Oct 15, 2015 4 min read

A panel of experts from the power industry said Wednesday there are a variety of technological innovations to improve the efficiency and reliability for the U.S. grid.

But they also acknowledged policymakers will have to sort out which improvements should be a priority for consumers.

The discussion, part of Washington & Jefferson College’s Energy Lecture Series, was held before about 75 people in the Burnett Center’s Yost Auditorium.

Wednesday’s panel, which was moderated by Dr. Greg Reed, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Energy, included Steven Bossart, senior energy analyst for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Lab; Joseph Waligorski, delivery operations technical adviser for FirstEnergy Corp.; and Douglas Dillie, director of field application engineering at Eaton Corp.

“The nation is at the very beginning of transitioning to the modern grid,” Bossart said, explaining that there are technological innovations already being put to use, including smart thermostats as well as “demand-response programs” that enable some consumers to work with their utility companies to run appliances at times when electric rates are cheaper.

But Bossart and the others who spoke told the audience that while the innovations will contribute to the so-called “smart grid,” there will need to be greatly enhanced functionality for everything from generation to better controls for the structure and power loads to create a modern grid.

Bossart also noted that while technology exists that would make the grid more robust and more secure against terrorist attacks, it won’t be cheap. He said though the cost is estimated at between $340 billion to $500 billion, the benefits would outweigh the expense by a margin of as much as 6 to 1.

Waligorski, who leads FirstEnergy’s research and development efforts in its smart grid demonstration project, said the sheer size of the nation’s grid – 200,000 miles of transmission lines, more than a million miles of distribution lines and 145 million meters – creates an enormous challenge to improving it.

The other challenge, according to Waligorski and the others, is that most Americans, especially those living in Western Pennsylvania where there is an abundance of various fuels for powering the system, aren’t aware of the need to modernize the system.

“It’s a huge system, but it works,” Waligorski said.

He acknowledged that with the advent of “distributed generation,” where consumers use rooftop solar panels or wind power systems that return excess power to the grid, the existing “one-way” system is inadequate.

Even defining “smart grid” is a problem, said Eaton Corp.’s Dillie, who has helped to lead the company’s smart grid strategy efforts, as well as its entry into solar infrastructure, electric vehicle recharging infrastructure, energy services and microgrid markets.

Dillie said he has tracked the use of the term “smart grid” on Google’s trending software, noting that it spiked on Feb. 17, 2009, when President Obama used the term in authorizing $2.6 billion in energy efficiency federal assistance to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and become more energy independent.

But after October 2009, when the grant recipients were announced, the use of the term declined, he said.

Dillie said the term is used as a “marketing umbrella” for a large number of technological improvements that don’t begin to describe the complexity of the existing system.

“The grid contains some of the most complex machinery on the face of the planet,” he said.

During a question-and-answer session, one attendee noted that most of the cost of improving the grid will be the responsibility of consumers.

While the panel agreed, all three, as well as Reed, noted that policymakers will first need to determine which aspects of the new technology are most important for consumers before proceeding.

All of the men were emphatic in stating that terrorist attacks to the grid are a real threat, and could heighten as more electronic data sensors are added to better control the flow and use of power across the system.

Reed noted that the grid system, which remains reliable despite its advanced age, presents a paradox as it handles an ever-increasing demand from commonplace appliances like personal computers, smartphones and other digital devices.

“The loads are growing while we improve energy efficiency and demand,” he said.