Paying for the Smart Grid

This paper will give detailed information on Power Systems applications that can be used to provide significant return on investments (ROI) from Smart Grid expenditures. Applications like: Conservation Voltage Reduction that reduces generation costs, line losses and Greenhouse Gases Distribution Automation that improves reliability indices i.e. SAIDI, SAIFI and MAIFI, facilitates utility rate increases through Performance-Based-Ratemaking and provides significant return on investment from reducing outage costs. SCADA, including Outage Management, Volt/VAR, Fault Detection, Interruption and Restoration (FDIR) will be discussed in detail. Conservation Voltage Reduction is a method of reducing energy losses and demand that has been researched and implemented by utilities for over 25 years. Customer examples from Entergy and Nashville Electric Service (NES) will be used to describe this application and show significant ROI. For example, NES will implement a voltage conservation program on a system-wide basis to reduce peak demand and therefore, mitigate the impact of demand-based wholesale rates on residential customers. Distribution Automation can provide a significant ROI from improving reliability indices, facilitating rate increases in states that have PBR, reducing and eliminating outage costs. Outage study data from the Department of Energy (DOE) and a couple of customer examples will be presented. SCADA is the foundation of Power Systems automation and has provided utilities a significant ROI for many years. Examples of customers that used the aforementioned SCADA applications will be presented.