Does smart grid technology actually work
Does smart grid technology actually work is a question a Colorado regulator spent 4 years testing against a real utility bill, not a vendor pitch. A smart grid replaces ordinary electric meters and manually operated equipment with digital devices that measure power use in real time and can be adjusted remotely. In March 2008, Xcel Energy announced it would build one of the first in the country in Boulder, Colorado, working with a consortium of 6 technology companies. A report the following year sized the plan at up to 100 million dollars.
The first bar is the full 2008 to 2009 planned investment by Xcel and its technology partners, reported by source 3, a different accounting scope from the other 3 bars, which come from the 2011 to 2012 cost recovery filing Xcel brought to regulators, sources 1, 2 and 5. The bars are not one continuous shrinking total.
Show the numbers
| Planned consortium investment | 100 |
| Cost Xcel billed for recovery | 44.5 |
| Amount regulators approved | 27.9 |
| Amount still disputed | 16.6 |
What the vendor consortium promised in Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder, in its own announcement of hosting a showcase smart grid home, said Xcel expected to enable more than 13,000 homes with smart meters by the end of 2008, with 10,000 more meters available by mid 2009. A year later, in April 2009, Xcel had installed approximately 15,000 smart meters and more than 100 miles of fiber optic cable in Boulder homes, according to a report that month. Xcel Energy vice president Roy Palmer called the project unfinished that same year.
We want to experiment and see what works and what doesn't.
Roy Palmer, Xcel Energy vice president for federal and state government affairs, speaking to a reporter. Source 3.
Xcel Energy project manager Kathleen Evens described a future where a customer could choose to skip using power at the wrong time.
A customer can decide I don't want to run my dishwasher when Xcel is burning coal or during peak pricing periods.
Kathleen Evens, an Xcel Energy project manager, speaking to a reporter. Source 3.
The first 2 bars are from the University of Colorado Boulder 2008 announcement of what Xcel promised. The third bar is the April 2009 count from source 3 of meters actually installed, described there as approximately 15,000.
Show the numbers
| Promised by end 2008 | 13,000 |
| Promised more, by mid 2009 | 10,000 |
| Installed by April 2009 | 15,000 |
What Xcel Energy actually billed regulators
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission had already ruled that only 27.9 million dollars of the smart grid total cost was prudent, the legal standard meaning reasonable and necessary for a utility to charge customers, holding back 16.6 million dollars of the 44.5 million dollars Xcel said the project cost, a figure confirmed by a newsletter published by the Commission itself, a news report and a hearing transcript. In December 2011, Xcel asked the Commission to reconsider that withheld amount through cost recovery, the process that lets a utility bill customers for a project it already built. That request went to an evidentiary hearing held August 1 and 2, 2012.
What an Xcel Energy witness admitted under oath
At that hearing, Xcel Energy witness Karen Hyde agreed under cross examination that the Commission had found the 44.5 million dollars prudent in 1 attachment to a settlement agreement, while a separate finding covered a smaller amount. She confirmed Xcel believed it had completed the 2 tasks the Commission required before it would reconsider the withheld money, setting up an advisory council and finishing what the parties called a Value Proposition assessment. A discovery request from opposing counsel, read into the hearing transcript, asked Xcel to explain what it understood a decision by the Commission to mean by an instruction to reboot the project, the word the parties themselves used for a system regulators judged had not simply run behind schedule.
A trade press account published that October said few of the original promises were fulfilled 5 years on, and reported that a recommendation from an administrative law judge on the 16.6 million dollars was still pending. No source since then states whether regulators approved, denied or split that amount.