Transforming the Grid: The Opportunity
Just as regulatory change created a consumer-focused telecommunications industry, it stands to reason that a reformed electricity regulatory structure will produce similar results. In fact, many of the technologies needed to meet 21st century power demands already exist. Founded on Six Sigma quality methods and researched and designed by a team of industry experts, the Perfect Power System features local power generation from renewable and other distributed sources, including solar panels, generators,batteries and un-used hybrid automobiles. It incorporates smart in-home devices and meters and a selfsustaining infrastructure with smart switches, which ensure reliability and efficiency.
Such microgrids may encompass a building complex, a campus or an entire community, with power managed by smart controllers. Owned by a town, a third party or a utility, a microgrid can interact with dozens more, woven into a collective that increases systemic strength. Smart controls can instantly identify and isolate a fault, so that customers no longer experience power outages. With dynamic price information provided in real time, the system enables users to control power use and spending. Consumers who produce or store excess electricity – say from solar panels or an electric vehicle – can sell power back into the grid. Estimated annual savings from a smart microgrid can exceed installation costs by a factor of four to five.
Operating in concert with the bulk power grid, a network of microgrids will enable the system to efficiently re-route power and smooth out the spikes of peak demand. In turn, this reduces or eliminates the need to build more conventional plants to meet demand. Under a regulatory transformation, utility and private investment will shift from expanding the system to optimizing its performance, expediting alternative and renewable power development and creating new green job opportunities.
The campus-wide Perfect Power System at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago – the first such system built in the U.S. – is the Galvin Initiative’s flagship project. It’s the result of collaboration among the Initiative and IIT; Commonwealth Edison and its parent company Exelon; Endurant Energy, an entrepreneurial energy developer; and S&C Electric Company, which is a global provider of electric power systems. The IIT system is designed to pay for itself as it’s built, over a period of nearly five years. The U.S. Department of Energy recently joined the effort, providing $7 million to further condense the payback period while contributing to a cutting-edge prototype for nationwide grid modernization.
