IBM announced that Oncor, a Texas-based utility that delivers power to more than 3 million homes and businesses, has joined the Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition. This group of utilities works to further the adoption of smarter energy grids around the world and now collectively serves more than 115 million energy consumers globally.The coalition's first collaborative effort was the creation of a Smart Grid Maturity Model (SGMM), a tool that benchmarks current progress and plans long term smart grid programs. More than 70 utilities have taken the SGMM assessment to date, and since the GIUNC donated the SGMM to Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute last year, it continues to be an effective method of evaluation for utilities around the world.
New projects include:
-Ways to understand the effect on emissions due to Smart Grid deployment. The group has developed a Smart Grid Carbon Model (SGCM) that allows utilities to analyze different carbon levers due to various smart grid investments.
-Issues related to integrating distributed energy resources. The group recently completed an extensive study on Microgrids and is now shifting its focus to studying grid impact and business strategy related to electric vehicles.-The wants and needs of the consumer related to smart grid based on learnings from current pilot projects. The group is identifying customer behavior when given certain options, types of technologies that they are likely to adopt and how they perceive service value.
-Methods that evaluate regulatory models. In order for regulators to make more informed decisions, the coalition is also developing a system dynamics model that captures all the business case benefits that Smart Grid enables including improved reliability, grid efficiency improvements, renewable energy, CO2 emissions reduction, electric vehicle adoption rates and customer conservation.
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