ROCKVILLE, MD, October 29, 2009
/24-7PressRelease/ -- The world's leading daily trade news publication covering the smart grid and modernization of the electric utility industry, Smart Grid Today, removed password protection on its website starting this week for a limited free trial -- just as smart grid-related news reached its latest peak in the general press. As the Obama administration's Department of Energy (DOE) announced its list of the 100 awardees of smart grid stimulus grants -- after weeks of pouring over the 400 applications from US electric utilities -- worth $3.4 billion, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, R, recently signed the nation's first statewide smart grid law. The California Public Utilities Commission is required under the new law to submit a plan for smart grid deployment at the state's leading utilities -- and the power companies are required to file plans by July 1, 2011.
Smart Grid Today asked the probing questions at a White House press conference last night that was meant to prepare reporters for today's announcement. What about the concern Galvin Electricity Initiative Executive Director and former long-time EPRI Chief Kurt Yeager raised in an interview with us last month about DOE facing "congressional pressure to get the money out quickly," we asked at the briefing. Yeager worried the DOE would spread the funds "around widely on what might be called 'shovel-ready projects,' not necessarily to really focus on building a truly smart grid," (SGT, Sep-21).
That is not a problem, Rogers told us last night. "We were delighted by the quality of the application pipeline," he added. "We were oversubscribed 4-1 in terms of the number of applications and 5-1 in terms of the dollar amount of applications we were able to provide. The amount of shovel-ready projects out there, that are very high quality and meet all of the definitions of smart, was terrific," Smart Grid Today quoted Rogers in today's issue.
His answer bodes well for the smart grid industry but many questions remain, and Smart Grid Today has access to the newsmakers and industry insiders that each business day reveal what makes the industry tick. It's daily reports are written by top notch journalists that cut their teeth at some of the most revered news outfits in the US -- and is guided by an experienced energy editor with decades of experience delivering fiercely independent, fact-based publications that peel away the spin and hyperbole to reveal the news the energy industry can't afford to be without.
In the coming two weeks, free trial recipients and visitors to the Smart Grid Today website will see our reporters root out answers to the many questions today's news raises -- such as what did the 100 grantees offer DOE that the other 300 did not? The grant applications were not revealed to the press and we can only glean -- from the details the winners will share about their projects -- what criteria DOE used to choose them. Do they all have funding in place for the other half of the project costs? Is that what "shovel ready" really means -- or not? How many of the projects count on ratepayers to cover the other half of the project costs? What will the 300 projects that did not win grants do for funding? Many of them vowed to proceed even if the grants didn't go their way.
Reporters are encouraged to visit the Smart Grid Today website to help add depth to their stories on the topic. Electric utilities, the firms that serve them plus regulators and other stakeholders can take advantage of the Smart Grid Today free trial to see why their peers count on our advertising-free, highly-targeted, exclusive reporting and news analysis every business day.
About Smart Grid Today: MMI Inc. in Rockville, MD publishes Smart Grid Today for PDF delivery by email and publication via password-protected website for paying subscribers every business day. The publication is subscription-based and always free of advertising to maintain its founders' four-plus decades of tradition and reputation in reliably delivering unbiased and probing trade journalism and breaking news. Visit http://www.smartgridtoday.com to view the temporarily-free content or to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription.
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