Monitor Urges Utilities to Go Slow on Smart Grid Renovations

July 27, 2010 | The New York Times

A report by the operations monitor of the North American electricity grid, issued today, raises a large yellow caution flag over climate policy initiatives that would require a massive change in the nation's power and transmission infrastructure.

A task force on climate change formed by North American Electric Reliability Corp. urges that policymakers not count on large amounts of renewable energy, demand reduction from smart grid systems or new storage technologies before they prove they can be worked onto the grid without endangering the system's reliability.

Deep cuts in generators' greenhouse gas emissions require an unprecedented transformation from current generation, says Mark Lauby, NERC's director of reliability assessment and performance analysis.

"One of our main concerns is looking at the technology and realizing this is a 1-million-megawatt system. What kind of time is required to integrate new technologies?" Lauby said in an interview.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are two transformational technologies whose potential won't be known for a decade or more, says the task force, whose members included representatives of investor-owned power companies and cooperatives, grid managers, a consumer organization and the Energy Department, among others. It was chaired by Ben Crisp, director of system planning and regulatory performance for Progress Energy Florida in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The report, "Reliability Impacts of Climate Change Initiatives: Technology Assessment and Scenario Development," considers how the reliable operation of the grid could be affected if the U.S. adopted carbon reduction goals at the levels of the House-passed "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009."

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