Jeff St. John 10 28 09, 2:39 PM

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California Passes Smart Grid Bill

If California utilities weren't already working on their smart grid plans, a new state law has given them a deadline to catch up to.

That's July, 1, 2011 – the date set in California Senate Bill 17, passed earlier this month, for each "electrical corporation" to deliver a broad smart grid implementation plan to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval.

But first, the CPUC will have to have its own plan to judge utility plans against. That plan is due by July 1, 2010, according to the bill.

Think of it as the state-by-state coordination with still-developing federal smart grid policy. That work is being coordinated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and represents a gargantuan effort to make sure smart grid technologies and systems work together (see Smart Grid Standards Roadmap Unveiled).

NIST's most recent smart grid roadmap sets a range of deadlines for handling top standards and interoperability issues, but all are set to be completed by the end of 2010 – six months before California's law would require utilities to report their own plans.

Of course, California utilities haven't been waiting to start deploying smart meters, distribution automation and demand response systems, and other pieces of smart grid technology.

The three big investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric – are deploying smart meters by the millions, and have plans for extending more energy information awareness and control to those smart metered customers.

They're also looking ahead to storing energy on the grid – an important consideration when looking at the state's aggressive goals to get a third of its power from renewable resources by 2020 (see PG&E Wants DOE Dollars for Underground Air Energy Storage and SoCal Edison Wants A123's Biggest Grid Battery Ever).

Public utilities such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District are also laying smart grid plans (see DOE's $3.4B Smart Grid Grant Program: The Winners).