CU opens dialogue on 'smart grid' technology

City Utilities leaders on Tuesday presented information to City Council on technology that could mean savings in energy and operating costs, but CU would have to spend money to save money.

Utility leaders informed council about "smart grid" technology, a term used to encompass a wide variety of utility concepts from automated meter-reading to two-way communications between homes and utilities.

Automated meter-reading systems are already in place for some CU customers. Director of Distribution Gary Gibson said nearly 6,000 meters can send signals to readers driving through neighborhoods, eliminating the need to search for hidden meters.

More advanced technology would allow the utility to save about $4.8 million a year through a combination of factors, Gibson said. Fewer people would be needed to read meters; power could be remotely connected and disconnected, saving time and fuel needed to send an employee to each site; and time and fuel would be saved because outages would be reported automatically, allowing more efficient response.

"We saw with the 2007 ice storm some of the benefits we could have gotten with outage management and outage response, by knowing when customers were off and when they came back on," Gibson said. "We could have shaved some time off of that restoration if we had that system."

The system is not inexpensive. CU estimates it would cost about $36.5 million to implement most of the technology, excluding some of the more advanced two-way communication possibilities that would allow CU, with customer approval, to monitor energy usage and even cycle appliances on and off to save energy.

The utility has no timetable for implementing the technology, though General Manager John Twitty said it likely would not happen before 2011.