President Obama Announces $3.4 Billion Investment to Spur Transition to Smart Energy Grid

The White House just helped us take another step closer to realizing the goal of connecting American homes and businesses to a smart grid.

Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL)  Next Generation Solar Energy Center, President Obama announced the largest energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history. The investments will create tens of thousands of jobs, save energy, and empower consumers to cut their electric bills.

The government’s investment will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion. One-hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners received the Smart Grid Investment Grant awards, including FPL, which will use its $200 million in funding to install over 2.5 million smart meters and other technologies that will cut energy costs.

An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030. That would mean a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country, and $1.6 billion for Florida alone -- or $56 in utility savings for every man, woman and child in Florida. The projects will create tens of thousands of jobs, and consumers in 49 states will benefit from these investments in a stronger, more reliable grid.
The awards announced today represent the largest group of Recovery Act awards ever made in a single day and the largest batch of Recovery Act clean energy grant awards to date.

Yesterday's announcement included:

• Empowering Consumers to Save Energy and Cut Utility Bills -- These investments will create the infrastructure needed to expand access to smart meters and customer systems so that consumers will be able to access dynamic pricing information and have the ability to save money by programming smart appliances and equipment to run when rates are lowest. This will help reduce energy bills for everyone by helping drive down “peak demand” and limiting the need for “stand-by” power plants – the most expensive power generation there is.

• Making Electricity Distribution and Transmission More Efficient -- Several grid modernization projects will significantly reduce the amount of power that is wasted from the time it is produced at a power plant to the time it gets to your house. By deploying digital monitoring devices and increasing grid automation, these awards will increase the efficiency, reliability, and security of the system, and will help link up renewable energy resources with the electric grid. This will make it easier for a wind farm in Montana to instantaneously pick up the slack when the wind stops blowing in Missouri or a cloud rolls over a solar array in Arizona.

• Integrating and Crosscutting Across Different “Smart” Components of a Smart Grid -- The Smart Grid is the sum total of how its components work together. A range of projects will incorporate these various components into one system or cut across various project areas – including smart meters, smart thermostats and appliances, syncrophasors, automated substations, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, etc.

• Building a Smart Grid Manufacturing Industry -- These investments will help expand the manufacturing base of companies that can produce the smart meters, smart appliances, smart transformers, and other components for smart grid systems in the U. S. and around the world.