeast Utilities does not lack is cash ”“ while third quarter profits were down 11 percent to $65 million due in part to the recession and a cool summer, earnings are still up 12 percent on a year-to-date basis.
However, the company already has a $1.5 billion project underway to build a set of transmission lines running east-west across southern New England, along with $900 million in smaller capital projects throughout its customer territories.
Northeast Utilities stated it received a good response from a pilot test of some 3,000 smart meters in Connecticut, many of them in Fairfield County. It plans to file formal results with the Connecticut Department of Utility Control by Dec. 1, and to air its next steps with regard to smart meters in the first quarter of next year.
