The Edison Foundation Institute for Electric Innovation, formerly IEE, released a new publication, Innovations Across the Grid, that showcases more than 70 utility-technology company partnerships that are fundamentally changing how electricity is delivered, managed, and used across the country.
The book was released during a panel discussion at the Newseum. The projects featured in it provide an inside look at how utilities are deploying digital communications, sensors, control systems, and millions of digital smart meters to position the electric power grid for the 21st century and beyond.
"This book highlights the projects we are undertaking as an industry to meet the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly evolving world," said Institute for Electric Innovation Co-Chair and NorthWestern Energy President and CEO Bob Rowe. "Innovations Across the Grid exemplifies the electric utility industry's commitment to making the grid more reliable, resilient, secure, and efficient for our customers and American businesses."
Institute for Electric Innovation Co-Chair and OGE Energy Corp. Chairman, President and CEO Peter Delaney added, "As reliance on electricity continues to grow it reinforces the critical importance of reliability, power quality, and affordability. The electric utility industry is meeting the challenge to develop and deploy smart grid technologies that make the grid more reliable and provide customers the information they want. This book shows that investments are being made across the United States by a multitude of utilities and technology partners."
"The industry is on the cutting edge of innovation when it comes to investing in the grid," said Institute for Electric Innovation Executive Director Lisa Wood. "The combined entrepreneurial thinking and engineering know-how sparked by these innovations and key industry partnerships are optimizing grid resources on both the supply-side and the demand-side of the electric meter for everyone's benefit. I am proud that this groundbreaking book is the first publication released under the rebranded name of the Institute for Electric Innovation."
Innovations Across the Grid focuses on seven key areas of grid development:
Grid Edge Optimization – Increasing visibility at the edges of the traditional electricity distribution network to improve service reliability and increase grid efficiency.Grid Resiliency, Reliability, and Restoration – Making the grid less vulnerable to weather-related outages and reducing the time it takes to restore power after an outage occurs.Grid Visibility and Asset Management – Deploying distribution automation and advanced metering infrastructure, and linking systems to improve asset management and the operational efficiency of electric distribution systems.Grid Analytics – Using information from smart meters, grid sensing devices, and asset monitoring for end-to-end data analytics to optimize the transmission and distribution systems and improve grid performance.Renewable Energy, Distributed Generation, and Storage Integration – Integrating distributed generation resources in a robust power grid, deploying microgrids, and utilizing electrical energy storage devices effectively into a robust, flexible, and reliable grid.Customer Engagement – Educating and empowering electric utility customers to manage their energy use more strategically and efficiently.Demand Response and Energy Management – Using technology to simplify and automate customer access to and involvement in peak demand response events and using demand response to manage renewable energy integration.
