Entergy New Orleans “SmartView” AMI Pilot
Entergy New Orleans, Inc.
United States
Entergy New Orleans, Inc.’s “SmartView” Advanced Metering Infrastructure pilot project engaged and empowered low-income consumers to use AMI technologies to better manage their energy use and reduce their energy bills. Through the project, Entergy New Orleans evaluated customer behavior in response to a number of demand-response programs, including peak-time rebates and air conditioning load controls, with a focus on reducing low-income customers’ electricity usage and peak demand. The project used a number of different collaborative outreach, recruitment and education strategies, involving 7 local nonprofit community organizations, a variety of media campaigns, neighborhood events, targeted mailings and customer care calling centers.
The project engaged 4,700 participants (about 10% of the total target population) and involved implementing multiple smart grid technology education programs, developing measurement protocols and collecting data on consumer behavior and energy-use impacts, as well as estimating the level of customer support necessary for broader AMI programs. Approximately 80-90% of the program participants believed the program saved them money on their energy bills and over 90% suggested interest in participating on a permanent basis.
The “SmartView” AMI project embodied the complete cycle of consumer engagement and empowerment. It integrated the active participation of Entergy New Orleans’ staff, the New Orleans City Council, and community organizations to successfully introduce AMI technology to the city, educate the participants, produce energy savings, and provide a platform for the implementation of future AMI technologies.
EcoGrid: Consumer Engagement
Østkraft Holding A/S
Denmark
The “EcoGrid” project is a large-scale smart grid demonstration project located on the Danish island of Bornholm. The project involves approximately 1,900 residential electricity consumers and up to 100 commercial customers, which represents close to 10% of the electricity consumers on the island. Most of the test participants are equipped with demand-response devices with smart controllers and AMI. The local electricity company on Bornholm, Østkraft Holding, is the host of the EcoGrid demonstration project and is responsible for the involvement of the EcoGrid customers.
The overarching goal of the program is to enable power systems with more than 50% renewable energy sources using consumer engagement facilitated by modern communication technology and innovative market solutions. The specific objective of the project is to allow small-scale and/or residential electricity consumers to participate in the power market and contribute to the balancing of renewable electricity generation by actively responding to real-time price signals. This effort required an ambitious recruitment and education program to engage consumers. Recruitment was specifically tailored to target “average” electricity customers. Experience revealed that sustaining their participation required continuous management of their expectations.
This project embodied the complete consumer engagement and empowerment cycle.1 It featured an integrated, well-planned and executed recruitment and educational program involving a significant percentage of a population and sustained engagement by a minimum of 80% of participants during the entire test period.
2014 ISGAN Award of Excellence Finalists
| “Advanced Building-Scale Smart Grid Demonstration at Mesa del Sol,” Sandia National Laboratory (United States)
This project is collaboration among several U.S. and Japanese organizations, including Japan’s New Energy and Technology Development Organization, Shimizu Corporation, Tokyo Gas, Public Service Company of New Mexico, University of New Mexico, Mesa del Sol (host building), and Sandia National Laboratory. The project demonstrates the application of microgrid technology to empower commercial consumers to effectively manage electricity and thermal demand by supplying both electricity and chilled/hot water to the host building, allowing for net demand scheduling within a broad range. The microgrid also has the ability to island and reconnect seamlessly, thereby increasing supply reliability and resilience |
“Nice Grid the French Demonstrator of GRID4EU,” Électricité Réseau Distribution France (France) www.nicegrid.frGRID4EU is one of the largest demonstration projects with replication and scalability potential for Europe. The Nice Grid project is one of 6 demonstrators of GRID4EU. Nice is at the far end of high-voltage transmission lines, which creates a weakness in the electricity supply and stability, but the region has significant solar resources. The Nice Grid is a pilot project that seeks to demonstrate an optimal approach to electricity management, at the level of a district or town, involving the large-scale integration of dispersed photovoltaic (PV) power generation systems, load-shedding capacities (target: 3.5 MW) and energy storage systems (lithium-ion batteries with 1.5 MW total capacity) at different points in the overall system: the distribution grid, electricity producers and consumers. |
| “Borrego Springs Microgrid Demonstration,” San Diego Gas and Electric (United States) http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/251This project studies how microgrids can be used to best respond to a system disturbance and maintain power to a local area, enhancing reliable service for customers. The project also helps integrate local customers’ renewable energy systems. The microgrid creates a more resilient and robust grid by having enough local generation and energy storage, as well as customer participation, to meet the critical energy demands of the area. By allowing customers and utility circuit systems to work together, the project demonstrates that microgrids could have broad applicability and scale and could be alternative service delivery models for some hard-to-reach customers |
“Power Matching City,” DNV GL Energy (the Netherlands) www.dnvgl.com/powering-the-futurePowerMatching City is an internationally recognized lighthouse project that demonstrates our future smart energy system in a real-life setting in Groningen, the Netherlands. The project gives a practical and replicable example of how a more sustainable energy future can be achieved using existing energy infrastructures. The 40 participants actively engage with the system using apps that inform them of the status and meaning of their energy use and that help them to save energy and reduce costs. Peak loads in the grid are actively managed by influencing energy demand and supply in the homes. The project’s main goal is to determine the added value of a smart grid to end-users, energy suppliers and grid operators. The results are used to enable and accelerate a large scale roll-out of smart grids. |
| “Inovgrid,” EDP Distribuição Energia S.A. (Portugal) http://www.inovgrid.pt/This consumer-centered project creates value for participants by reducing energy bills and promoting energy-efficiency with smart grid technologies while ensuring that consumers understand the value of these benefits with education and home display tools. The project resulted in an average of 4% energy efficiency improvement for 30,000 customers. It has expanded across Portugal to include 150,000 consumers and is currently being used as a demonstration site in Europe. |
“PG&E’s Green Button,” Pacific Gas and Electric (United States)
This program provides a platform that gives customers greater control over their energy use by offering a simple and secure system to share energy data with a third-party energy service provider of their choosing. PG&E selected 8 energy service application developers from over 50 applications from venders. The platform provides the opportunity to continuously develop innovative tools to help customers manage energy usage and reduce energy bills. Since launching the program in 2011, nearly 15,000 customers have enrolled in the Green Button program. |
| “LINEAR – Local Intelligent Networks for Energy Active Regions,” VITO NV (Belgium) www.linear-smartgrid.beThe LINEAR Smart Grid project focuses on solutions to match residential electricity consumption with the availability of wind and solar energy. The project was carried out with industrial research partners in collaboration with the government, to develop, deploy, and evaluate demand-response technologies, systems, and approaches to grid interaction. The project evaluated both a Variable Time of Use (TOU) model supported with a Home Energy Monitoring system and a Smart-Start model defined by the participating consumers to ensure comfort, financial reward, and flexibility for consumers and grid operators. |
“Share!” Kitakyushu Smart Community Council (Japan)http://jscp.nepc.or.jp/en/kitakyushu/index.shtml
This project focuses on promoting energy efficiency and reducing social costs associated with energy systems by introducing dynamic pricing, incentive programs, and renewable energy to the community. The project required an extensive consumer outreach and education program involving over 100 briefing sessions with participants and ongoing exchange meetings and workshops. Project results demonstrate that residents successfully reduced their electricity bills without compromising comfort, reduced peak energy usage by 20%, and became more aware of the economic value offered by project activities. |