Reports on the Impact of the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program Available

The Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability has released four reports on the impact of the Recovery Act-funded Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) Program.  Under the SGIG Program, investor-owned and municipal utilities, transmission operators, and electric co-ops across the U.S. are deploying a range of smart technologies and systems designed to increase the electric grid’s flexibility, reliability, efficiency, affordability, and resilience. 

The new reports cover four key smart grid application areas: 

• Reliability improvements from the application of distribution automation technologies and systems; 
• Demand reductions from the application of advanced metering infrastructure, time-based rates, and customer systems;
• Operations and maintenance savings from the application of advanced metering infrastructure; and
• Application of automated controls for voltage and reactive power management.

The reports describe the technologies and systems being deployed, provide updates on deployment status, and analyze initial results from the subset of projects that have reported impacts to date. The reports also explain how the systems are being applied to derive impacts and benefits, and describe plans for future analysis.  They are available now for downloading. 

A fifth report that addresses the application of synchrophasor technologies for electric transmission systems is planned for later this year. As more results become available, the Department plans to conduct further analysis and publish additional reports that summarize the results of the SGIG projects. 

Additional information about the SGIG Program is available in the Smart Grid Investment Grant Progress Report and the SGIG case studies and on the OE website and smartgrid.gov.

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