Utilities Can Profit $110M Annually From Smart Grid Technologies
According to a new study released by the Utilities Telecom Council (UTC), Smart Grid technologies can yield benefits of $110-million annually to utilities. The study -- entitled Smart Grid Economics: Making the Business Case for Smart Network Technology -- was based on a comprehensive Smart Grid deployment by utilities with one million electric meters.
SmartGridNews.com reports that the study shows that with the use of Smart Grid technologies:
- System reliability is increased from 99.48% to 99.75%, reducing outage minutes by 16.8 million customer minutes
- Nearly 300,000 tons of carbon emissions are eliminated annually
- Over 9,000 direct and indirect job-years are created
- The internal rate of return for the smart network program is calculated at 13.8% without accounting for the value customers may place on the increased reliability of the electric grid; when factoring in these benefits, internal rate of return exceeds 35%
- System benefits calculated by the end of a 10-year forecast period are likely to exceed $110 million per year
As may remember from a previous post, the Arkansas PSC has current dockets investigating the proper use of these technologies in Arkansas.
