Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
New England prepared to leverage smart grid expertise
MHT's Jackie Noblett: Generating power from hot pavement
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Tech companies may have to wait for stimulus funds
At least 832,000 smart meters will be installed across New England as a part of smart grid projects receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant funding.
In all, ten companies across five New England States received $225.6 million in funding announced Tuesday by President Barack Obama at an event in Florida. Some $3.4 billion in smart grid grants were funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
In the largest New England award, $95.9 million went to Central Maine Power Co. to install smart meters for all of its residential, commercial and industrial customers — or about 650,000 meters. The project will cost a total of $195.9 million.
New Hampshire Electrical Cooperative received $15.8 million for 75,000 meters in its service territory and installing a wide area telecommunications network to support data transfer on the grid.
Vermont Transco will use its $68.9 million not only to install smart meters, but also install so-called “smart home” devices for consumers, like digital displays of consumption information and digitally controlled appliances. The Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative received $9.2 million to build a 13,000 unit smart meter network.
Six entities in Massachusetts received smart grid funding, including the town of Danvers and Marblehead Municipal Light Co. which will install a total of 22,000 smart meters.
The electric grid itself will receive a facelift with stimulus dollars. ISO-New England, based in Holyoke, will install 30 electricity wave monitoring devices that measure the overall health of the grid and help the operator respond more quickly to problems on the grid. Boston utility NStar will add more “self-healing” functions to its distribution network that will allow it to recognize and fix problems that cause power outages.
An on Martha’s Vineyard, a $787,000 grant to the Vineyard Energy Project will fund the installation of smart appliances as well as an interface to connect plug-in hybrid vehicles to the island’s electrical grid.
RSS Feeds
Comments
Please Login/Register to post comments.
No comments have been added or approved.