CURRENT Customer Overview  

Optimized Power Delivery

A Smart Electric Grid can identify where electricity is lost or where the system is not in balance or optimized.  Such optimization can save 3% or more of overall electric demand, without requiring any change in consumer behavior.  The CURRENT Smart Grid™ solution is being used by utilities to identify and correct fluctuations in voltage that result in grid inefficiencies and wasted power.  The result is less power is needed to serve the same customers.

Operations & Reliability Enhancements

A Smart Grid system utilizes operational and non-operational data from transmission, substation, and distribution systems to provide an unprecedented view of utility operation.  The end result is the provision of Actionable Intelligence™ – which defines the time, place, and specific action that should occur, allowing dispatch of crews directly to specific problems without lengthy search and ensuring a speedy response directed at the problem.

The CURRENT Smart Grid solution has provided Actionable Intelligence to utilities to reduce customer complaints and outages.  It is estimated that over 90% of these Actionable Intelligence events would have resulted in a customer complaint if not corrected and over 50% would have resulted in outages.  Customers have reported that “Issues are often resolved before consumers even realize that there was a problem,” that the time to respond to faults can be reduced by 75% and that they are able to shifted budgets from reactive to preventive maintenance.

Renewables & Distributed Generation

As more residential and commercial owned distributed generation and renewables, such as home solar panels, are put in place, a Smart Grid is needed to communicate with these alternatives to traditional power plants to determine their availability and their generation and to verify their eligibility for renewable and other incentives. 

The CURRENT Smart Grid solution has identified a number of issues regarding distributed renewables.  For example, we identified a residential solar panel back feeding power on to the grid without the utility’s knowledge, creating a potential safety hazard for utility work crews.  We are also working with a customer to accurately measure of the power being produced by various distributed renewables in order to better forecast load and schedule generation for its operating plan.

End User Energy Management

CURRENT has deployed End User Energy Management systems solutions from a number of in-home energy management providers capable of managing devices ranging from programmable thermostats to Plug-In Hybrid electric vehicles and other distributed renewables.  Multiple utilities are billing 15 minute meter data for tens of thousands of customers using smart meters enabled by the CURRENT Smart Grid solution.   CURRENT is also working with a consortium of European Utilities defining the open standards based smart metering platform for Europe under a European Commission funded project.