Join the Smart Grid Consortium

How to Join and What Happens Next?  

Membership is open so you may join at any time. Download the registration form, fill it out and return it to us. We will arrange a conference call to describe next steps which are detailed below.

On joining the consortium, we ask each member utility to provide us with monthly electricity sales and 8760 hourly system loads to estimate monthly kWh, peak kW, hourly load profile models to evaluate smart grid technology/programs. We also request other information that helps describe your current infrastructure. We deliver each utility's Smart Grid Investment Model along with preliminary smart grid analysis approximately 3 months after receiving the requested information.

We present the investment model and discuss areas of interest in an online session and then proceed to refine the analysis for areas of greatest utility interest.

We encourage utility staff to exercise the model to gain an understanding of the importance of various factors impacting investment outcomes; however, we recognize staff shortages that occur at most utilities so we are happy to take the lead in conducting investment model analysis.

We continue to work with utility staff to identify and evaluate actionable smart grid investment strategies and to support member utility smart grid efforts including assisting with vendor proposal evaluation, project cost/benefit monitoring and evaluation and identification of emerging smart grid applications that may be of interest to the member utility.

Is Membership Appropriate for Your Utility?  

The SGRC provides exceptional value regardless of the stage of your smart grid development. Our members range from utilities who have yet to embark on smart grid investments to utilities on the leading edge of smart grid implementation. Applications range from evaluating and developing an initial smart grid development strategy, to evaluating "next step" extensions in smart grid implementations and to assessing and evaluating overall "after-the-fact" investment costs and benefits.

If your smart grid status is:

  • Waiting to consider smart grid options: Most utilities are waiting before committing to a comprehensive smart grid investment initiative which makes sense considering smart grid investment issues, some of which are described above. The Smart Grid Investment Model provides a perfect evaluation and planning tool for these utilities as they consider alternative investment strategies to fit their particular utility/customer circumstances.

  • Undertaking pilot programs: As utilities move into the pilot stage, the evaluation/planning framework provided by the Smart Grid Investment Model supports application of pilot results to full service area projections required to determine benefits and costs associated with individual and combination technologies and programs.

  • Developing a Smart Grid Strategy: With information from pilots, vendors or internal analysis, utility planners develop a more informed view of smart grid benefits and costs required to identify technologies and programs that best meet their utility and customer characteristics. The Smart Grid Investment model supports financial evaluations utilizing these data in what-if analysis to develop smart grid strategies appropriate for utility, customer and financial requirements.

  • Smart Grid Investments Initiated: After initiating smart grid investments, utilities need to undertake continuous evaluations of investment activities monitoring costs and benefits and evaluating alternatives that exist in remaining build-out activities. The Smart Grid Investment Model provides a detailed framework for this analysis.

  • Smart Grid Systems in Place: Achieving a smart grid is a continuing process that requires monitoring current systems and programs, evaluating new technologies and program options and benchmarking results to those of comparable utilities. The Smart Grid Investment Model provides these monitoring, evaluation and comparison capabilities.