The McDonnell Group

ATLANTA GA - March 18, 2009  - Consumer facing, national print and TV media coverage of the smart grid has reached unprecedented levels and the term is entering the mainstream consumer technology lexicon. In just the past six weeks, smart grid print feature articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The New York Times, and in countless local papers throughout the country including the Boston Herald and Chicago Sun Times. Even the paper from my home town growing up, The Buffalo News, weighed in with feature editorial on the topic.

I have to say it feels good to be called “cool” as a utility technology person at my kid’s little league baseball game.  While all of this feel good consumer marketing sizzle has raised the profile of the utility technology industry, the media glare reminds me of our industry’s need to ensure that we tend to the smart grid steak: Distribution Automation (DA) and Distribution Management Systems (DMS).

I recently overheard a trade group policy leader at a Washington DC forum say during a coffee break, “Do you believe some of these people actually want to apply for stimulus funding for SCADA and field automation stuff?”  I really couldn’t believe this person didn’t understand why this was important until I learned their background was political and not based on industry experience.  While its understandable that vendors and lobbying advocates for specific smart grid technology and components will work for their individual interests, collectively the industry knows the work that must be done in distribution system automation and distribution system modeling and management so that the consumer facing technologies generating so much sizzle have a chance to succeed without destroying open loop system reliability, efficiency and power quality.

The importance of  SCADA, DMS and DA were confirmed by a recent smart grid executive research study we conducted where these systems rated highly in importance in 12 smart grid system areas tested. Our research results are reinforced by a recent report from Chuck Newton indicating that -- right after AMI -- SCADA and DA are highly rated by utility engineers for near term intelligent grid program focus. Utility distribution engineers understand the law of unintended consequences in open loop delivery system three phase designs. You won’t see any super bowl commercials on overcurrent relays, protection zones, or cap banks, but the engineers who manage distribution understand the magnitude of the system automation investments still needed.

My goal here is not to throw water on the grill flare up in publicity around the smart grid’s consumer facing components. Most of the coverage is very positive and helpful to industry efforts to educate consumers about the smart grid they will be asked to pay for.

Even before NBC Nightly News did their recent smart grid feature, Fox’s Glenn Beck Show took up the topic in prime time. While he grilled the notion that anyone should even consider monitoring their energy use or that a utility should track detailed consumption  -- inane even by Beck’s often silly ranting standards -- he acknowledged in his throw away 20 second “serious aside” that the smart grid was important to our country and to the future of energy.

Even Beck’s water can’t stop the smart grid sizzle.