CHATTANOOGA, Tenn – This morning, EPB, a public utility located in
Chattanooga, TN, was awarded $111.5 million in federal stimulus funding
from the Department of Energy to expedite the build out of their
electric system Smart Grid. Serving over 170,000 homes and businesses
in East Tennessee and North Georgia, Chattanooga’s electric system will
become one of the largest municipal Smart Grids in the country.
The grant, which was sought after by over 600 national utilities, will
not only speed up the Smart Grid build out but will help EPB add more
points of automation on the electric system and provide smart meters to
every electric power customer’s home in their service area. Adding more
automation to their Smart Grid will enable EPB to:
• Make electric power even more reliable
• Help restore outages faster than ever
• Allow customers to better monitor and adjust their electric power use
• Provide tools to monitor the electric system for greater operational efficiency
In August, EPB submitted a proposal to DOE’s Smart Grid Investment
Grant program. In cooperation with Tantalus and Medium, EPB requested
$111.5 million in matching funds to support the completion of EPB’s
smart grid network. Infrastructure provider, Alcatel-Lucent, also plays
a significant role in the development and deployment of the new
advanced smart grid network.
“In an era of rising energy costs, it became clear that we could not
afford to not build a smart grid. Information technology and new
approaches to managing customer relationships is the key to managing
energy costs and environmental impacts in the future,” says Harold
DePriest, President and CEO of EPB.
EPB has a network already under construction and has made significant
investments in electric system automation. Smart or advanced metering
technology, developed in cooperation with Tantalus Systems Corp., will
be able to communicate customer consumption data from the current 11
million to potentially up to over 80 billion data points per year. In
cooperation with Medium, an integrated design and communications firm
in Chattanooga, TN, the network will then be used to provide consumers
with real time information on their electric use and pricing options.
With help from the recently awarded DOE grants, EPB will be able to
complete system wide switching automation and integration with
automated metering faster than originally planned, creating a
state-of-the-art smart grid at the distribution, sub-transmission, and
customer levels.
