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LADWP Receives $60 Million for Smart Grid Project
Demonstration Grants Will Accelerate Comprehensive Smart Grid Program

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) was awarded over $60 million in Smart Grid Demonstration funding – the most of any other municipally-owned utility in the country to “green the grid” by developing, deploying and testing advanced smart grid technologies in partnership with a consortium of top Southern California research institutes including USC, UCLA, and CalTech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Announced this morning by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Smart Grid Demonstration grants will jumpstart LADWP’s efforts to build a smarter, greener and more efficient electric grid, as well as enhance power reliability, and create green jobs for Los Angeles.

“We are extremely pleased that the Department of Water and Power was chosen as the recipient of this grant, and particularly proud that we received largest grant award of any municipal utility in the nation and the second largest of any utility period,3 said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “This award is the result of a great collaboration among LADWP, USC, UCLA, and CalTech/JPL to modernize our electric grid. Going forward, the LADWP will work to prove the viability of smart grid technology so that it can be applied throughout this great city, and I am confident that with this grant funding, they will be successful.”

The grant funds will significantly enhance LADWP’s 10-year, $1 billion Smart Grid Program that is currently underway.

• Initiative I: A fully integrated demonstration of Smart Grid operation and technology as applied to demand response. The university campuses will be used as testing grounds replicating a full range of user infrastructure environments including commercial, medical, retail, semi-industrial, and residential.
• Initiative II: Conduct a comprehensive portfolio of behavioral studies. LADWP will use the fully-integrated community and physical/information management infrastructure to identify people’s behavior and energy use to inform successful adoption of Smart Grid technologies.
• Initiative III: Demonstrate next-generation cyber-security technologies. The regional project will drive specific system architecture and models, enabled by Caltech and JPL existing cyber-security test beds at Caltech and JPL.
• Initiative IV: Demonstrate the integration of electric vehicles into the LADWP-managed grid. Both UCLA and USC have large (partially electric) vehicle fleets which will afford Los Angeles an opportunity to test electric vehicles in both the controlled environment of a corporate fleet and the “real world” usage of individuals, without having to equip individual residences with charging stations.


Details Here

first published week of:   11/30/2009

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Louisiana companies fined for violating the Clean Water Act

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fined ten Louisiana companies for violating federal Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations outlined under the federal Clean Water Act. Federal inspections of the bulk oil storage facilities in May 2009 revealed a variety of violations though the violations differed at each facility. SPCC plans were not certified by a professional engineer, plans had inadequate or no description of the physical layout of the facility, and plans had inadequate or no information or procedures for reporting oil spills. Inspections and tests required by federal regulations were not in accordance with written procedures developed for the facilities, and personnel working at the sites had no training on the operation of equipment to prevent discharges, no training on discharge procedure protocols and spill prevention briefings were not scheduled and conducted periodically. The inspections also revealed that vehicle traffic was not warned of aboveground piping and oil transfer operations, containment bypass valves were not closed when not draining rainwater, and secondary containment was inadequate for mobile or portable storage tanks.

Details Here

first published week of:   08/24/2009

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Maine sewer, water systems need aid – state supports trust fund plan

Maine’s sewer and water systems need more than $500 million in repairs and expansions, according to state officials, and more than half of those projects need to be addressed in the next five years. To come up with funding for the projects, a national trust fund has been proposed to help pay for the needs across the country. The proposal has state support and the interest of Maine’s congressional delegation. The state uses bonds, federal loans and grants and local sewer and water district revenues to pay for repairs and upgrades. The concept of a trust fund to ensure adequate funding for projects has support in Congress, with a House measure sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans

Details Here

first published week of:   09/21/2009

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Missouri gets $1.4M to repair power lines

The State of Missouri will receive $1.4 million in federal grant money to help repair power line damage resulting from the severe ice storm that swept through Southeast Missouri in January 2009, a U.S. Senator announced on July 6. The funding will come from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The State of Missouri is responsible for distributing the money to the Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., which sustained significant damage to its electrical transmission system during the storms

Details Here

first published week of:   07/06/2009

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Archived GovÕt Notes • Archived Technology Notes • Archived Utility Notes

Volume 31

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