Commercialization and Success Stories of Smart Grid Technologies through Public/Private Partnerships
Panel Session
Session Moderator: John McDonald, General Manager, Marketing, GE Energy T&D

Wednesday, March 24, 12:45-2:00 p.m.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) with $4.5 billion to invest in smart grid technologies to modernize the nation’s electric infrastructure. The Recovery Act investments aim at serving as a stimulus to leverage industry investments for a sustained and accelerated effort in smart grid development and applications. Leveraging private-sector investments is important to the DOE to reach its defined 2030 Vision, as tens of billions of dollars annually were estimated to be needed in the next 20 years while the Recovery Act investments are viewed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

During this panel session, the DOE Recovery Act investments in commercial applications and demonstrations of smart grid technologies and practices will be presented, along with the planned actions to best leverage technology investments through coordination and collaboration, information sharing, lessons learned, and best practices.

A model program in the public/private partnership, called Advanced Grid Applications Consortium (GridApp™), will be presented. GridApp, established in 2005 (see additional information at http://www.gridapp.org), is a partnership between the OE and electric utilities to co-invest in smart grid technologies for near-term commercial applications and broad use throughout the electric industry. Successes of this partnership model in advancing technologies are demonstrated through its award-winning projects, including three “T&D Project of the Year” awards (2008, 2007, and 2005). Commercialization successes of these projects are exemplified in commercial products incorporating technical features through GridApp-supported development, demonstration, and testing. The expanded role of this public/private partnership model in furthering commercial applications of smart grid technologies through the Recovery Act will be expounded.

Panel Moderator: James P. Crane, Chairman of ComEd Smart Grid Integration Team, Commonwealth Edison Company

Panelists:

• Dan T. Ton, Program Manager, Smart Grid Research and Development, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, U.S. Department of Energy
• Thomas Callsen, Consulting Engineer, Commonwealth Edison Company
• Haukur (Hawk) Asgeirsson, Manager of Power Systems Technologies, Detroit Edison
• Joseph G. Waligorski, Energy Delivery Technical Advisor, FirstEnergy Technologies
• David Angell, Manager, Delivery Planning, Idaho Power Company

Conference Details

Advanced Metering
Customer Service and CIS
Demand Response and Energy Efficiency
Distribution Automation
Enterprise Information and Asset Management
Mobile and Geospatial Solutions
Renewables and the Grid
SCADA and Network Management
Substation Automation
T&D Engineering and Operations
Transmission
Water
Mega Session