GALLAGHER: AMI may not be part of New York's REV

SmartGridToday

5/28/15

The groups that are party to New York's Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) program are still deciding whether to adopt AMI as a part of the state's distributed grid, with opposition spurred mainly by concerns about the costs, New York State Smart Grid Consortium Executive Director Jim Gallagher said yesterday during his presentation at the Assn for Demand Response & Smart Grid's (ADS) town meeting in Washington, DC. Gallagher spoke on a panel about the REV program, which is part of the state's effort to create a more distributed grid (SGT, Feb-27).

"I think the hesitation is primarily the price tag," and whether it is true that "in five years, there may be alternatives," Gallagher said. An investment today, he added, might support "technology that may not be optimal in the long run."

"We're trying to work through those questions," he added.

New York State does not have wide saturation of AMI and parties within NY REV are "working within the group to come up with a decision tree on AMI," Gallagher said. Parties to the REV proceedings are working on potential alternatives to AMI as part of the distributed grid, he added.

QUOTABLE: If it is not AMI, what is it? What are the capabilities, the advantages? There are many people ... who feel that AMI is essential, and we're trying to work through that. We have utilities coming in right now wanting to implement large-scale AMI programs and they want to make the best decisions. – New York State Smart Grid Consortium Executive Director Jim Gallagher

Some utilities such as Iberdrola are "very supportive" of AMI, he said, noting the utility put a lot of effort into AMI in Maine. Central Maine Power, a unit of Iberdrola, this year said it found through an internal analysis that AMI helped save the utility about $8 million in 2013 (SGT, Feb-9).

Other parties argued AMI is not needed to send price signals through the grid, Gallagher said.

AMI is "a bit of a debate," John Borchert, senior director of energy policy & transmission development at Central Hudson Gas & Electric, told the event yesterday. "We are one of those who don't believe that the wholesale rollout of AMI is necessary for the process to proceed or for the market to take off," he added.

© 2015 Modern Markets Intelligence, Inc. IMPORTANT: This article was reproduced from the May 28, 2020 issue of Smart Grid Today with the limited permission of the owner. To view the full story on Smart Grid Today’s website, please visit http://www.smartgridtoday.com/members/GALLAGHER-AMI-may-not-be-part-of-New-Yorks-REV.cfm.