Modeling the value of various technologies and applications.
Ahmad Faruqui (ahmad.faruqui@brattle.com), Peter Fox-Penner and Ryan Hledik are economists with The Brattle Group. The authors acknowledge ComEd Vice President Val Jensen for funding portions of the work on which this article is based, and for his contributions to their thinking on the subject. Also, they acknowledge Clay Davis for contributions to model development and Heidi Bishop for editorial help.
As the momentum to upgrade America’s aging electric grid continues to build, more power companies are announcing initiatives and partnerships that will lay the groundwork for their involvement in the development of the smart grid (SG). In order to stay ahead of the curve and the competition, companies are struggling to define, quantify, and strategize for the deployment of SG technologies in their service areas.
Defining the SG involves not only identifying the component technologies, but also understanding their power to transform the entire electric industry business model. This power to transform is tied to their potential for achieving significant cost reductions, decreased energy consumption, increased reliability, lower carbon emissions, and improved quality of service.