Abstract

The Sioux Valley Energy (SVE) Smart Grid Program project involves installation of an advanced metering system and a pilot program across the service territory to assess the effectiveness of time-based rate programs and enabling technologies. The project is aimed at reducing peak electricity demand, overall energy use, and operations and maintenance costs, while increasing distribution system efficiency and reliability. The project implements two-way communications to: (1) allow customers to view their energy consumption at their convenience through a Web portal and other customer systems, (2) allow SVE to manage, measure, and verify targeted demand reductions during peak periods, (3) allow SVE to evaluate the breadth of outages and restore those outages more quickly, often without the necessity of the customer calling to inform SVE of the outage, (4) perform near-real-time engineering analysis of the electric distribution system to allow for the most prudent use of capital dollars for system improvements, and (5) facilitate the installation of customer-owned distributed generation, typically renewable energy, without any additional metering costs to the customer.