Smart Grid Regulatory Bodies (Part 1) - FERC

I plan to introduce Smart Grid regulators and regulations through a sequence of medium sized blogs going forward. This piece introduces the FERC and highlights areas where it impacts the Smart Grid.  The FERC or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is essentially the SEC of the Utility and Energy world.

As a Federal US agency, FERC’s primary responsibility is interstate wholesale Power, Oil and Natural Gas sale and transmission regulation as well as the management of energy markets. FERC has an additional focus on hydropower regulation and licensing of hydro projects as well. FERC however, does not do retail regulation or consumer level monitoring.

Ten cases where the FERC would get involved (as a result of the Energy Policy Act 2005), and areas where the FERC would impact Smart Grid are as follows –

      Direct Impact on Smart Grid

1.       Energy Market monitoring and investigation. This primarily includes transmission and   
    wholesale of electricity between states

2.       Establishment and monitoring of standards for high voltage transmission infrastructure

3.       Enforcement of regulation and imposition of penalties on utilities for non-adherence to FERC standards

4.       Administration of utility specific accounting & financial standards and monitoring of utility conduct

5.       Environmental Regulation

Indirect Impact on Smart Grid

6.       M&A of Electrical Companies

7.       Regulation of transmission and resale of natural gas between states

8.       Regulation of interstate oil transportation

9.       Regulation and approval of gas pipelines (and gas storage) and power transmission sites
    (limited). Also, regulation of site closure

10.   Licensing and inspection of private, municipal, and state hydroelectric projects

11.   Safety monitoring of proposed and existing LNG terminals

Smart Grid in 5 Bullets

1. Smart Grid is the convergence of the Communication Infrastructure with the Power Infrastructure.
   
2. Smart Grid came into the fore-front chiefly because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – 2009.
   
3. Smart Grid is ‘Smart’ because it can heal itself (re-routing and pro-active maintenance) and provide a better experience to consumers in terms of cost as well as responsiveness.
   
4. Smart Grid will be defined by Smart Meters, Smart Software Platforms and Intelligent Customer Support.
   
5. Smart Grid will allow consumers to sell power back to the grid in addition to buying it, changing the power transmission paradigm from a one-way street to a two-way street. 

Capex based Building Management to Opex based Building Management

Building Management being a larger term, realized through Building Management Software is undergoing an interesting change in paradigm. Most often there isn't a real correlation between how well Buildings are managed and the amount of investment made in building management tools . Reason being the cost of investment (restricting purchase of such systems) and the learning curve (there is still a learning curve problem in all that has been invested in). Thereby commonly, BMS (s could be s/w or systems) are seen as white elephants due to their Capex Model oriented nature.

Recently Johnson Controls (JCI), Indie Energy and Serious Materials have launched s suite of intelligent SaaS driven applications that enable prosumers to choose that which they need and scale up as their needs expand on-demand. This approach has changed the game from a Capex oriented BMS investment to one of Opex for the prosumer, thereby solving the issue of cost as well as learning curve. Learning investment as well as cost of operation reduces considerably in this model making it more viable for smaller organizations to adopt a structured approach towards BMS.

JCI's Panoptix - http://bit.ly/vbPadE
Indie Energy App Store - http://indieenergy.com/about/
Serious Material's Serious Energy Apps - http://www.seriousenergy.com/