Smart Grid Blog

GridPoint, Inc., an established leader in smart grid solutions, announced today that it will provide home energy management, load management and electric vehicle management software solutions for KCP&L’s Green Impact Zone SmartGrid Demonstration in Kansas City, Mo. The project is the recipient of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding. GridPoint worked with the utility to draft the proposal, which is part of $620 million allocated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in support of smart grid demonstration projects.

via GridPoint to Provide Solutions for KCP&L’s Smart Grid Demonstration Project.

Kansas City Power & Light Co. has committed $14 million during five years as part of an application for $48 million in federal stimulus money for smart-grid technology in Kansas City’s Green Impact Zone.

Several corporate partners — including Siemens and Kokam America — committed $10 million to the effort. That combined $24 million commitment is contingent on receiving a matching grant of $24 million from the U.S. Department of Energy through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Mike Chesser, CEO of Kansas City-based Great Plains Energy Inc. (NYSE: GXP), which owns KCP&L, announced the project at a Tuesday ceremony marking the opening of the Green Impact Zone Assistance Center at 4600 The Paseo. About 150 people attended the event.

via Kansas City Power & Light commits $14M for smart-grid technology – Kansas City Business Journal:.

It’s a 98-degree August day. Air conditioners along Prospect Avenue near 42nd Street are running at full bore.

Suddenly the whirring stops, all at once, without anyone touching a thermostat.

Someone miles away at Kansas City Power & Light decided residents on this block could stand a slightly warmer home for a while to save energy.

That’s the future, and it’s called the smart grid. Someday it could be in your own home and in millions more nationwide.

Kansas City’s urban core in the Green Impact Zone will be the testing ground for advances in the smart grid, which is the name for a project to upgrade electrical devices in your home and upgrade power lines in the area.

“The rest of the country is looking to Kansas City to lead on this,” said Danny Rotert, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat who has been the driving force behind the green zone.

Boulder, Colo., already has installed an advanced smart grid designed to reduce energy costs and provide the potential for renewable energy.

Now KCP&L is looking to try the next generation of smart grid in the green zone, the $200 million effort to make 150 blocks in central Kansas City more energy efficient.

“The green zone is really a sandbox to deploy some of these newer technologies,” said Chuck Caisley, a KCP&L spokesman.

To simplify, think of power lines becoming two-way, like the Internet. That lets you see in real time how much energy you’re using, and possibly cut back. And it lets utility companies monitor — and at times control — how much power you’re using.

Sound scary? It does to some utility watchdogs and others who fear hackers or terrorist attacks.

But half of KCP&L’s grid already allows for a dispatcher to send messages to customers’ meters and then receive a message with information about how that meter’s working. That also allows the utility to see immediately where power outages have occurred.

via Smart grid that controls utility use comes to KC – Kansas City Star.

For all the national attention that Kansas City’s proposed Green Impact Zone has received, it’s still too early to tell much about what it will look like.

Organizers know what they want to do — make the 150-block zone in the urban core more energy efficient — but they’re still hammering out the details of a plan that would spend about $200 million in federal stimulus money on green projects and job training.

Reasons for the lack of specifics:

•There’s no money to administer the zone yet.

•At the same time, funding will be coming from all levels of government and across many organizations that normally don’t work together.

“It’s like drinking from a thousand garden hoses,” said Dean Katerndahl, who is heading up the project at the Mid-America Regional Council. “You have to figure out where they’re all coming from, what their rules are and how to bend them around.”

via Details on Green Impact Zone are sparse so far – Kansas City Star.