Will we merely survive…or thrive? Anticipating the success essentials for Smart Grid’s future

The Smart Grid is poised to create great change for operators and consumers alike. How well we anticipate and prepare for these changes will determine whether we merely survive or thrive in the new reality.

The most significant impact we will see is the integration of energy into our cultural values as we become increasingly aware of energy challenges and their impact on our lives. As a result we are transitioning from “consumers” to “customers” — a culture that wants to be more aware and in control on “how” and “how much” and “from where” we are consuming energy though exciting and powerful new applications.

Electric vehicles and thousands of renewable generation sources throughout the grid will add great management complexity while greatly helping to mitigate peak demand issues, fluctuating energy prices and political instability. Coalitions and partnerships enabled by open standards and IP/MPLS architectures will increasingly bring higher value to both energy consumers and operators. Advanced technologies and regional regulatory environments create new high-potential business models for all stakeholders as long as they understand and effectively address the key drivers for success.

The Smart Grid will fuel and support these profound transformations as long as it offers scalability, the ability to include millions of consumers as active participants; simplicity, an elegance and functional of design; and security for the immense amount of usage data that will be generated.

The opportunity is all there. The trick is to anticipate and be prepared.

In this issue:

Managing change critical to the Smart Grid’s impact
The Smart Grid of the future will change our lives. It will impact our business landscape, the energy marketplace and the ways in which we interact socially and culturally. It will enhance control and convenience in the industrialized world while enabling positive social progress in developing nations. When and how well these benefits gain traction will depend on how skillfully today’s energy providers manage change.

With Christine Hertzog, consultant, author and Managing Director, Smart Grid Library

Where’s the tipping point? Anticipating the future Smart Grid economy
Power utilities need prepare the right communications and service platform for the future’s Smart Grid economy, but what will that look like and how much will it cost?  Is there an ultimate business model?  And when will we see the tipping point, when the technical, policy and business factors all converge to supercharge ubiquitous Smart Grid adoption? It probably is not going to be coming from one source or one direction, but from multiple facets of the Smart Grid.

With Ravi Krishnaswamy, Vice President, Energy Practice, Frost & Sullivan

Customers will take center stage in the Smart Grid revolution
As the Smart Grid revolution plays out over the next 15 to 20 years, customers are likely to be the driving force and chief beneficiaries of new energy-centric applications that will fundamentally change their lifestyles. In fact, effective information technology and new approaches to managing customer relationships could mean the difference between success and failure.

With Harold DePriest, President and CEO, Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB)

Dealing with the Smart Grid’s key drivers and challenges
The Internet we depend on every day for an amazing diversity of business, recreation, social and entertainment activities has changed unimaginably from the few static websites that appeared on our browsers in 1995 or even 2000.  As we now try to look forward to the full realization of the Smart Grid in the years ahead, we can take at least one very important lesson from our Internet experience: build in flexibility, both commercial and technical, and ideas around the Smart Grid will flourish and blossom. The key to this is recognizing and addressing the key drivers that will shape the Smart Grid’s development.

With Kamal Ballout, Vice President, Global Leader: Energy System Integration Division, Alcatel-Lucent