By Kathleen Davis, Senior Editor
Utility Automation & Engineering T&D magazine
Electric Light & Power magazine
This week, the smart grid won.
If it wasn’t the clear frontrunner before in both marketing within the U.S. power industry and technology on the forefront, it blew away all competition this week when DOE guru Chu and U.S. Commerce Sec. Locke added a few zeros on the end of their grant announcements.
It is common knowledge that the DOE is paving the way for smart grid grants through the stimulus bill passed earlier this year, but this week brought new excitement: No longer will the cap on matching grants be $20 mill a program. Chump change. Let’s add that zero and make it $200 mill. Now, that’s quite a pay raise. Demo projects got a bump, too, from $40 mill to $100 mill.
“The smart grid is an urgent national priority that requires all levels of government as well as industry to cooperate,” Secretary Chu said when announcing the new and shiny numbers. “I’m pleased that industry leaders stepped forward today and are working with us to get consensus. We still have much to do, but the ultimate result will be a much more efficient, flexible power grid and the opportunity to dramatically increase our use of renewable energy.”
The bad news: Well, they’re just shifting around those shiny numbers. They’re not really new. The overall investment from the Obama government plan in smart grid has not changed. They’re just letting programs grab larger slices of the pie.
As manufacturing giants like GE, IBM and Cisco announce new forays into the smart grid arena, this recent announcement can only wave the red flag in front of more tech bulls. But, when one project can bring them $200 million in basically free(ish) cash, who can blame them? Free money and a new market—a big money market, in fact—are enticing.
Cisco is talking about a $100 billion potential with smart grid tech on the CNET this week. 100 billion. And they’re forecasting it to be a $20 billion a year industry within five years.
I’d stop manufacturing widgets and Chinese finger traps, myself, and find a way to get into the smart grid game, were I a manufacturing powerhouse—and that for a mere single billion.
But, I’m not greedy. A billion would get me pretty far. Cisco—and the other major players—can lay stake to the other 99, as well as the cash being freed up by the Obama camp.
