Here we are, in the gorgeous town of Charlottesville, Virginia, to tell you about one of Dominion’s new conservation initiatives: SmartGrid Charlottesville. The chairman, president, and CEO of Dominion, Tom Farrell, with Virginia’s Governor, Tim Kaine, and other government officials are announcing the SmartGrid Charlottesville initiative.
SmartGrid Charlottesville is a program that will enable the city of Charlottesville to benefit from “smart grid” technology. We’re going to be installing new, “smart meters,” across the city of Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County. These “smart meters” are the foundation for the “smart grid,” which promotes energy conservation and environmental responsibility.
We’re testing out a number of new items (pending regulatory approval where required), including LED streetlights, remote electric service turn on and turn offs (this will be great for the University of Virginia students!), a really cool project with Positive Energy, the option of time-based rates, and some other demonstrations.
Pending regulatory approval, we plan to install smart meters and equipment throughout our entire Virginia service area over the next few years. The $600 million program is part of a plan the company announced in June 2008 that is expected to save customers more than $1 billion over the next 15 years through fuel savings and by potentially avoiding the need for two future power stations and delaying the need for two others.
We’re so excited to be part of this. I’ll be online for the next half hour to answer your questions regarding SmartGrid Charlottesville. I’ll do my best to get to everyone’s questions, but due to the anticipated high volume of traffic, I can’t guarantee I’ll get to it while I’m on site. I’ll send more when I get back to office.
26 comments:
How many smart meters are you going to install?
I’m a UVA student going back to my off campus apartment this fall, how does the remote turn on and off work?
How do I enroll in the Charlottesville program?
How much will it cost a customer to have a smart meter installed?
What makes the meter “smart”? What makes the grid “smart”?
How do you figure that the savings will be $1 billion or more?
Why was Charlottesville selected to be the first to use smartgrid? It would seem that a larger impact could have been made using the Hampton Roads area,
Instead of sending a Dominion employee out to your residence to turn your power on when you move in and again for when you move out, we can turn your power on and off from our offices using the two way communication to the smart meter.
About 46,500 “smart meters” in the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. We have already installed more than half of the 46,500 “smart meters.”
There is no enrollment in the Charlottesville program or any smart meter installation. Dominion Virginia Power customers in Charlottesville and most of Albemarle County will have smart meters installed by the end of 2009.
There is no separate charge for being included in the SmartGrid Charlottesville initiative.
Smart maters are a new technology of meters with two-way communications that enable new capabilities to help our customers conserve energy and to improve our operations.
Smart meters are foundational to creating a smart grid. The initial functions include a demonstration project providing customers Web access through www.Dom.com for energy usage and billing information. Over time, functions will increase, offering customers greater control over their use of electricity.
The term “smart grid” describes a power grid that will use digital technology to make the grid work more efficiently in delivering electricity, much the way that digital technology has revolutionized wireless communications and personal computing. The smart grid is being developed, and its capabilities are evolving.
The billion dollars in savings over 15 years is our projection if the installation proceeds on schedule. It includes savings through operational efficiencies, as Dominion can use less fuel to generate adequate power to meet our customers’ needs. Reducing fuel means lowering fuel costs. Potentially, the use of less fuel could result in saving the cost of building two power plants and delaying costs for two others.
The reason we came to Charlottesville is to test the technology. We are testing the wireless communication technologies.
The hills are a challenge for the communication, and it was a great place to perform a stress test.
Also, the many students that move in and out of UVA will test our remote turn on/turn offs.
How can I find out whether my home's location makes me eligible to participate in this? I don't want to get my hopes up if it's not going to happen.
How can I tell if I have a smart meter already installed?
All Charlottesville customers who will be receiving a smart meter in 2009 received a letter from Dominion in late February stating they were going to receive a meter upgrade.
How do I monitor my use in real time? I already have the new meter installed and an online Dom account... but no sign of use history outside of what I used to have...
I am intrigued by the LED streetlight technology. Where, when and how many of the LED lights will you be testing? Thanks!
LED technology reduces energy, lengthens maintenance cycles, and enables new features not feasible with traditional sources.
The number and location of LED streetlights in Charlottesville have not yet been determined but we are working with city officials in Charlottesville to help us implement this project and many others.
Smart meters look like your existing meter, but do not have dials. Smart meters have an LCD digital display showing how much energy you have used. You can view an image here http://www.dom.com/about/conservation/images/smartmeter_large.jpg
The SmartGrid Charlottesville demonstration projects will be available in 2010, once all the smart meters are installed.
The real time data you mention is being worked through here at Dominion so that we can present it to the customer in the appropriate way. Information about this and all demonstration projects will be communicated at the appropriate time.
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I dont want a smart meter. This is an invansion of privacy and possible health risk. You can say how safe it is but the facts stand on their own as their is many scientist and engineers testing them now and finding them to be damageing to dna and cells within rats and even a few studies on humans. Google and ban smart meter sites and youll see pages of documents and testimony from PHDs saying this is safe. On the Privacy aspect of it these meters will trasmitt every few secs to 15 mins your power useage and apps such as googles smart meter power app which shows you WHAT you have turned on not just how much power but what is on but analyzing the power spikes from the device.
The meters are a base for all the appliances in the house to talk to when you get SMART washer or dryer or dishwasher or fridge. The information such as whats in your fridge will transmitt to the smart meter and then the smart meter will relay this infor to head quarters. They collect info in secs or mins so they have a good idea of what your doing the entire time your useing electricity and what your useing.
We do understand that some of our customers have concerns and questions regarding smart meter technology. We have addressed questions regarding health risk, data privacy and other common questions on www.dom.com, search: Smart Meter FAQs
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