Building a more efficient way to move electricity takes careful planning and strategy. Every moment the entire grid must be changed to balance energy supply with the demand for electricity.
NorthWestern Energy has joined with regional partners to develop a smart grid demonstration project using matching stimulus monies from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). We’re using innovative technologies to find ways we can enhance the safety, reliability and efficiency of our system.
What is Smart Grid?
Smart Grid is an advanced, telecommunication/electric grid with sensors and smart devices linking all aspects of the current grid, from generator to consumer, and delivering enhanced operational capabilities that:
- Provide CONSUMERS with the information and tools necessary to be responsive to electricity grid conditions, including price and reliability, through the use of electric devices and new services.
- Ensure EFFICIENT use of the electric grid optimizing current assets while integrating emerging technologies such as renewable and storage devices.
- Enhance RELIABILITY by protecting the grid from cyber attacks and other disruptions and also by increasing power quality and promoting early detection and self correcting of the grid.
Our Plan
NorthWestern Energy is planning to prolong the life of our current utility system by utilizing new technology and innovative approaches. This is a two-part plan that occurs on both the utility and customer side of the meter.
On the utility side of the meter, we are piloting conservation voltage reduction (CVR), volt/VAR optimization, and distribution automation. The utility side does not require customer participation – the utility has the ability to adjust the distribution system voltage to conserve energy without affecting customer equipment.
The customer side of the meter requires customer participation. NorthWestern Energy is currently identifying a sample group of customers in Helena and Philipsburg, MT, who will be testing this approach. They will be utilizing Home Area Networks and interval metering, which will give them the tools and know-how to be smarter energy consumers. NorthWestern Energy will monitor and measure customer acceptance and energy use behavioral changes.
NorthWestern’s project is unique in that it will test applications in both small urban and rural settings. Through the project, NorthWestern plans to test techniques that will monitor activities in real time, exchange data about supply and demand and adjust power use to changing load requirements. We will monitor and measure customer acceptance and energy use behavioral changes. This will better inform our decision making about potential future expansions of the Smart Grid.
Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project
NorthWestern Energy’s smart grid plan is part of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project (PNW-SGDP). This project – one of 16 smart grid demonstration projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – will be a unique demonstration of unprecedented geographic breadth across five Pacific Northwest states – Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. It involves more than 60,000 metered customers and contains many key functions of the future smart grid.
The PNW-SGDP will demonstrate the potential for a safe, scalable, and inter-operable smart grid for regulated and nonregulated utility environments. The project is managed by Battelle’s Pacific Northwest Division located in Richland, Washington. Battelle is a $5.6 billion not-for-profit organization that benefits mankind by helping solve some of the world’s toughest science and technology based challenges.
The project team will install equipment and technology now through mid-2012. Then, for about the next two years, project leaders will gather data on smart grid performance from 13 test sites that represent the region’s diverse terrain, weather, and demographics. The test sites stretch from Fox Island in Washington state’s Puget Sound, to southwestern Montana, and include the main campuses of the University of Washington and Washington State University. The project will interact with more than 112 megawatts of electrical resource — load and generation — which is equivalent to the electricity needed to serve 86,000 households.
No single entity could accomplish the smart grid effort. This partnership will allow each partner to contribute its piece of the project, leading to a robust, diverse, and comprehensive test of smart grid technology. Click here for a chart on the organizational structure of the PNW-SGDP (213KB 
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Questions and Answers
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Who is involved regionally and how much will this cost?
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NorthWestern Energy is part of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project whose participants are part of a mix of public and private entities that will fund half of the approximately $178 million cost. We will invest $2.1 million to upgrade portions of our electric distribution system with smart grid technology. NorthWestern Energy has been chosen to receive approximately the same amount in matching grant funds from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the project. |
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How will this project benefit customers?
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Electric customers within the project footprint will experience greater reliability, shorter outage times, and the opportunity to monitor their energy use in order to consume it more efficiently and effectively at less cost. Ultimately, the project will move the region and nation closer to establishing a more efficient and effective electricity infrastructure that’s expected to help contain costs, reduce emissions, incorporate more wind power and other types of renewable energy, increase power grid reliability, and provide greater flexibility for consumers. The five-year, cost-shared PNW-SGDP will yield benefits beyond advances in smart grid implantation, including at its peak the creation of as many as 1,500 jobs in manufacturing, installing, and operating smart grid equipment, telecommunications networks, software, and controls. |
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What are the risks?
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Significant hurdles exist to the widespread adoption of smart grid technologies, including the following.
- Consumers have concerns over privacy and government involvement.
- There are social concerns over “fair” availability of electricity.
- Utilities may have limited ability to rapidly transform their business and operational environment to take advantage of smart grid technologies.
- Before a utility installs an advanced metering system, or any type of smart system, it must make a business case for the investment.
- Regulatory or legislative actions can also drive utilities to implement pieces of a smart grid puzzle. Each utility has a unique set of business, regulatory, and legislative drivers that guide its investments. This means that each utility will take a different path to creating their smart grid and that different utilities will create smart grids at different adoption rates.
Because this is a pilot project, not all risks will be known until implementation and testing can begin. That is why being a part of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project is beneficial to NorthWestern Energy because no single entity could accomplish this effort alone. Each partner in the PNW-SGDP contributes its piece of the project, leading to a robust, diverse, and comprehensive test of smart grid technology that can be used as a foundation for growth and future, widespread adoption. Shared learning from each individual project will translate into collective knowledge about smart grid. |
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Why is it called a “smart grid” and what are “smart” devices?
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In principle, the smart grid is an upgrade of the 20th century power grid. Such a modernized electricity system is made possible by applying sensing, measurement, and control devices with two-way communications to electricity production, transmission, distribution, and consumption parts of the power grid that communicate information about grid conditions to system users, operators, and automated devices, making it possible to dynamically respond to changes in grid conditions.
The conditions or events to which a smart grid, broadly stated, could respond occur anywhere in the power generation, distribution, and demand chain. Events may occur generally in the environment. For example, clouds block the sun and reduce the amount of solar power or a very hot day requiring increased use of air conditioning. They could occur commercially in the power supply market. For example, customers change their use of energy as prices are set to reduce energy use during high peak demand. Events might also occur locally on the distribution grid. For example, a transformer fails, requiring a temporary shutdown of one distribution line. Finally, these events might occur in the home. For example, everyone leaves for work, putting various devices into hibernation. Each event motivates a change to power flow. A “smart device” refers to a device that is either digital, active, or computer networked that is user reconfigurable and can operate to some extent autonomously. |
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What is the time line for this project?
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The project began in 2010 and will continue through 2014. During this time, we will build, operate, evaluate, and report on the project. Click here to see the project time line (219KB ). |
Learn More
To better understand smart grid, check out the following resources.
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