(Vice President Joe Biden speaks to soldiers at Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri today. Photo by Charlie Riedel / AP)
by Rebecca Cole
Vice President Joe Biden today unveiled details for distributing more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funding for grants to drive the rollout of a nationwide smart grid.
Under the plan, the Department of Energy will provide grants up to $20 million for smart grid technology deployments and up to $5 million for the deployment of grid monitoring devices.
The smart grid, a major plank of Biden and President Barack Obama's "rebuilding America" pledge, has been endlessly touted as a way to modernize the nation's aging electricity system and move the country off fossil fuels while creating thousands of jobs.
But although a flurry of activity has occurred in the halls of Congress, with both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in the past month introducing clean energy legislation aimed at upgrading the grid, among other initiatives, no "shovel ready" smart grid projects have appeared on the horizon.
Speaking in Jefferson, Mo., alongside Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Biden announced the money would be funneled toward smart grid technology development grants, with an additional $615 million for energy storage, monitoring and technology viability.
"We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country -- to take the wind from the midwest and the sun from the southwest and power areas across the country," Biden said in a statement. "By investing in updating the grid now, we will lower utility bills for American families and businesses, lessen our dependence on foreign oil and create good jobs that will drive our economic recovery -- a strong return on our investment."
Next month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu plans to bring together key stakeholders to develop a roadmap for creating a set of industry-wide standards to unlock the potential of the smart grid. Without agreement on standards, energy experts say, the promise of an "intelligent" smart grid to communicate in real-time with customers at one end and energy companies at the other is a pipe dream.
With players running the gamut from private utility operators, vendors and manufacturers to state regulators and consumer representatives, creating a baseline set of standards could prove difficult.
"It's a huge challenge," said Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. "It's the next big thing for the smart grid community and a top priority for Chu to make it happen."
But with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the agency tasked with managing the standardization process, setting the end of 2009 as the deadline for reviewing and approving smart grid standards, those new jobs the vice president talked about may just have to wait until next year.
Comments
Biden should not be touting anything with the word "smart" in it!!!!
Posted by: Joe | April 16, 2009 5:54 PM
An investment in building a smart grid is overdue, and waiting any longer will jeopardize future energy and economic sustainability. Massive blackouts due to grid failure have occurred more frequently in recent years—with three in the past nine years alone— costing the U.S economy around $100 billion each year in damages and lost business. A smart grid will not only diminish the chances of recurrent blackouts by establishing automated control of the electricity network, but it will make the grid more secure from deliberate, and potentially disastrous, attempts to disrupt it.
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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/grid_101.html
Posted by: ComeAsYouAre | April 16, 2009 5:59 PM
Surprised Obama lets him open his mouth.
Posted by: Inky | April 16, 2009 6:58 PM
Google is angling for this big money and CEO Eric Schmidt is an ardent Obama supporter.
These grids will enable the companies to dim your lights, reduce/increase the temperature in your home.
In essence it controls the use of electricity.
Keep government out of your life.
Next they'll count the flushes from your water meter and notify you to cut back on liquids.
Posted by: Bonnie | April 16, 2009 7:04 PM
Everyone knows the grid is old and needs work. It is hard to imagine anyone denying that we need to take a transmission system that dates back to the turn of the century and modernize it. We can either replace it with the same dumb grid we have today or make it smarter using new technology. Blackouts currently cost about $25-180 billion per year. Fixing the grid will be expensive; probably north of $1 trillion. But, it is an investment that will have to be made sooner or later and it has the potential to produce payback that would be nice to have soon rather than later.
This is really not an issue about local control, since the grid is a vast and expensive system that has little or no local control right now. As other posters have rightly pointed out, I was not singing the praises of smart grid. I just wanted to know what it was about smart grid that was going to supposedly be "dictatorial" and remove local control.
A new grid would enable energy savings, by sending 2-way communication signals about costs at peak usage times. It would also cut down on the need for wasting energy in spinning reserves. It would enable the integration of more renewable energy sources, increase overall system reliability, and help meet projected load growth. I don't really see a down side to this, especially with the very modest down payment Obama is making in smart grid. I don't see how saying this makes me an industry shill, since I am just pointing out things that any one familiar with this issue should know.
Posted by: tekie | April 16, 2009 8:00 PM
Biden should not be touting anything with the word "smart" in it!!!!
Posted by: Joe | April 16, 2009 5:54 PM
.
You know, it's had to believe that in just eight short years the Republican party has gone from holding power in the White House and both branchs of Congress to being a bunch of clownish morons (see Joe and Inky above) who stand on the sidelines shaking their teabags and screaming that the sky is going to fall if we don't listen to them.
The GOP may be an empty black hole as a political party nowadays but the comedy material they provide us with is priceless.
Posted by: Blinky | April 16, 2009 8:11 PM
Wow... Joe and Inky putting up the really intelligent thoughtful comments. Thanks, righties. I guess teabagging wore out your brains, eh?
Posted by: Flo | April 16, 2009 8:49 PM
I guess teabagging wore out your brains, eh?
Posted by: Flo | April 16, 2009 8:49 PM
Possibly.....but it certainly hindered their view...ha ha ha
Posted by: bill r. | April 17, 2009 7:49 AM