Public Power Magazine - September-October 2015

PUBLIC
POWER
AmericAn Public Power AssociAtion • sePtember/october 2015
PoweringAhead:The FuTure of electricity

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4 Public Power Lines by Sue Kelly
36 Washington Report
37 Engineering
38 Security
39 Innovation
42 100 Years of Pride in Public Power
8 The Future Is Now
Public power utilities are working
greener, smarter, more efficiently
and with more flexibility.
16 The Evolving Electric
Grid, Customer and Utility
The Edison Foundation’s Lisa Wood
talks about the variables changing
the electricity landscape and shaping
the future.
20 Energy Storage:
Changing the Game,
Changing the Grid
Energy storage holds the key to the
future grid, but is yet to evolve and
be more accessible.
30 Microgrids: Self-Sufficient
Energy Islands
Microgrids can run independently,
making small towns into energy
islands — a strategy public power
utilities have been employing for
decades.
45 What Does the Future of
Energy Use Look Like?
Captain Public Power takes a
peek into the future with his young
friends.
FEATURES
CONT ENT S
The Future Issue
#PublicPower @PublicPower.org
Search for American Public Power and Connect with us
COLUMNS

Technology often changes the way we live our
lives. Remember what life was like before smart-
phones? (I actually used to read paper maps!)
Whatever the future may hold, one thing
is clear — the power industry won’t be able
to avoid the seismic societal shifts under
way, nor should it try to.
New technologies are giving retail
electricity customers more choices. Cus-
tomers have greater ability to control their
energy generation and their energy use.
They can pick up a Nest thermostat at their
local Home Depot and install it themselves
to control home temperatures through their
smartphones, even from hundreds of miles
away. Solar panels are coming down in price.
Smart meters allow real-time monitoring of energy
use, so people can better track and respond to
rate signals.
And, as described in one of the stories in this issue of Public Power
magazine (see page 20), energy storage is poised to take off in a big way.
While the new Tesla Powerwall is not the key to residential energy inde-
pendence, it is a sign of advances to come in storage technologies.
Customers are also influenced by the “sharing economy” in which
we live today. Companies like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb, while not with-
out controversy, are changing the industries they enter and giving
consumers new options. And, increasingly, customers want to have
more options to get their power. They want more independence and
choice. They want to cut their utility bills. They want to make the
most of the sunshine and profit from any excess power they might
generate from it. All this is driving increased interest in distributed
generation, energy efficiency, and demand response.
I recently read a fascinating article in Fast Company about a
startup that is using a sharing platform for solar energy. The article
explained, “In the future…you may not need your own panel to
participate in the solar boom. Instead, you might work out a rela-
tionship with someone else who has solar, using a sharing platform
like Yeloha. [It’s] a new site matching people with solar and people
without solar.”
Change can be intimidating at times. But here is the good news
— because public power is closely connected to our customers, we’re
uniquely positioned to be able to respond to the evolving customer
needs and preferences driving change in our industry.
This issue of Public Power magazine has many examples of how
public power utilities are on the cutting edge of innovation.
Moving Public Power Forward, Together
By Sue Kelly • President & CEO, American Public Power Association
PUBLIC POWER LINES
@CEOPublicPower • blog.publicpower.org
4 Public Power / September-October 2015
Indeed, while the
concept of microgrids
(see page 30) is gaining
traction, it is worth point-
ing out that many of our
public power utilities started
out as separate grids with their
own generation, serving their own communi-
ties. As public power is already owned by our
customers and our sole mission is to serve our own
communities, you could argue we are in fact the original microgrids.
Maybe we should print T-shirts that say “Been there, done that, got
the T-shirt — 100 years ago”!
Of course, public power’s systems eventually interconnected, first
with neighbors and then regionally, to enhance reliability and access
more competitive generation. Public power’s history and our organi-
zation at the community level, however, can help us take advantage
of new technologies to build 21st century microgrids.
Whether it is community solar gardens, microgrids, provid-
ing real-time energy use information, or offering energy efficiency
programs, utilities need to find more ways to engage their customers.
We cannot take for granted that customers will keep paying the bills
because they have nowhere else to go for their electricity.
In addition to technology and customer preferences, the future of
utilities may also be defined by regulation. Uppermost on our minds
is the extremely voluminous final rule just issued by the Environ-
mental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from
existing coal and natural gas-fired power plants under Section 111(d)
of the Clean Air Act. This is not just environmental regulation but a
broad energy policy, which could redefine where our power comes
from and how we do business.
APPA is focused on helping our members navigate industry chang-
es. One of the key initiatives included in APPA’s recently adopted
strategic plan involves is “to help members deal with the technology
and regulatory changes that are likely to re-shape their relationships
with customers.” We’re calling this initiative “Public Power Forward.”
Under this initiative, APPA will develop resources to help utilities in-
tegrate distributed resources, energy efficiency, and demand response
into their business models and operations. In October this year,
APPA is convening a stakeholder summit for a collective deep dive on
what the public power utility of the future could look like and how
we get there.
We have real opportunities before us if we can be true to our roots
and ideals, while focusing our minds and services on the changes we’re
already seeing. So together, let’s move “public power forward.” 

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T o p - n o T c h l e a r n i n g a n d n e T w
Executive leadership • Legal • Accounting & finance • HR and administration • Engineering & operations
Utility
Education
& Training
Your One Stop Shop for All Business & Financial Conference
Sept. 13 – 16, New Orleans, Louisiana
A refresher for seasoned professionals and in-
depth learning for those new to utility business and
administration. Five key tracks — Accounting &
Finance, Customer Accounting & Services, Human
Resources & Training, Information Technology, and
Pricing & Market Analysis. Sessions on regulatory
accounting, bonds and compliance, internal controls,
GASB 68, management reporting, the EPA Clean
Power Plan, financial forecasting, repurposing a power
plant, and more.
Fall Education Institute
Oct. 5 – 9, Savannah, Georgia
In-depth training courses for all skill levels. Focus on a
single topic or spend the week in multiple classes for
comprehensive training and networking with peers.
Earn CEUs, PDHs and CPEs, while receiving top-
notch instruction from professionals with extensive
public power experience. Courses in five tracks —
Accounting, Cost of Service & Retail Rate Design,
Performing a Utility Financial Check–Up, Key Accounts
Certificate Program, Underground Distribution Systems
and Executive Leadership.
Public Power Leadership Workshop
Oct. 7 – 9, Savannah, Georgia
Overview of challenges facing public power and the
skills and knowledge leaders need to guide utilities
through change. Ideal for seasoned, new, and aspiring
general managers and CEOs. Learn where the industry
is heading and how your peers are handling tough
issues such as planning for strategic resources,
ensuring a utility’s financial health and performance,
managing change, and developing effective leadership
styles for the future.

Legal Seminar
Oct. 11 – 14, Key West, Florida
Professional development opportunity for in-house and
outside counsel attorneys. Covers the latest legal and
regulatory issues affecting public power as well as the
practical legal issues facing municipal utilities. Essential
learning and networking for anyone who oversees utility
policy, including senior and mid-level utility managers
and elected and appointed policymakers.
Customer Connections Conference
Oct. 18 – 21, Austin, Texas
Unparalleled training and exchange of ideas in
Customer Service, Economic Development, Energy
Services, Key Accounts and Public Communications.
Sessions on new trends and developments in creating
a customer service culture, video production, social
media, distributed generation, energy efficiency,
community engagement and more.
***NEW***
Public Power Forward Summit
Oct. 26 – 27, Alexandria, Virginia
APPA’s new strategic plan tags the opportunities and
challenges of the future — distributed generation,
energy storage, microgrids, energy services utilities,
and more — as “Public Power Forward.” Electricity
industry technologies, customer perspectives,
distribution models, government policies, the fuel mix
and more are changing fast. What’s hype and what’s
reality? Join APPA’s first-ever Public Power Forward
Summit to preview the future. Explore the policies,
programs and tools that will help public power utilities
ride the wave of change.
o r k i n g f o r u T i l i T y p e r s o n n e l
• Customer service • Key accounts • Energy services • PR and communications • Economic development
W e b i n a r s
C y b e r s e C u r i t y W e b i n a r s e r i e s
Cyber risk Preparedness assessment / sept. 17
building a Foundation for the Protected utility / Oct. 15
improving Cybersecurity Posture: Public Power Case studies / nov. 4
utility Community intelligence / nov. 17
the role of Joint action agencies in addressing Cybersecurity
Developing a Cyber security Plan / Jan. 7
In-House Training Program
If it’s difficult for your staff and governing board to attend
education courses outside of the office, let the APPA
Academy come to you. We can bring any existing course to
your facility or customize an agenda based on your needs. For
more information, contact Heidi Lambert at 202/467-2921 or
HLambert@PublicPower.org

The FuTure
The utility of the future is
greener, smarter, more
efficient and more flexible. For
some public power utilities,
the future is now.
By Laura D’Alessandro, Integrated Media Editor, APPA,
and Laurel Lundstrom, Contributing Writer
Tell us about your
#utilityoftheFuture @PublicPowerOrg
#PublicPower

The future is green
It is widely proven that buildings in the United
States, both commercial and residential,
contribute a significant portion of the emissions
— approximately 39 percent in 2008, according
to the U.S. Department of Energy. The New
York Power Authority has been proactive
about curbing building-generated emissions
through its New York Energy Manager system,
launched in 2014. The statewide system is used
to monitor and troubleshoot buildings to reduce
energy waste and provide access to secure,
comprehensive energy management reporting
for more than 1,500 state buildings, with the
potential to serve many more.
“By integrating energy data from facility sub-
meters and local utilities, building engineers
can rapidly diagnose equipment problems and
take appropriate and timely actions to reduce
energy consumption,” said Gil Quiniones, NY-
PA’s president and chief executive officer.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District in
California, too, is using new technology — so-
lar integrated energy storage — to curb energy
waste and shift power from peak to off-peak
times. Working with a local builder, the utility
helped to construct 34 single-family homes that
are expected to use 40 percent less energy than
the average house and produce as much power
as they use annually. Each house has a rooftop
solar system and lithium-ion battery for storing
solar power when the arrays produce more elec-
tricity than the household needs. The houses are
designed to use no power during the hours of
peak demand, relying instead on the solar energy
stored by the batteries.
To manage a huge growth in photovoltaic
generation, SMUD is also starting work in the
area of smart inverters. The inverters allow utili-
ties to better manage photovoltaic generation
when there is a lot of sunshine and low electric-
ity demand.
Santee Cooper in South Carolina operates its
Environmental Management Information Sys-
tem, a software-based tool for environmental
compliance and performance.
“Environmental stewardship is a key com-
ponent of Santee Cooper’s mission and we de-
vote considerable resources in this area,” said
Nicole Aiello, Santee Cooper’s director of pub-
lic relations. “However, today’s environmental
requirements are very complex and constantly
changing, so an advanced system like our EMIS
is important to ensure we meet our compliance
obligations and keep improving.”
The EMIS has allowed Santee Cooper to
consolidate thousands of pages of environmen-
tal permits, plans, and requirements into a da-
tabase that notifies employees of their upcom-
ing environmental tasks and keeps a record of
them after they’re completed. This information
can be accessed by internal auditors and other
departments, resulting in fewer phone calls and
emails for information. The EMIS is also used to
maintain an accurate and consistent set of data,
calculations, and associated regulatory reports.
While the EMIS is mostly focused on the envi-
ronmental requirements of the utility’s generat-
To be considered on the cutting edge in today’s world of smarter, more intuitive technologies
is no small feat. New technologies are constantly evolving and new data are being captured
around the clock. Cutting-edge electric utilities are the ones harnessing those new
technologies to improve reliability and efficiency, make their customers happier, support a
cleaner environment, and use their data to constantly evolve the way they do business. Public
power utilities across the country are well ahead on the road to the future.
SMUD helped to build 34 single-family homes that are
expected to use 40 percent less energy than the average
house and produce as much power as they use annually.
Each house has a rooftop solar system and lithium-ion
battery for storing solar power when the arrays produce
more electricity than the household needs.
Is Now
Public Power Utilities on the Cutting Edge

ing stations, due to its effectiveness, it is being
expanded to other departments.
In Fort Collins, Colorado, the public power
utility is walking the talk when it comes to green
buildings. The utility is breaking ground on a
new office building that will use solar power and
battery storage, and direct current to get the most
out of both.
“It’s very important for us to walk the talk in
terms of sustainability and energy performance,”
said John Phelan, utility energy services manager
at Ft. Collins Utilities.
The new three-story, 37,000 square foot
building will house the utility’s customer ser-
NPR Profiles “Fort Collins: The Utility of the Future?”
Excerpts from the InsideEnergy.org story by Dan Boyce
Cara and Torger’s heating upgrade is a piece of what makes Fort Collins’ small, city government-run utility a model for the
potential utility of the future.
To back up, the first piece of this model is attached to the side of residents’ homes throughout the city: basic gray boxes holding
nearly 70,000 smart meters. A grant from the Federal Recovery Act helped pay for this $36 million effort about three years ago.
Now, both customers and the utility can see their energy use in 15-minute increments. before this they could only see energy use
once a month.
“I think of this as a paradigm-shifting investment,” said Fort Collins utilities Senior Electrical Engineer Dennis Sumner.
Yet, that paradigm shift — it hasn’t really happened yet in most places.
“Of itself it doesn’t generate energy; of itself it doesn’t reduce energy use,” Sumner said.
but the data these smart meters supply provides a foundation Fort Collins needs. Local elected leaders set a goal for the city to be
carbon neutral by 2050. Right now, the utility gets the vast majority of its power from coal, so that’s an ambitious target.
“It’s gonna take a lot of work,” Sumner said.
Fort Collins needs two more things to accomplish its climate goals: Residents need to use less energy, and the city needs to get
that energy from many more places — from community solar gardens, rooftop solar, and wind power.
All of that will inevitably change the relationship people have with their utility. under the current model, they bring us electricity
and we pay for it. Sumner said in the future, the utility will be able to tailor the delivery.
“Customers can decide their own package that they want,” Sumner said.
Customers will buy and sell electricity on the grid, zapping energy back and forth from their solar panels, or stored in their
electric cars.
James Tong with Clean Power Finance predicted the future power grid will work like the Apple App Store.
“They (the utilities) provide the hardware that hosts the platform, but they also curate the vendors,” he said.
Fort Collins needs those vendors and that marketplace to develop. The only way the city will keep its energy transition affordable
is if the citizens buy into renewables and, more importantly, make their homes as energy efficient as possible.
vice and call center, as well as other customer-
facing functions, Phelan said. By not converting
electricity between direct and alternating cur-
rent, the building can get more out of its solar
installation and battery storage, which will boost
resiliency. Phelan said while battery storage tech-
nology is not that common yet, the utility hopes
its own office building can be an experiment to
learn from.
The future is efficient
Public power utilities are using smart grid
technologies to deliver cleaner, more reliable
power and to improve efficiency of operations.
“The rapid access to better information will
lead to faster repairs and a consistent, reliable
source of power,” said Quiniones.
NYPA also works with New York State Elec-
tric and Gas to operate a series capacitor that
raises the voltage and keeps it at a constant level,
which enhances transmission efficiency.
“In New York state, where delivering clean
and economical surplus energy from upstate to
the high-demand areas in the New York City
area presents a continual challenge, [this system]
offers an even greater strategic advantage,” said
Quiniones.
SMUD also incorporates revenue-protection

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APPA Research Grants Power Innovation at Small Utilities
It is not just large public power utilities that are technologically savvy. Smaller utilities are looking toward a smarter
future as well, and the American Public Power Association’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments
research and development program is helping them to do that.
Rochelle Municipal Utilities in Illinois, which has 7,200 mostly commercial meters in its service territory, was awarded
a DEED grant to create a citywide rooftop unit control cloud to minimize concurrent demand. The system, through
wireless components at each location, allows equipment in buildings to communicate and coordinate to minimize the
number and size of loads unnecessarily running at the same time, reducing peak demand. It regulates both air supply
fans and compressor speeds. The utility is still finalizing installation of the rooftop units and will soon be collecting
and comparing data.
With support from a DEED grant, the Cuyahoga Falls Electric System in Ohio is installing a distribution feeder
automation system coupled with conservation voltage reduction. The system uses a high-speed communication
protocol, which allows the utility to switch feeder load from one feeder to another in one-tenth of a second upon loss
of power.
Also in Ohio, Wadsworth Electric and Communications used its DEED grant to develop a set of incentives and
corresponding messages to encourage customers to enroll in energy management activities including monitoring
their energy usage online, enrolling in a dynamic rate plan, requesting a thermostat, or participating in shaving peak
energy use. At the same time, the utility operates a web portal, which is a central location from which customers can
access information about pricing plans, programmable thermostats and their own personal usage information.
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software to analyze data, identify power theft and
perform hourly meter voltage reads. Customers
can choose time-of-use rates based on the infor-
mation they are receiving about their energy use.
SMUD uses the smart meter data to ping meters
to identify embedded outages.
“When you ping meters, you can identify
smaller outages within larger ones,” said Jim
Parks, SMUD’s program manager for energy re-
search and development. “The system offers a
single platform from which to see and analyze
information from several sources and observe
trends over time.”
Santee Cooper subscribes to a national light-
ning strike database, which allows the utility to
correlate breaker operations on the transmission
system to lightning strikes down to the millisec-
ond. A crew can be sent out to inspect the trans-
mission line for damage using the location given
by the database.
“We import this data into our GIS database
and use the information to drive system im-
provement projects that are targeted to the areas
and line sections that are most susceptible to
lightning,” said Aiello. “Knowing the exact loca-
tion of lightning strikes improves reliability and
efficiency and prevents crews from have to patrol
an entire line if they know about where a strike
occurred.”
In Fort Collins, the utility is using a $125,000
grant from the American Public Power Asso-
ciation’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency
Developments research and development pro-
gram to take home energy audits to a new level
of consumer-friendliness. The project aims to
dramatically simplify the home energy audit pro-
cess into tailored packages that customers can
choose from. Rather than seeking bids on their
own, customers would be presented with a set of
simple options and the utility would coordinate
with vendors.
“We’re really looking at bringing predefined
yet flexible packages,” Phelan said. “Say you live
in a 1970s, tri-level house. Decision making
would be more like, do you want a basic upgrade,
a premium package with a few added elements,
or a platinum package that might, say, have re-
newable energy added.”
Customers would then pay a monthly fee on
their utility bills to finance the upgrades at $50,
$75 or $100 per month, depending on the pack-
age they chose. Fort Collins plans to test several
rounds of the program through the next year and
create a model that other utilities can replicate.
The future is smart
The future of public power and the industry’s
ability to support a cleaner environment and
more efficient and reliable power systems rely
not just on new technologies incorporated into a
smarter grid — but on the workforce operating
them.
Like most utilities, Santee Cooper is undergo-
756707_Finley.indd 1 7/15/15 12:59 PM

ing profound changes in its workforce. To better
track data, manage changes in the workforce,
and be more strategic, the utility purchased a
cloud-based talent management technology sys-
tem called PeopleFluent. The system covers per-
formance, compensation, scheduling, onboard-
ing, and succession planning.
The utility has already launched the schedul-
ing module and will launch the rest of the mod-
ules in the next two years.
“We believe it will make the utility smarter by
further enabling employees and supervisors to
have the human resources tools at their disposal
to better grow and develop talent,” said Aiello.
Smart technologies allow utilities to gather
data that then allows them to better engage
with their customers. In Fort Collins, the util-
ity is closing out its U.S. Department of Energy
smart grid investment grant, which has created
new opportunities for customers to understand
their energy use.
The technology also helps Fort Collins learn
more about its customers so it can tailor services
to their needs. “I think we’re just kind of scratch-
ing the surface of its potential over time,” Phelan
said.
The future is data-driven
How utilities are incorporating new technologies
is evolving and informed by the influx of data
generated.
“We are trying to figure out new uses for data
all of the time,” said Jim Parks, program manager
for energy research and development at the Sac-
ramento Municipal Utility District. “The more we
look, the more we see.”
Constantly changing data means a constant
evolution, Quiniones said.
“Smart energy technology naturally requires
a continuous reassessment of how we generate,
distribute and use electricity and how the state’s
current regulatory structure must change ac-
cordingly,” he said.
According to Parks, the huge interest in dis-
tributed energy resources, including electric
Read more about smart
meters on page 38
SMUD, through its advanced
metering infrastructure,
has the ability to remotely
connect and disconnect
meters, enabling the utility to
reduce truck rolls by 400,000
annually and save $14 million
in costs.
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vehicles, energy storage, distributed renewable
generation, demand response and microgrids,
will provide utilities with both opportunities
and issues.
“If we can manage these resources, we can
better manage our loads, load profiles and costs,”
Parks said. “If we do not manage the resources,
we could create new system peaks, increase the
need for additional expensive infrastructure —
higher costs — and decreased reliability.”
Growth in distributed energy resources is
directly attributable to new regulations, Parks
said, such as renewable portfolio standards. Fu-
ture legislation and requirements for demand
response could drive increases in energy storage
and microgrids on public power systems.
Quiniones said that smart-energy technol-
ogy underpins New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s
Reforming the Energy Vision plan, which spurs
clean energy innovation and provides access to a
safe, clean and affordable energy infrastructure
that will depend, in part, on the greater use of
local generation and renewables.
“Efforts like More Than Smart, the New York
REV initiative, and the Gridwise Architecture
Council’s Transactive Energy effort are also shift-
ing the utility industry to this new paradigm of
decentralized energy,” Parks said. “These laws
have a significant impact on our business model
and will drive the future smart grid.” n
Customers can choose
time-of-use rates based on
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This article is based on a conversation between Lisa Wood and Meena Dayak, Vice President, Integrated Media & Communications, APPA
TheEvolvingElectricGrid,
CustomerandUTILITYBy Lisa Wood, Vice President, Edison Foundation,
and Executive Director, Institute for Electric Innovation
ALL THINGS CONNECTED

The changing power mix
We’ve seen a huge change in the U.S. power mix
— ten years ago was the beginning of wind; five
years ago was the beginning of solar; and now,
we’re at the beginning of energy storage.
The big picture we’re seeing today is a more
distributed grid, more renewables on the grid,
and a more connected grid.
We’re going to see much growth in energy
storage partly because of falling prices and partly
because of the California Public Utilities Com-
mission’s October 2013 rule that required the
state’s three major investor-owned electric utili-
ties to have 1,325 MW of storage capacity by
the end of 2020. The rule is key to implementa-
tion of the state’s ambitious renewable portfolio
rules, which calls for 33 percent of delivered
electricity to come from renewable sources by
2020. But where is all this new and expansive
energy storage capacity going to come from?
There are different ways to provide energy
storage — utility-owned, through power pur-
chase agreements to the utility, behind the me-
ter, and through wholesale markets. AES Energy
Storage, for example, is providing different kinds
of storage through power purchase agreements
with California utilities and also using storage
for ancillary services in wholesale markets. AES
Corporation’s subsidiary utility, Indianapolis
Power and Light, has 40 MW of storage.
Forecasts show exponential growth in solar
with a growing role for utilities. A study released
in July 2015 by the Brattle Group — prepared
for First Solar with support from the Edison
Electric Institute — found that utility-scale so-
lar photovoltaic systems in the U.S. are a more
cost-effective, carbon-free power option than
residential-scale rooftop solar PV systems, at
roughly half the cost per kilowatt-hour. Utili-
ty-scale solar also has a higher capacity factor
which means it produces more electricity for the
same size system. That results in carbon dioxide
emissions reductions that are 50 percent greater
than the same capacity of residential-scale roof-
top solar PV.
The changing outlook
For the first time, we’re starting to look at
distributed resources in one large bucket. We
used to think of energy efficiency, demand
response, rooftop solar, microgrids, and other
resources as separate streams. But now utilities
and regulators are putting these things together,
as a group of local resources, and seeing how we
can mix and match them to meet growth in the
demand for electricity.
In California, they call these “preferred re-
sources” and in New York they call them “diverse
resources.” ConEd in New York and Southern
California Edison in California are meeting de-
mand for electricity with an array of distributed
energy resources. That is a change just in the last
year. It signals to me that all resources are be-
ing looked at instead of being put into buckets.
That’s a really good thing.
The changing utility
Utilities are both integrators and providers
of distributed energy resources. They are the
integrators 100 percent of the time, but not
always the providers. There are third party
providers and customers are exploring new
behind-the-meter generation options.
We’re in a regulated environment. In New
York, unlike in some other states, utilities are
excluded from providing distributed resources.
If you have just the competitive suppliers as
providers, you’ll only serve a certain segment of
the population. In Arizona, for example, Tuc-
son Electric Power provides rooftop solar PV
and offers a 20-year fixed bill contract to utility
customers in good standing with their electric-
ity bill. Competitive providers are also offering
rooftop but typically only cater to customers
with high credit scores.
It is important to realize that customers want
solar. If we want to provide those kinds of prod-
ucts and services and give all customers an op-
portunity to access them, utilities have to be a
part of it.
The role of utilities as integrator is critical as
the grid becomes more distributed and more
complex. Integrating distributed resources into
the grid is an engineering exercise, it’s not just
the flip of a switch, for example. We’re also see-
ing a lot more controls and sensors on the grid
for reliability and grid optimization.
The changing customer
For decades, we’ve tried to make customers
more aware of energy efficiency and energy
management but it’s been hard. Yet things are
starting to change and I think that’s because of
solar. If a customer has installed solar, he or she
may not want to stop there. Energy efficiency, an
in-the-home improvement that might not have
otherwise been a priority, could soon follow.
Energy management has become more so-
phisticated because more customers are gadget-
minded. The Nest thermostat is a good ex-
ample — suddenly, some customers are now
interested in energy as a result of the Nest
thermostat.
Such changes are driven by customers, not
by utilities. Nest created an appealing product
and is now partnering with utilities because we
have the customers. These are good trends be-
cause they create more awareness and interest
in energy usage.
Customers have also developed higher ex-
pectations for service from electric utilities.
Just getting a bill once a month is not enough
any more. They want more information, and in
more convenient ways. It’s not just about rooftop
solar or energy management. They may want
to receive text alerts if something happens in
their homes or when their bill reaches a certain
Today, the electric power industry —
a fundamental industry that powers
our economy and our lives — is in the
midst of a profound transition.
“Utilitiesarebothintegratorsandprovidersofdistributedresources.”

threshold. Other industries are providing these
kinds of services and so customers expect it
from their utilities, too.
Utilities are aware of changing customer
preferences, but how they respond depends to a
large extent on state policies.
The changing grid
We’ve heavily invested in this country to give
everyone access to electricity – universal access.
The grid is critical to our way of life and to our
economy — I don’t see the grid going away. It
will become more important as people want
to do more things. As new technologies and
services evolve, the grid is going to get even
more sophisticated.
The conversation about the so-called death
spiral is over. The grid is front and center in the
U.S. as a national asset. Not too many people
truly want to go off the grid. Being off the grid
only works if you have the money for the backup
and want to deal with it. That’s not the future.
Off-the-grid has been sold as a cool thing.
Many rooftop solar customers might think they
are off the grid but they are actually on the grid
24-7 because they are always using grid services.
The grid provides balancing services all the time
to customers — we just don’t do a good job of
educating the public about this.
I agree with UC Berkeley professor Severin
Borenstein:
“Count me among the people who get no spe-
cial thrill from making our own shoes, roasting
our own coffee, or generating our own electric-
ity. I don’t think my house should be energy in-
dependent any more than it should be food in-
dependent or clothing independent. Advanced
economies around the world have gotten to be
advanced economies by taking advantage of
economies of scale, not by encouraging every
household to be self-sufficient.”
Our grid is 99.9 percent reliable. We’re al-
ready investing $20 billion a year in our distri-
bution system alone.
We do need to continue to modernize the
grid — what was once a one-way flow of elec-
tricity is now a two-way flow of power and in-
formation. We will continue to integrate new
technologies to support the continuing evolu-
tion. The current grid has worked for the first
100+ years of its existence but more distributed
energy resources, more renewables, and storage
are all drivers of the changes going forward.
Changing regulation
Regulation on key issues such as performance-
based rate making is evolving. States are saying
we need a more collaborative process. We can’t
resolve everything by taking sides in a rate case,
we need to involve stakeholders in making
decisions and moving forward.
We’re seeing collaboration in various forms.
Minnesota’s e21 initiative is a voluntary process
where utilities and various stakeholders have
come together to define Minnesota’s energy fu-
ture and how to get there. This is a grassroots
“Gone are the days when utilities compared
themselves solely to other utilities as a measure
of meeting their customers’ expectations. Today’s
customers compare their utility experience to
every other service experience, and they expect
their service providers to accommodate their
preferences and choices.”
John DiStasio, President, Large Public Power
Council
“Our nation’s utilities are uniquely equipped
to preserve and improve our energy future by
combining reliability with innovative customer-
sited resources as few other entities can.”
Bob Stump, Commissioner, Arizona Corporation
Commission
“For much of our history, utilities have been a big
black box to customers—we delivered electricity
from big power stations to our customers and
they had little reason to think about the actual
complexities of how those things were done. Now,
customers are entering into new relationships
with us. Increasingly, they are self-generating and
selling back excess energy to the grid or buying
electric vehicles and substantially changing their
electricity usage patterns.”
Karen Lefkowitz, Vice President, Business
Transformation & Chief Information Security
Officer, Pepco Holdings, Inc.
EVOLVING GRID
“Looking at the bigger picture and how we
connect the dots, the starting and end points will
always be customers… Since utilities already plan,
build, and operate the grid, it makes sense that
utilities continue to be the planners, builders, and
operators of the grid working in partnership with
third-party technology providers and customers.”
Thomas R. Kuhn, President, Edison Electric
Institute
“Electric vehicles, renewable energy, and
distributed generation are forcing us to rethink
the structure and operational suppleness of the
grid. We’re moving away from a centralized
generation and delivery model toward a dynamic,
distributed collection of micro-grids and two-way
power flows that will need to be synchronized,
monitored, and maintained in real time.”
Philip Mezey, President & CEO, Itron
ThoughtLeadersSpeakOut
Lisa Wood has edited a collection of essays,
Thought Leaders Speak Out: The Evolving
Electric Power Industry, published by the Edison
Foundation’s Institute for Electric Innovation.
Here are some excerpts, shared with permission
from IEI.
…three distinct and interrelated areas [are]
driving the evolution of the electric power industry
today—the Evolving Grid; the Evolving Customer;
and Evolving Regulation.
Electricity is no longer an industry of one-way
power flows from large generators to customers.
The model is beginning to evolve to a much more
distributed network with multiple sources of
generation — both large and small — and multi-
directional power and information flows.
Lisa Wood, Vice President, Edison Foundation
and Executive Director, Institute for Electric
Innovation
EVOLVING CUSTOMER
“We see our role as the trusted
energy advisor, a one-stop-shop for customers
who want to take advantage of new energy
technologies. As the utility, we’ll be there 24/7—
helpful, credible, and easy to deal with.”
Ted Craver, Chairman, President and CEO, Edison
International

effort involving a lot of stakeholders. In New
York, policy-based Reforming the Energy Vision
process was started by regulators.
We’re going to see even more collaboration,
more flexibility, and changing regulation — to
accommodate fast-changing technology. We
need more room to do things — our current reg-
ulatory process needs to be updated. To me, that
means setting goals and providing a glide path
rather than running from rate case to rate case.
Regulators, the industry, and other stake-
holders recognize the need for change. Different
states are in different places.
It’s an interesting time for sure. We’re looking
at the evolving grid, the evolving customer, and
evolving regulation. How we connect the dots is
the question on everyone’s mind.
The Edison Foundation, an affiliate of the Edison
Electric Institute, is a 501(c)(3) charitable organiza-
tion dedicated to bringing the benefits of electricity to
families, businesses, and industries worldwide. The
Edison Foundation Institute for Electric Innovation
(IEI) focuses on advancing the adoption and appli-
cation of new technologies that will strengthen and
transform the power grid. The Institute’s members
are the investor-owned electric utilities that represent
about 70 percent of the U.S. electric power industry.
EVOLVING REGULATION
“utilities and the services we provide will
remain critical well into the future. Our greatest
challenges in evolving the grid will not be so much
technological, but in designing a system that
facilitates adoption of technologies and responds
to customer interests while also stabilizing rates,
treating all customers fairly, and ensuring that
utilities have the financial health necessary to
continue investing in the system.”
Marvin E. McDaniel, Jr. , Executive Vice
President; Group President—Utilities and Chief
Administrative Officer, Xcel Energy
“Regulation 2.0 must foster competition;
incorporate the hybrid nature of the grid; and
provide mechanisms that maintain balance and
fairness for consumers, utilities, and investors.”
Dr. Lawrence E. Jones, Vice President, Utility
Innovations and Infrastructure Resilience, Alstom
10 Trends in the
Evolution of Electricity
Ten years ago
was the beginning
of wind; five
years ago was
the beginning of
solar; and, now
in 2015, we’re at
the beginning of
energy storage.
Energy efficiency,
demand response,
rooftop solar,
residential energy
storage are all
being viewed in
one large bucket
of distributed
resources.
Customers
have higher
expectations of
utilities — more
service, more
information,
and more
convenience…
Customers regard
their utility as the
go-to resource
when they think
about energy
issues.
Customers want
solar. Utility-scale
solar can double
the capacity of
rooftop solar, at
half the price.
Solar has
opened the door
to customer
interest in energy
management, as
never before.
The grid is not
going away — it
becomes more
critical as new
technologies and
services evolve.
The role of
utilities as
integrators is
critical, as the
grid becomes
more complex
and distributed
resources grow.
We’re moving
from one-way
power flows to
a much more
distributed
network with
multi-directional
power and
information flows.
Regulators see
the need for more
collaboration and
more flexibility
to support the
evolving electric
power industry.
Graphics courtesy of EEI.

Energy storage is emerging as a jack-of-all-trades resource. It’s essential to renewable generation
proliferation; the backbone of the smartphone decade; and the technology behind peak-shaving, grid-
shoring, and other ancillary services. It also holds the key to the future grid, but there are still some
obstacles standing in its way.
ENERGYStoRaGE
Changing the Game, Changing the Grid
By Paul Ciampoli, News Director, and Laura
D’Alessandro, Integrated Media Editor — APPA

Energy storage can range in scale from tiny
batteries that power cell phones for hours to
massive reservoirs that drop water through
turbines from hundreds of feet above.
With a range of technologies, energy stor-
age can provide services on both sides of the
electric meter, directly to consumers or through
utility-scale power generation sites.
It is its versatility that makes it unique, but
its uniqueness that creates challenges.
Utilities have been storing energy since they
have been producing it, but the technology has
not always looked the same. “A pile of coal is
stored energy,” said Matt Roberts, executive
director of the Energy Storage Association. “A
pumped hydro facility is stored energy. A bat-
tery in your cell phone is stored energy. It’s dif-
ferent scales, it’s different technologies, differ-
ent approaches.”
Roberts notes that utilities realized the im-
portance of storage 25 years ago and have been
trying to understand and work with it since
then. “It was very pilot scale in the first decade
of the last 25 years or so. Over time, though, it
started to pick up scale. We’re really starting to
kind of see the era of the big projects start to
come along and some of these large projects are
really starting to go into the grid. Now that we
have more of a track record and then data avail-
able about these systems, how they perform, the
value they provide.”
Evolving storage technologies
The lowest-cost energy storage system is
pumped hydro, according to the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Tennessee
Valley Authority’s 1.6-gigawatt Raccoon
Mountain facility drops water 990 feet from its
upper reservoir to turbine pumps. The 528-acre
upper reservoir on top of a mountain takes 28
hours to fill. It’s TVA’s largest rock-fill dam. But
pumped hydro only makes up about 25 GW —
2.5 percent — of total generation capacity in the
United States.
Roberts said pumped hydro has been be-
ing installed for nearly a century, but about 25
years ago, when the predecessor group to ESA
was formed, the focus shifted. ESA focuses on
Boothbay storage system
provides a non-transmission
alternative
Jeannine Anderson, News Editor, APPA
Convergent Energy + Power, an energy storage company based in New York, has
announced the completion and commissioning of a 3-MWh energy storage system
in boothbay, Maine.
State legislation passed in Maine requires utilities considering transmission
upgrades to also consider “non-transmission alternatives,” such as energy storage
and distributed generation. Convergent developed the battery storage project as
such a non-transmission alternative under a program administered by GridSolar
LLC.
The Maine town is small, with a population of 5,000 or so, but its population swells
to 45,000 in the summer. Central Maine Power, the investor-owned utility that
serves boothbay, collaborated with the Maine Public utilities Commission and
GridSolar to find a solution. They settled on a package of local energy endeavors
called the boothbay Pilot Project. The package includes the Convergent battery
project, solar rooftop panels, an Ice bear project, lighting upgrades, and a diesel
generator.
The total cost of the five projects, including the energy storage project, is $6 million.
The cost of upgrading the transmission lines, on the other hand, would have been
$18 million.
The energy storage project is located at an industrial park on the outskirts of
boothbay and uses lead-acid batteries. The battery assemblies are within shipping
containers. Each battery weighs 131 pounds, and there are 1,800 of them in the
project. There are three large shipping containers and one small one. The large
ones each hold 125,000 pounds worth of batteries. A climate control system
regulates the temperature in the shipping containers. The optimal temperature
for the batteries is 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The batteries provide electricity during
peak daytime loads, and are recharged at night when demand is low.
During the summer, when the storage is needed the most, energy from the
batteries can be dispatched almost immediately — with five minutes’ notice.
In the winter, energy from the storage project will be available as well, but will
require 24 hours’ notice.
Convergent partnered with Lockheed Martin and C&D Technologies to engineer
the integrated battery, power electronics and software system.

batteries and other newer technologies.
“Storage over the last couple of decades has
been taking technologies that have been in
other applications and kind of learning how
to integrate them into the grid and how to op-
erate them on the grid,” Roberts said. “Now, I
think the value proposition is readily apparent.
There’s almost no one in the energy industry
anywhere that would say that safe, affordable,
reliable energy storage is a bad thing. Everyone
supports the concept.”
Big deal, big players
Until recently, batteries may not have crossed
consumers’ minds unless their cell phones
or laptops were dying. Tesla in late April
announced its rechargeable residential
lithium-ion storage solution, Powerwall. The
announcement launched energy storage to the
forefront with consumers who were already
interested in residential solar installations.
On the same day that Tesla made its an-
nouncement, solar energy provider SolarCity
on April 30 said that for residential solar cus-
tomers, SolarCity will provide a turnkey bat-
tery backup service that includes the Tesla
Powerwall and allows permitting, installation
and ongoing monitoring. Incorporating Tesla’s
new battery technology, SolarCity said that it
would now be able to configure a solar system
— along with other energy management tech-
nologies — as a stand-alone, off-grid power
supply.
But Tesla certainly isn’t the only player in
the energy storage game. Companies such as
Younicos have announced projects since the
Powerwall, and many others have been in the
game for much longer.
According to Roberts, “This is Tesla jump-
ing into a market that’s already happening”
although they are “not quite late to the game.”
Roberts said Tesla is “great at getting
attention for what they do and they bring great
engineering and great experience in building
products. But they are definitely entering into a
marketplace where a lot of people were ahead of
them. So they’re doing it very well and they’re
aggressively approaching this market, which is
great, but they already have plenty of competi-
tion. There are a number of companies who are
moving into that space.”
Springfield helps homes share
solar energy with battery storage
Meena Dayak, Vice President, Integrated Media & Communications, APPA
City utilities of Springfield in Missouri designed, built, and commissioned an
energy storage project connecting four solar-powered homes, with significant
funding from the American Public Power Association’s Demonstration of Energy &
Efficiency Developments program.
Cu’s project demonstrated the feasibility of small-scale, community level energy
storage and load management for sites with renewable generation. It established
that communication between the generation, storage, and load is key to success.
Cu set out to integrate a village of four solar-powered houses, with a combined
output of 23 kW, on a university campus into a community energy storage
system. The utility installed a system to support solar generation and allow for
the monitored sharing of energy between the four houses while exporting excess
energy to energy storage battery racks for use in load shedding, load shifting, and
temporary islanding.
Cu started with remedial actions to update and ensure electrical code compliance
of the solar systems in the four houses. All the lead acid battery systems were
removed and exchanged for fully grid-tied AC Fronius brand inverters designed
for the size of the array for each house. The two A123 lithium ion battery racks
— with 960 VDC nominal voltage, and roughly a 30 kWh storage — used in this
project as the main source of storage capacity were donated to the university. The
batteries were used for peak shedding, shifting through distributed storage, as well
as forced and voluntary islanding.
The switchgear, the Milbank Manufacturing Synaps6, is the brain and control
method for the community energy project. Its monitoring and switching
capabilities augment the flow of generation and load. For example, if the solar
arrays are generating and the battery is depleted, the system will choose to charge,
but if the battery is full, the switch can feed the grid. The Synaps6 also has a web
portal for external communication, which hosts an up-to-the-minute graph of the
energy sources, loads, and battery storage levels.
The civil work within this project included all the siting, trenching, and construction
of the facility to house the equipment. Critical connections were made between
the panel boards of each of the four houses, the solar arrays of the homes, the
communication, monitoring and control devices, as well as the bi-directional
inverter, and the battery racks. A single interconnection point to the municipal grid
was established.
Rolla Municipal utilities, the public power provider for the area, was involved with
the project design since inception, and approved the final testing.
The project is fully installed and continues to power the four homes from a solar-
battery-grid combination. This project has the capability to expand to include other
sources of energy within the facility, including a Combined Heat and Power (CHP)
natural gas-hydrogen fuel cell.
StoRaGE

In December 2014, the California-based
SunPower Corp. and Sunverge Energy, unveiled
an exclusive agreement that offers SunPower’s
solar power systems and Sunverge’s “Solar Inte-
gration System” energy storage solutions to resi-
dential customers and utilities in the U.S. The
two companies are providing a similar solution
to Australian customers. At the time of their an-
nouncement, SunPower and Sunverge said that
they expected to make combined solar and stor-
age solutions broadly commercially available in
early 2015.
“Over the next five years, we expect to see a
disruptive shift in the energy market, with so-
lar power, energy storage, smart devices, energy
management technologies and electric vehicles
being combined,” said SunPower CEO Tom
Werner in a news release.
ABB Inc. has been in business exploring
power and automation technologies since 1883.
Pat Hayes, ABB’s business development manag-
er for energy storage, is banking on utility-scale
storage projects rather than residential.
“From most of the market analyst reports,
residential storage is relatively small in com-
parison to the amount of utility-scale storage
installed at this stage,” Hayes said. “Plus, for en-
ergy storage to make an impact on the value it
can add it is best to add as many value-added
benefits as it can offer. Utility-scale storage can
usually operate in many types of applications as
the grid can need many different kinds of sup-
port depending on the load and contingencies it
is facing at the time. Residential storage is usu-
ally focused on the load it is serving.”
AES Corporation is a leader in grid-scale
energy storage. Globally, AES has 86 MW of
energy storage projects in operation and has
announced 260 MW of interconnected battery-
based storage, equivalent to 520 MW of flexible
power resource, in construction or late-stage
development. Indianapolis Power & Light
Company, a subsidiary of AES Corporation,
is developing grid-scale, battery-based energy
storage to improve reliability and lower costs
for its customers, the utility said in June. The
facility will provide 20 megawatts of intercon-
nected advanced, battery-based energy storage,
equivalent to 40 MW of flexible resource, to the
electric grid. IPL said that this will be the first
grid-scale energy storage array in the 15-state
Midcontinent Independent System Operator
grid system.
Southern Company Chairman, President
and CEO Tom Fanning on May 27 disclosed
at the investor-owned utility’s annual meeting
of stockholders that Southern has reached an
agreement with Tesla to test commercial-scale
battery storage.
Duke Energy currently owns nearly
15 percent of the grid-connected, battery-
based energy storage capacity in the U.S.,
according to independent research firm
IHS Energy. “Fast-responding energy stor-
age is recognized for the tremendous ben-
efits it provides to grid operations, because
it can instantaneously absorb excess en-
Vital connections
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741972_Elster.indd 1 03/04/15 12:37 AM

ergy from the grid or release energy,” said
Phil Grigsby, Duke Energy’s vice president
of commercial transmission, in a news re-
lease. “Delivering that power in seconds, as
opposed to a power plant that could take 10
minutes or more to ramp up, is the unique
value the battery system provides to grid
operators.”
of compensation for that value.”
Policies have been evolving that would in-
clude energy storage as a generation source,
a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
economist said earlier this year. But the next
step depends on the industry, whose role it
is to tell policy makers what energy storage
can do.
“Energy storage doesn’t make energy,” Rob-
erts said. “It has round trip efficiency so it does
consume some energy in that regard, but it
doesn’t make any of its own energy. So when
it’s delivering energy on to the system, it looks
like a generator, but when it’s consuming ener-
gy it looks like a load. When it’s moving energy
about and using its timeliness as one of its val-
ues, it looks like a transmission line.”
And while storage providers may not
be properly compensated for their services
provided to the grid, the cost of the technol-
ogy has been an even bigger issue. Experts
from Deloitte said in a June webinar that cost
has been the biggest issue challenging the
widespread deployment of energy storage
technologies.
The technology itself tends to be expensive,
ABB’s Hayes said. ABB has been working to
lower soft costs by using modularity and stan-
dard materials. “This usually helps in a few
areas such as repeatability, which increases
reliability and familiarity,” he said.
Storage technologies are seeing investment
from venture capital as well as government in-
novation funds. Compressed air energy storage,
a variation on pumped hydro, is receiving gov-
ernment investment, according to consultants
at Deloitte. The technology has been successful
in Germany and is used to store energy from
wind farms, according to IEEE.
Powerful paradigm shift
IEEE predicted in a 2012 whitepaper that energy
storage coupled with smart grid technology
would see major leaps in the next 25 years.
ABB’s Hayes agrees that storage technology
has huge growth potential in North America,
especially as the grid evolves to accommodate
distributed resources.
“Now the flow of electrons are a lot tough-
er to follow,” Hayes said. “It’s not always
generation, transmission, distribution, load.
StoRaGE
Square batteries, round policies
“Storage doesn’t fit nicely into the asset
classifications that we have set up,” Roberts
said. “It doesn’t fit nicely into our tariff
structures. And that’s presented a number
of challenges for energy storage because you
can provide a value but have no way to get
remuneration for that value or to get any kind
728495_Exceleron.indd 1 1/21/15 4:03 PM

Read more
Find energy storage case
studies on PublicPower.org
under Topics > Distributed
Resources
This makes protection schemes and load-
ing of equipment much more challenging.
Plus, with renewables as part of the portfolio
now, that creates a generation resource that is
changing output rapidly. When you are try-
ing to balance supply vs. demand and you
have one of those two changing their output
rapidly, that is tough for a grid to handle. This
is where energy storage has a huge value.”
Energy storage capacity is positioned to
grow four-fold by 2019, according to GTM
Research, which also predicted that distrib-
uted generation such as community solar
could grow seven-fold by 2020. And these
developments are bound to change the grid.
As these technologies proliferate, Roberts
said, energy will experience a paradigm shift.
“[Electricity] is the world’s longest supply
chain that has almost no warehousing abil-
ity whatsoever. And that change [storage] is
massive, that brings about the ability to do
things that we weren’t able to do before,”
Roberts said.
With storage, pointed out Roberts, we can
move energy long distances at night even
when there’s no demand on the other end
because we can charge up batteries or pump
air into a cavern for a compressed air energy
storage system. “And then we don’t have to
burden the transmission system when we do
have high demand,” he said. During the day
when it’s needed, energy can be consumed
and it appears to be generated locally, but
obviously it was generated somewhere else.
“Storage allows us to operate the grid
from a different approach and over the next
15–20 years, I think we’re going to start to
see it play a larger and larger role in capacity
markets,” predicted Roberts.
“We always talk about two-way energy
flows and how we’re going to help make
consumers into market participants where
they’re basically being an active and engaged
partner with utilities, with grid operators, to
use the system more efficiently to respond to
price signals and time of use rates. And en-
ergy storage is among the tools that enable
those next generation concepts for how we
want to be able to operate the grid,” Roberts
explained.
Roberts predicts that even though grid-
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scale energy storage has driven the industry
over the last 5–10 years, storage is going to
increasingly be distributed on the system. Be-
hind the meter storage is already picking up
pace and will be the next gamechanger. n

Added Costs
You need an “inverter” to convert direct current from solar panels to the alternating
current used in your home. So the total cost of a storage unit can go up to $7,000.
Plus, you have to pay for labor, installation, controls, and more.
How Much?
The Tesla Powerwall 7 kWh model starts at $3,000, and the
10 kWh model is about $3,500. But batteries are only part
of the cost of a storage unit.
WhenThe Sun
Doesn’t Shine
Have A Backup
Power may go out when there’s a storm or other type of
disaster. A home battery system can act as a generator
— and it takes up far less space and is silent, with no
emissions.
Reduce Peak Energy Use
Electricity demand and prices are often
lower during the day than in the evening.
With a system like the Tesla Powerwall, you
can store energy from the grid during the
day to use in the evening.
Energy storage is a great option if you have solar panels.
Store extra power produced from sunshine during the
day, and use it at night when no energy is produced from
your panels.
Home Batteries:10ThingsYou Need to Know

TalkToYour Utility
Your public power utility knows best, and cares
about what’s important to you. They are not out to
make a profit. Ask your utility to explain the pros and
cons of installing home batteries and help you make
a wise decision.
Go Shopping
Right now, it’s the Tesla Powerwall. Mercedes says it will offer
home batteries in Sept. 2015. General Electric and many other
companies may also enter the market — shop before you buy.
Is ItWorth It?
Be sure to do the math before you buy a home battery.
Using it may cost up to 2.5 times more than buying
electricity from your utility. If you already have solar panels,
or plan to install them, batteries might be a good addition.
If you have frequent outages, a home battery may help.
MoreThanYou Can Store?
If you generate more power — from your solar
panels, etc. — than you can use or store, you may
be able to sell it back to the grid for an adjustment
on your electric bill. Check with your utility.
You NeedThe Grid
Right now, a home battery can keep the lights on and
the refrigerator cold but isn’t powerful enough to run
your air conditioner or clothes dryer. The battery
system can’t replace all the electricity you get from
the grid.
Share this infographic with your
customers.To request a digital version,
email News@PublicPower.org

MiCrogrids
self-sufficient Energy islands
By Ethan Howland, Contributing Writer

Microgrids, small energy systems that can
run independently of the main grid, can turn
communities into self-sufficient energy islands.
The technology may have been made popular
by a devastating storm, but public power utili-
ties have been creating electricity islands since
before it was cool. Microgrids are positioned to
grow quickly, with public power utilities lead-
ing the way, thanks to their unique position in
their communities.
When Superstorm Sandy roared up the East
Coast in October 2012, it not only knocked
out power to about 8.5 million customers in
the Northeast and Midwest and caused an
estimated $65 billion in damage — it pro-
pelled one utility segment into the limelight:
microgrids.
“Superstorm Sandy was a watershed mo-
ment,” said Michael Burr, director of the Mi-
crogrid Institute, an organization focused on
microgrids and distributed generation. “It
marked a point where microgrids became a so-
lution that people were more aware of.”
Microgrids are small energy systems that
can run separately from the grid, making them
ideal for facilities or wider areas that can’t af-
ford to see their power go down. The U.S. De-
partment of Energy defines microgrids as “a
group of interconnected loads and distributed
energy resources with clearly defined electrical
boundaries that acts as a single, controllable
entity with respect to the grid and can connect
and disconnect from the grid to enable it to
operate in both grid-connected or island
mode.”
Public power pioneers
While Superstorm Sandy and other storms may
have jump-started the interest in microgrids,
the technology is as old as some of the first
public power utilities that sought to bring the
benefits of electricity to parts of the country
that were unconnected to larger grid systems.
“Many of our public power utilities start-
ed out as separate grids with their own gen-
eration, serving their own communities,” said
American Public Power Association President
and CEO Sue Kelly at the association’s National
Conference in June. “As public power is already
owned by our customers and our sole mission
is to serve our own communities, you could
argue we are in fact the original microgrids.
As the saying goes, “Been there, done that,
got the T-shirt”— and we did it over 100
years ago.”
Those first municipal utility microgrids in-
cluded diesel engines and a basic distribution
system. Starting about a decade ago, microgrids
were typically set up on university campuses,
at hospitals and at military bases to provide
backup power.
A typical microgrid includes several core
technologies, Burr said. A control system is
used to balance generation and demand with-
in the microgrid. A distributed generation
system provides the electricity from one or
more power sources, which can, for example,
include natural gas-fueled combined heat and
power, solar panels, geothermal systems and
small-scale biomass. A microgrid might also
include demand-side management technology,
Burr said.
In recent years, the technology used in
microgrids has become more sophisticated
and less expensive, expanding their appeal,
Burr said.
A moving target
So, where are we today? Currently, there is
about 1,250 MW of microgrid capacity in the
United States, according to a July report from
GTM Research. The firm expects microgrid
capacity to increase to about 2,800 MW in
2020, with renewable energy making up about
a quarter of the capacity.
About 80 percent of microgrid capacity
is centered in seven states, which are led by
New York with about 220 MW. The other top
states in order are Georgia, Texas, California,
Maryland, Oklahoma and Alaska, according to
GTM Research.
Some of the factors driving the microgrid
market include increased customer demands,
maturing technologies, the reduced cost of
renewables and changing regulations, GTM
Research said.
The outlook for microgrids has quickly shift-
ed. “We’re moving into full-scale deployment
with microgrids,” said Peter Asmus, an analyst
with consulting firm Navigant Research.
In 2009, about two-thirds of all microgrids
were pilot or research and development proj-
ects, he said. At the time, there were questions
about their feasibility and many utilities ex-
pressed concerns about the idea of customers
being able to island off the grid, according to
Asmus.
The outlook, however, changed with more
utilities setting up microgrids, Asmus said.
Further, at least in the near-term, Asmus said
he expects public power utilities to play a larg-
er role with microgrids than investor-owned
utilities, partly because they can move faster
and don’t need to get project approval from
public utility commissions.
U.S. public power microgrid capacity will
likely grow from a negligible amount last year
to about 100 MW by 2017 and to then roughly
double by 2023, Asmus said.
Resiliency and control
The New York Power Authority is one of the
utilities getting a jump on microgrids. Last
year, NYPA released a plan for how it would
help transform New York’s utility industry,
partly by giving customers greater control
over their electricity. NYPA sees improved
resiliency through microgrids as one element
of that plan.
NYPA finished building a microgrid this
year for the New York City Department of Cor-
rections’ Rikers Island that is centered around
a 15-megawatt cogeneration plant, according
to Randy Solomon, NYPA’s director of energy
services delivery.
The project was spurred by a 2006 black-
out in Queens, New York, which led to grid
instability in the area for about three weeks, af-
fecting the prison facility, Solomon said. In the
future, Rikers Island will be able to keep op-
erating with full power during a wider power
outage. The microgrid can send power out of
its system and could potentially help stabilize
nearby areas if needed, Solomon said.
With an eye toward protecting facilities
from power outages, NYPA is studying the
feasibility of several other microgrid projects,
including one for a New York City wastewater
treatment plant, one for a group of state office
buildings in Albany, New York, and one at the

Stony Brook University Research and Development Park on Long Is-
land, Solomon said.
Island communities
One of the latest microgrid trends expands on the concept used at Rikers
Island to include a wider community, which could include dispersed
facilities and multiple generating sources, said the Microgrid Institute’s
Burr.Acommunity-microgridmay include multiplepropertyownersthat
hope to see benefits besides backup power, he said. Benefits can include
the use of local, renewable energy sources, economic development, lower
costs and a modernized grid that offers improved services, he said.
In a version of a community-microgrid, late last year, Norwich Public
Utilities and the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative, a
joint action agency, finished a $9 million, 10-MW project to supply backup
power to the Backus Hospital and critical facilities near the site in Norwich,
Connecticut. The other facilities include schools, emergency shelters, a fire
station, a shopping center and other buildings.
The project was partly a response to Superstorm Sandy and Hurri-
cane Irene, which caused widespread outages in the Northeast in 2011,
said Chris Riley, a utility spokesman.
Meanwhile on the West Coast, investor-owned utility San Diego Gas
& Electric has been running its 4.6 megawatt Borrego Springs demon-
stration project since 2009. The microgrid covers part of a small, iso-
lated town about 75 miles west of San Diego. The project uses a mix of
local generation, energy storage and automated switching to keep the
power on in the outage-plagued town.
SDG&E is expanding the project so it includes all its customers in
Borrego Springs and is powered mainly by a 26-MW solar project. If the
project’s batteries run down, SDG&E will use conventional generation
to power the town. The utility plans to finish expanding the microgrid
in mid-2016 and is looking at other areas in its service territory that
could benefit from a microgrid.
Not far from Borrego Springs, the Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton
set up what is called a fractal microgrid, where the base-wide microgrid
is made of sub-systems that have a similar design. The overall Camp
Pendleton microgrid includes four interoperable microgrids that scale
up from 4 kilowatts to about 1 MW. Each grid is able to island off from
the others. The project includes solar and diesel generation as well as
battery storage.
Like Camp Pendleton’s fractal grid, nested microgrids are another
type of emerging microgrid, Burr said. A nested microgrid includes mul-
tiple systems within the microgrid that can be operated independently.
The nested microgrid might include critical facilities spread around a
community, with the overall microgrid being managed as a portfolio to
balance generation and demand, he said. During a power outage, each
node within the microgrid would operate by itself.
New York State, which is in the early stages of revamping its utility
industry through the Reforming the Energy Vision initiative, plans to
spend $40 million to support community-microgrid systems. The state
expects to ultimately help sponsor up to seven microgrids. n
752570_National.indd 1 29/06/15 2:30 pm

How MicrogridsWork
Independent generation
The microgrid system can generate electricity from a single solar
or wind installation, or a combination of traditional and alterna-
tive power generation methods.
Critical services
A microgrid is usually built to power critical community resources
like hospitals, police and fire departments, and schools so that
they can continue to function in emergency situations.
Storms
Storms and other disasters can cause large-scale outages on the
main grid. Microgrids are being built today to increase resilience
and keep the power on during emergencies.
On the Island
3
5
5
55
6
6
6
8
7
5
4
3

Main coupling switch
The microgrid and main grid connect. The coupling switch
functions as the main switch point in case of grid outage. On an
average day, the coupling switch ensures that voltage levels
remain equal between the regular grid and the microgrid.
The electricity grid is like the mainland, where
energy is generated at a central power plant
and sent to where it’s needed. A microgrid is
like an island — it can function on its own,
power a concentrated area, and connect to
the mainland. Microgrids can keep power on
during blackouts, storms and other disasters.
On the Mainland
Main power generator
Power for most homes and businesses is generated at a baseload
plant. In non-emergency situations, microgrids can help reduce
peak demand at the baseload plants.
Substation
A substation is the intermediary between the power plant and the
customer. If the substation fails or has problems, customers lose
power or experience brownouts.
Homes
Individual homes are usually low on the microgrid priority list, but
can be linked to the microgrid if they have power generating
capabilities, like rooftop solar panels.
Businesses
A key commercial property may sometimes be included in
the microgrid, depending on its generating power and the
needs of the community.
1
2
2
7 8
4
1
Share this infographic
with your customers.
Email News@PublicPower.org
for a digital version

Changes to Emission Rules Cloud the Future
By Joe Nipper, Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Communications, APPA
WASHINGTON REPORT
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in early August released its
final rule under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon diox-
ide emissions from existing power plants. The final rule is good for some
states and tough for others to meet. The American Public Power Associa-
tion supports the need to lower CO2
emissions but is concerned that the
rule will change how many public power utilities generate and consume
electricity — more importantly, how much that electricity will then cost
consumers in public power communities.
Despite substantial steps EPA took
in the right direction, APPA has many
concerns with the final rule. Litigation
that challenges the rule is inevitable
but it is uncertain how quickly federal
courts will decide the matter while
utilities are faced with fast-approaching
deadlines and costly changes.
The final rule incorporates a more
rational approach to setting a uniform
national standard for emission rates for
coal and natural gas plants. Other posi-
tive changes in the final rule include:
an extended interim deadline, more
time for states to develop compliance plans, fairer treatment of renewables
and nuclear generating units under construction, and the inclusion of a
reliability safety valve. The addition of a program for emission reduction
credits and guidance for
interstate trading will give
utilities more flexibility.
Compliance targets are
now more achievable for
some states, including
Arizona, Florida, South
Carolina, Georgia and
Tennessee.
The EPA adjusted some
of the building block assumptions to better reflect reality, but the funda-
mental problems with the agency’s interpretation of the “Best System of
Emission Reduction” regime persist in the final rule.
Additionally, utilities might scramble to meet consumer demand for
electricity with new generation sources, including renewables, which
might cost more and offer less capacity than current or traditional sources.
A major concern for public power utilities is stranded assets — for
example, coal plants that have remaining useful lives but, based on ret-
rofits to meet other regulations, have not yet been fully paid for. The rule
threatens to shut down these plants and, at the same time, utilities must
continue to meet demand. It’s like someone condemning your house, de-
claring it unfit to live in, but asking you to continue paying the mortgage
while you find a new house and pay the mortgage and rent on that as well.
What those issues boil down to is a real risk for your consumers.
Public power values its relationships with its customers and communi-
ties. Thanks to those relationships,
necessary but generally modest rate
increases are often well tolerated.
But what the EPA 111(d) final rule
is requiring may push us past the
threshold to a point where consumers
are being treated unfairly.
APPA continues to closely evaluate
the final rule from EPA. We’ll take
appropriate actions in court, at the
EPA, at other agencies such as FERC,
and in Congress. But no matter how
the court appeals go, or how the next
election turns out, the industry will
continue to change quickly. Utilities need to continue doing all they can
to minimize the adverse impacts on consumers. n
What is 111(d) or the Clean Power Plan, as
it’s commonly referred to? A rule proposed
by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency that seeks to cut carbon dioxide
emissions from existing coal and natural
gas plants under Section 111(d) of the
Clean Air Act. The reductions would cut
emissions by 32 percent — from 2005
levels — by 2030.
Find easy-to-read
summaries of the Clean
Power Plan’s details at
PublicPower.org under
Topics>Environment.
READ MORE: Find blog posts about APPA’s work in preparing for 111(d) and what you can do at
your utility on blog.PublicPower.org/sme
“APPA supports the need to lower
CO2
emissions and address climate
change, and the EPA has offered some
improvements in this final rule. but for
some states, the rule seeks to do TOO
MuCH TOO FAST, which will adversely
impact their electricity costs.”

ENGINEERING
For many people, the rise in popularity of electric vehicles may seem
like something new. What they may not realize is that the first electric car
was introduced in 1832, around the same time engineers were developing
the first internal combustion engine. In fact, we’ve already had a president
who was an electric car enthusiast: Woodrow Wilson, who drove a Fine
Milburn electric car around Washington, D.C. in the 1910s and 1920s.
And President Wilson wasn’t alone. In those early days of automobiles,
an estimated 25 percent of the cars on the road were electric. Driving an
EV wasn’t unusual; it was fashionable.
Even if that wasn’t the case for the rest of the 2oth century, thanks in
large part to Henry Ford’s manufacturing genius and the availability of
cheap oil from Texas, it’s easy to argue that changes in consumer prefer-
ences and advancements in storage technologies have put the electric
vehicle squarely back in fashion. If you don’t believe me, just walk by a
Tesla dealership or spot the plug-in electric hybrids on the road next time
you are commuting to work.
And last year, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced that the
Department of Energy would be putting forward $50 million to help ac-
celerate the research and future production of electric vehicles.
What’s becoming clear is that the electric vehicle is likely here to stay
this time around. There may be some debate about the environmental
impact of going electric, but the trendiness of the cars and the pressure of
environmental concerns has really increased the EVs popularity, espe-
cially among the affluent. And if they are here to stay, how are utilities
supposed to react to a new technology pulling a lot of load off their dis-
tribution systems? Even if the electric car is older than the electric power
system, it hadn’t been plugged into the electric grid in modest numbers
until relatively recently.
So what does the future marriage between electric distribution and the
electric car require? I have some ideas.
First off, utilities need to recognize what these vehicles are going to do
to their loads. In the 1970s, the prevalence of air conditioners suddenly
put new load pressures on utilities as people upped their ACs on a hot
day. Are we now going to see load influxes at night when people come
home and plug in their electric vehicle? This may require rethinking rate
structures and reappraising new peaks, according to the Electrification
Coalition, a not-for-profit group promoting electric vehicles.
Second, utilities need to embrace the EV market, beginning with their
own fleet of meter readers, bucket trucks and service vehicle. This should
expand to the non-commuting vehicles. A scan of the electric service
vehicles already in widespread use, from golf carts to fork lifts to farm-
ing equipment, shows a number of instances where better battery storage
capabilities have made their presence fairly commonplace, and that’s not
likely to change as these vehicles offer lower fuel and maintenance costs
and quiet operation.
Thirdly, access to infrastructure is a must-have for cities that want to
embrace electric vehicles. When I recently talked to a colleague in Florida
at a demand response event about him making a visit to APPA’s new offices
Charge of the Light Brigade:
Is Your Utility Ready for Electric Cars?
By Mike Hyland, Senior Vice President of Engineering Services, APPA
Find out how reliable
your utility is. Submit your
Reliable Public Power provider
application by Sept. 30. Visit
PublicPower.org/RP3
in Crystal City, Virginia, he asked if there was a charging station at our
building. I’d never considered this since I don’t have an electric car but it’s
clear that people who are going to own electric vehicles are going to plan
out trips with the expectation that they will be able to charge their cars at
meetings. For the record, we do have places to plug-in your electric cars at
the base of our new building.
All this shows that utilities should look beyond just renewables, ad-
vanced metering, and distributed generation in considering how changes
in customer preference, expectations, and needs will impact them. Major
changes are also coming from a product that looks like something we’ve
had in our garages for a century but which are now going to be plugged
into the grid in greater and greater amounts with each passing year.
From Sacramento to Nashville, from Rochester, Minnesota, to Kissim-
mee, Florida, public power communities are developing the information
resources and putting in the infrastructure to support their customers who
are already part of this EV resurgence. Just this month, Burbank Water and
Power in California is rolling out its curbside charging program. For many
utilities, there’s already a critical mass of customers who are driving their
electric vehicles and are happy to have a utility that is prepared.
So I applaud Secretary Moniz for trying to get ahead of this shift by
boosting R&D in the electric vehicle market. Short of the next Henry Ford
harnessing cheap hydrogen to bring the internal combustion engine roar-
ing back, the electric vehicle may prove to be the way of the future — and
the latest change that the utility industry must be prepared for. n

Smart Meters Are Smart Enough
to Protect Your Privacy
By Paul Zummo, Manager, Policy Research and Analysis, APPA
SECURITY
Since 2012, utilities in the United States have set up more than
43 million advanced meter installations, known as smart meters, in
homes and businesses, and more are being installed every day.
How smart meters ARE used
Smart meters are two-way devices that measure customer electricity usage
about every 15 minutes. This allows the utility to get data about its cus-
tomers’ electricity use without having to send a meter reader. And, smart
meters allow customers to track how much electricity they’re using.
Most utilities that install smart meters offer online portals where
customers can see how much electricity they’re using and when, and
what their tab is at any time — just like bank or credit card statements
online. Customers can use smart meter data to make more informed
choices about their electricity use and bring bills down.
Smart meters also help utilities offer better service. Utilities can
measure real-time load and better balance loads to avoid blackouts.
Smart meters also help utilities respond more quickly to outages —
the utility doesn’t have to wait until someone calls to report an outage
but is notified right away by the smart meter itself and can quickly de-
ploy technicians to the affected outage area and restore power quickly.
The meters can also tell the utility if an outage is system-wide or at a
particular site.
Traditionally, electricity use is billed at a flat rate, no matter when
customers use it. But the price of wholesale electricity is greatly affect-
ed by time and weather. And by gauging when customers use power
through a smart meter, a utility can set different rates for different
times of the day and let customers leverage lower rates for saving heavy
electricity use for off-peak times.
How smart meters are NOT used
A common concern is that utilities will be able to see what customers
are using electricity for at any given time and be able to control their
use. The reality is that utilities cannot tell what appliances are in use
by looking at the data from a smart meter every 15 minutes. The only
way anyone can determine specific usage is if the customer chooses
to install smart appliances or special monitoring devices that measure
certain appliances, like a washer/dryer. Even if customers choose to
install such appliances or devices, they can opt to not share this data
with their utility.
Can a utility share data from a smart meter with third parties? Not
typically. In most cases, utilities cannot share data with unaffiliated
third parties unless the customer provides clear consent. Sometimes,
the utility may tell customers that they will share data unless custom-
ers opt out. Bottom line — customers can stop the utility from sharing
data without their approval.
State utility commissions and other government entities have de-
veloped smart meter data privacy guidelines to ensure that your data
remains protected. These regulations also provide guidelines on how
they may access their data, revoke consent to data sharing, dispute
bills and more.
The public power commitment to privacy
Public power utilities are already committed to meeting customer needs
and respecting their preferences.
The American Public Power Association has been involved in de-
veloping an industry-wide voluntary code of conduct since 2012. The
draft code emphasizes core privacy principles and outlines concepts
for power providers and third parties to secure customer data. A sum-
mary of the key privacy protections established by the industry can
be found in the APPA whitepaper, Smart Grid Data Privacy Concerns:
An Overview of Recommended Guidelines. Find the whitepaper at
PublicPower.org/SmartGrid. n
Share this article with
your customers. To request a
digital version, email
News@PublicPower.org
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