Electricity Policy

Foreign Affairs: Cybersecurity fears abound

Revelations of wholesale electronic fraud and massive data heists have become weekly, even daily affairs. A multinational electronics corporation losespersonal information on more than 100 million customers. Cyberthievesbreak intoan international bank, counterfeit credit balances, and loot ATMs in four countries, grabbing $9 million in just a few hours. International gangsspread malicious codethat conscripts unwitting computers into zombie armies of hundreds of thousands of similarly enslaved machines. Criminals then rent these armies, called “botnets,” as easily as you can buy a time-sharing arrangement in a beach condo. No wonder the vast majority of Internet traffic is spam.

Yet the loss of personal information and related criminal fraud, intolerable as they are, are the least threatening face of electronic insecurity. The U.S. military’s secret network is penetrated. Americans’ corporate pockets are being picked clean of the intellectual property that makes the United States tick. And the electricity grid that keeps the lights on and makes everything move is dangerously insecure.  7 Sept. 2011.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com//the_calm_before_the_storm

Smart grid, renewables integration and operations program set for Portland

Portland State University is sponsoring a program Sept. 14-16 focusing on the Smart Grid and Sustainable Energy Systems, with emphasis on wind power integration.

The three-day program will feature panel discussions and problem-solving team exercises that address such matters as how the Smart Grid can enhance and support system regulation, demand response, distributed generation, energy storage, system efficiency, and grid stabilization.

Presentations will address the state of smart grid development nationally and globally.

Participants will collaborate on a case study that simulates a real world wind integration dilemma. Portland State’s Mark Hatfield School of Government has sponsored a smart grid curriculum for several years.  7 Sept. 2011.

For program information, see http://www.pdx.edu/cps/smart-grid-and-sustainable-energy-systems.  

Brooks: Smart grid a job destroyer?

Sunil Sharan, a former director of The Smart Grid Initiative at General Electric, wrote in The Washington Post that the Smart Grid, while efficient and environmentally beneficial, will be a net job destroyer. For example, 28,000 meter-reading jobs will be replaced by the Smart Grid’s automatic transmitters.

A study by McKinsey suggests that clean energy may produce jobs for highly skilled engineers, but it will not produce many jobs for U.S. manufacturing workers. Gordon Hughes, formerly of the World Bank and now an economist at the University of Edinburgh, surveyed the landscape and concluded: “There are no sound economic arguments to support an assertion that green energy policies will increase the total level of employment in the medium or longer term when we hold macroeconomic conditions constant.”  7 Sept. 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/where-the-jobs-arent

TOU rates gain toehold in Canada

Here’s a win a lot of utilities would like to have under their belts: Chatham-Kent Hydro, a Canadian utility, has successfully achieved 100 percent implementation of time-of-use rates for residential and small commercial customers. They credit their success in meeting Canada’s aggressive conservation and peak reduction targets in part to the Tantalus’ TUNet communications system. Robust, rock-solid, real time communications are the key to growing a smart grid. Those who chose communications networks that only met the minimum standards are now struggling to deploy capabilities beyond smart meters,” said Hugh Bridgen, Director of Metering and Technical Services for Chatham-Kent Hydro. “From the very start of developing our smart grid, we knew that it all boils down to communications’ performance. . . . We credit Tantalus’ technology for much of our success in the Peak Saver program.  7 Sept. 2011.

http://www.smartgridnews.com/smart-grid-home-runs