We recently visited Oakland Technical High School to discuss the smart grid and PG&E community projects with Oakland Tech students. Kevin Dasso, PG&E’s Senior Director of Smart Grid & Technology Integration talked with students as part of “A Smart Energy Future,” an educational program launched by SmartMeter™ technology partner Silver Spring Networks aimed at increasing understanding of the smart grid and smart energy.

Kevin Dasso at Oakland Technical High School

One of the students, Seanai Rayford, wrote a blog post for See Your Power on what she learned about the smart grid and what it means to her.

What aspects of the smart grid excite you the most?

The smart grid is a new beginning. It is a new start to improving our energy use. It will help people understand the problems our earth is facing. The smart grid is a step closer to resolving the global climate crisis. It means a new way of looking at energy use.

How will it impact your daily life?

The smart grid system will improve people’s living habits. It is more controlled than the traditional PG&E grid system. For example, if there is a blackout, people will not have to sit in the dark not knowing if the company is even aware of the problem. The smart grid will instantaneously notify the company about the issue and will save valuable time. The smart grid system will encourage people to save energy because of the savings.  To be able to monitor energy use is very important. This may persuade people to buy energy efficient products, even more efficient cars. With electric cars and the proper setup, some may be able to save even more money by selling electricity back to the grid. This is a great idea to have the public be aware of their use and help the earth in the long run.

What does the smart grid mean to you?

The most exciting aspect about the smart grid is the fact that you can sell energy back.  Usually paying for energy, which you will still do, there is now also an opportunity to make money. Having a personal windmill or solar panels will allow you to maybe make a profit. Another exciting part is the ability to keep track of your energy use. Having the smart meters allows people to check how much energy they use at any given time and how much it is costing you. That is a big benefit for those that can use the extra money by saving on their electric bills.

Note: Posted last year, this is a great intro to Energy Alerts, brought to you by SmartMeter™ technology. Keep abreast of your energy consumption via text, email, or voice mail through Energy Alerts and make changes to your energy use that affect your monthly bill.

One of the key customer benefits of SmartMeter™ technology is to help customers better manage their energy use and keep their costs down. And the latest SmartMeter™-enabled web capability is a no-cost energy usage notification feature called Energy Alerts.

It’s PG&E’s way of bringing energy management into your life.

With Energy Alerts, as you move into higher-priced tiers, you’re notified by email, voicemail or SMS text message. To sign up, you must have a SmartMeter™ electric meter that is being read remotely by the SmartMeter™ system. Log in to My Account and under Energy Highlights, select Energy Alerts. Select your notification preference and join the thousands of customers who have already signed up.

So what do you do as you move into higher-priced tiers? It’s up to you, based on your energy management lifestyle. To get you started on the right path and to offer some quick tips for reducing your energy use, watch this how-its-done video showing the full customer lifecycle of Energy Alerts.

Please leave a comment if you have questions about Energy Alerts and submit any ideas for new videos or topics to cover on See Your Power. Thanks for reading.

A long-standing supporter of promoting educational opportunities and curriculum focusing on green technology and workforce development, PG&E is a partner in programs like PowerPathway™ and New Energy Academy, initiatives aimed at training workers to meet the demands of energy jobs and integrating energy and environment-focused classes, respectively. PG&E’s latest involvement in the classroom is “A Smart Energy Future,” launched by SmartMeter™ technology partner Silver Spring Networks. Initially rolling out to schools in Northern California and Ohio, the program will design curriculum aimed at increasing understanding of smart energy and educating the next generation about the benefits of the smart grid.

To kick off the program, Kevin Dasso, PG&E’s Senior Director of Smart Grid & Technology Integration, recently visited Oakland Technical High School to discuss the state of the current electric grid, why PG&E is taking steps to update the grid, and some of PG&E’s community projects like SmartMeter™ and Power Pathways.

Alongside George Flammer, Chief Scientist at Silver Spring Networks, Kevin and the students engaged in a lively conversation about the benefits of the smart grid, PG&E’s clean generation initiatives and how SmartMeters™ help consumers better control energy consumption and lower energy bills. Check out the video below to hear Kevin discuss some of the career opportunities offered by the smart grid:

As the smart grid evolves, consumers will have the ability to make smart energy decisions that impact both their bill and the environment. A Smart Energy Future is one of the many efforts PG&E is making to educate our communities on SmartMeter™ technology – a technology that will enable new programs and help California energy customers save energy and money.

(cross-posted from NEXT100)

Smart meters—the automated meters that PG&E and other utilities around the world are now installing as the first step toward a 21st century smart grid—could provide net benefits of about $140 million over 20 years to a typical Western electric utility with a million customers.

That’s according to a new study by economists at The Brattle Group, commissioned by the Institute for Electric Efficiency and The Edison Foundation. The study was unveiled February 16 at a meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

This study doesn’t guarantee that PG&E, with more than five million electric customers, will reap $700 million in operational benefits (net present value) over the next two decades. The number could be larger or smaller depending on a host of factors.

But the good news is that, because PG&E is a regulated utility, most of the benefits should flow back to customers and the region that PG&E serves.

The study notes that customers stand to benefit in a variety of ways, including greater access to information on their energy usage, special pricing plans that let customers save money by shifting energy use (including electric vehicle charging) from times of peak demand to off-peak periods of the day, and helping to avoid or more quickly repair electrical outages.

PG&E already lets customers view their energy use on an hourly basis through a Web interface. Customers can also sign up to get email alerts when their energy use moves them toward a higher-tiered (costlier) rate.

The utility has also experimented successfully with new pricing options, like the award-winning SmartRate™ program, which let customers with the new meters reap the savings from reducing their demand during so-called “critical peak” periods a few days a year. Such programs also boost system reliability by preventing possible brown-outs from overloaded circuits.

Summing up the results of the Brattle Group study, lead researcher Ahmad Faruqui said,

“We all know that smart meters provide operational benefits by eliminating or avoiding the cost of reading meters. However, what we have demonstrated is that they also open a gateway to benefits on the customer side of the meter. Even without dynamic pricing, smart meters allow utilities to offer customers a variety of programs that would lower their energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With dynamic pricing, these benefits rise considerably.”

Long recognized as a national leader in energy efficiency, PG&E continues to make significant investments in cutting-edge clean energy technologies to improve the environment and to meet the demands of our customers. A few of these green initiatives – clean generation, electric vehicles, and modernizing the smart grid – are highlighted in a video titled “Changing Times, Smart Solutions,” recently used to introduce PG&E Corporation Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President Peter Darbee at a dinner hosted by the Greater Fresno Chamber of Commerce.

Take a look at the video to learn about just some of the ways PG&E is helping to steer California towards a brighter – and cleaner – energy future.

It’s no coincidence that the first affordable electric vehicles to hit the market, will land in California.  The Bay Area is rich with eco-conscious and technology savvy consumers, and PG&E is a leader in innovative electric utility solutions.  Having the largest deployment of SmartMeters™ in the nation, PG&E is well-equipped to support electric vehicles and provide cost effective charging options for their drivers.

The Nissan Leaf is the first in a new wave of electric vehicles expected to hit the market this year. While Tesla Motors has been producing electric vehicles since 2007, the Roadster’s six-figure price point has been viewed as a hurdle for wide-spread consumer adoption.  Nissan has priced the Leaf in the low $30Ks, from which a federal clean-car tax credit and a California rebate can be applied, bringing the cost down close to $20K.

In the Leaf’s first year, Nissan plans to manufacture 50,000 vehicles, of which 20,000 are already pre-ordered.  General Motors will also begin delivering their electric Chevy Volt to a few test markets this year – California being one.  While the Leaf is an all-electric plug-in vehicle, the plug-in Volt has a gasoline-powered engine that will kick in when the electric battery runs down.

One key benefit of SmartMeter™ technology, is the ability to provide customers with hourly interval information on their electricity usage.  This allows customers to not only monitor their energy usage to stay within budget, but it also allows PG&E to offer time-differential rates to its customers.  This is great news for current and future electric vehicle drivers, who will now have options for cost-effective charging – such as charging their vehicle during off-peak hours – at a lower cost, rather than charging their vehicle during peak periods, when energy is more expensive.  Prior to SmartMeter™ technology, there was no way to determine when consumers were using energy, so the higher costs associated with peak electricity consumption were spread across all customers.  By being able to incentivize customers to use less electricity at peak times, the overall electricity peak is able to be reduced, lowering the cost of energy for everyone.

Customers have told us that they want more tools to help manage their energy usage.  Now, with SmartMeter™ technology, that’s possible.  Using SmartMeter technology, PG&E can offer more advanced energy management tools, such as web services for beginners and energy analytics for our more advanced customers.

Once a customer’s meter is installed and connected to the SmartMeter network, they can log onto My Account and start using PG&E’s energy analysis tools. Today, thousands of our customers visit My Account to see their energy usage. This is where customers can view their hourly electricity and daily gas usage information from the previous day, and use that information to make better decision about how they use energy.  Specifically, these tools show customers spikes in their energy consumption by the time of day and temperature, allowing customers to determine which activities are responsible for what they see on their bill.

PG&E’s electric SmartMeters also have a technical component called a Home Area Network (HAN) gateway.  In the near future, this gateway will have the ability to connect to secure in-home energy management displays that customers could buy off the shelf at their local big box electronics store.

These displays will be able to show customers their near real-time electricity usage and price, and as early as 2012, consumers could have the option to purchase these products off-the-shelf. Depending on the manufacturer, some of these in-home displays will also provide the consumer with the option to set automated settings, which will operate their home appliances for them, whether they’re at home or not. I demo a Beta version of one of these in-home displays in this video.

This is just the beginning. Gadget makers are developing new ways to create low-cost automated in-home management platforms that tie together all of the consumer’s home operations. Entertainment, energy use and price, electric vehicle charging, and home security, could be displayed all in a single interface, making home management a very real possibility for the consumer. These in-home energy management devices are just one of the next steps in a very bright future.