In Ontario the ONLY reason AMI is being deployed on a wide scale to all Ontario consumers is because the Ontario government is forcing them to implement Time-Of-Use billing to everyone by 2010. And since the government is not funding this infrastructure, all utilities in the province were granted permission (by the Ontario Energy Board) to "recover" their AMI costs by adding a fixed "smart meter" charge to everyone's bill, on the order of less than $10 per month, essentially permanently.

OMS costs are significant for the larger utilities who must potentially handle large call volumes during outage incidents. AMI because of its two-way communication network technology can potentially enable automatic or semi-automatic detection of outages by "pinging" smart meters to see who is alive and who is down in an outage area. This potentially reduces their OMS costs, among other things by avoiding having to handle large customer call volumes, making a better business case for them to spend on AMI.

OMS is getting much greater attention these days now too by utilities because they fear the looming crisis where insufficient demand management could result in more widespread rotating blackouts in the future due to generation shortages. They are also waking up realizing the grid needs a lot of technology upgrades just to handle more widespread distributed renewable generators which may be very intermittent. This also ties into their OMS again.

I know what you are thinking, this is not what most view as the main benefits or purposes of what AMI is capable of doing for consumers. It is precisely why AMI is not rolling out as fast as we would like it to, nor is it being developed to affordably benefit consumers as much as we would like to see - ultimately because someone has to pay for it.

What a joke our Ontario plan is. Selecting the most costly plan possible to implement the least functional system possible. When do we vote next?

Consider Horizon Utilities which has nearly 300,000 customers in Hamilton and St. Catherines. They have been buying smart meters at something under $100 each, plus the infrastructure hook-ups to connect to its RF network collectors (phone lines and CATV modems), plus the office meter administration system. The smart meters alone come to nearly $3million, so by the time you add up everything else you're talking several million dollars. Last I heard we will be paying $6 or 7$ smart meter charge every two months, which is more in line with your $3 per month charge suggested, and was intended to amortize the system costs over 15 years. In reality however Horizon admitted to me in the past that being electronic meters they don't expect their lifetimes to average more than 10 years before needing replacement. So guess what, that charge on our bills will never disappear after 15 years.

About the only good news is that fierce competition between AMI system meter manufacturers is slowly bringing the cost of a smart meter down. In volume they can be had for under $80 now, headed in theory to maybe under $50 down the road.

A worthwhile rationale in my opinion, because while I doubt we'll see the demise of central station generation, we should see an increase in distributed generation, especially where there's lots of sunshine.

At some point, I'd like to understand why telephone and cable companies can self-fund infrastructure upgrades for Internet and TV service without requiring every customer that's passed by the service to sign up, while electric service providers can't install anything until rates are raised for everyone, whether they directly benefit or not. For what it's worth, I'm on an optional TOU rate and am anxious for PG&E to install my new digital interval meter.

The answer about why telcos and CATV people can do it but not electric utilities is rooted in economics and marketing.

Providing new capabilities by implementing new infrastructure is routine for telcos and CATV people because they market and commercialize the new capabilities to targeted consumer segments. The targeted consumer segments pay for the added infrastructure by buying optional goodies in their service plans. But this requires a whole different business model for consumer support to market multiple products and services to consumers that want to buy them.

The utility industry however is loathe to do this because they prefer to deliver the SAME service(s) to all their customers, and shutter at the mere thought of re-inventing their businesses to handle the consumer marketing and technical support required for a menu of products and services.

Now if the utility industry had competitors instead of monopolies, as the telcos and CATV people have, it might be a totally different story for our utility companies.

Bob Amorosi, M.Eng., Resident of Ontario Canada

>>I'm sorry, but giving OMS equal time with AMI in a Smart Grid discussion, and not even defining AMI (Is a meter interface which makes the meter data available once per month AMI? a smart part of "the Smart Grid"?) misses the point entirely.

Did I get this right? The only possibility to detect an outage at _any_ end point, i.e.customer, at the moment would be to communicate with the meter by an separate communication infrastructure?

Greetings, Thomas

What is troublesome to other utilities is that they have set on the sideline and watch other utilities head straight into AMI when there was only one-way communication, only to have state legislatures start requiring two-communication later. The technology continues to advance and now those companies who dove into Smart Grid with AMI, are having to replace existing one-way communication meters.

I know legislatures will continue to encourage investment in Smart Grid, but they need to realize it does drive up cost and they cannot expect the utilities to pay for the cost of that expense itself.

Smart Grid can be successful. OMS, AMI, Distribution Automation, and other useful Smart Grid technologies all bring their value to the table in a unique way. Utilities need to decide what will work best for them and how to implement them. The ultimate goal should be a system that incorpates all of the technologies, but remember the data issue. If your data is not in good shape today, it is time to get your house in order before going down the Smart Grid road.

To Thomas Bohnert's question. No, that is not the only way for an OMS system to work. Some companies are installing BPL and potential transformers as a way to use communication devices to do more than report low or no voltage. Some companies are even looking into fault detection and location. AMI is expensive to utilizein for an OMS situation, but if you are being mandated by the states to implement, you might as well use the meter and include it in some predictor tool. Make sure you intall suppression tools or it wil overload your system reporting every outage. This can become nightmarish during major outages and can cripple your computers if there is not some suppression used.

Two-way AMI systems can enable several things besides assisting OMS as you point out, but the problem of one-way systems now needing replacement illustrates the REAL issue for utility companies. That problem is how utility companies justify the cost of implementing ANY new electronic system.

One-way electronic metering was relatively easy to justify because it simply replaced people in the field who manually read the old mechanical meters for billing purposes alone. A two-way AMI system is tougher to justify because the benefits are more targeted at their customers and not themselves i.e. Time-Of-Use billing and automated demand response that communicates through a two-way AMI system saves consumers much more money than it does the utility company. This begs the question who will or should pay for a two-way AMI system and any in-home devices that it supports.

The technology in a two-way AMI system or any in-home devices they can support are not rocket science in the world of the electronics industry, but the problem for AMI manufacturers is many utility companies have never been prepared to pay for it. So the manufacturers sell them only what they are prepared to pay for.

Smart Grid could benefit by two-way AMI by the simple fact an AMI's communication network reaches the outermost fringes of the utility's entire grid, and could easily interface to other devices that monitor and help to automate distribution, particularly for distributed generation technologies that are now emerging e.g. wind and solar that may be intermittent sources. The key is to enable the smart meters in an AMI network to communicate with other grid devices, which is not that difficult technically but again it raises the cost of the meters which utilities find tough to find the money to pay for.

The sad fact is utilities will only be motivated in a big way to deploy AMI, Smart Grid, and in-home technologies if they can find a way to pay for it without sucking huge amounts of extra money from consumers through massive rate increases across the board.

Bob Amorosi, M.Eng., Resident of Ontario Canada

The state-of-the-art in AMI networking typically uses an RF wireless mesh network topology where each smart meter is a node, bundled in groups of meters that are served by a collector device. Typically the groups are hundreds of meters and the collector device is connected back to the utility's meter administration system through an existing telephone line or CATV modem pipeline.

In a power outage often only some meters are down in a group, so the ones still up can serve as wireless routes back to the collector. This alleviates the need for an alternate communication network as you ask about if you want to ping the meters in that group and see who is alive and who is not. Typically collector devices are battery backed up so they will not usually go down if the outage hits them.

In the case of widespread outages where entire groups of meters are down, this is easy to detect because their collector device will not be able to talk to any member in its group.

AMI is just one piece of the puzzle of Smart Grid, and yes, they are designed to do many different things. Utilities need to have a standard design and communication protocol for all intelligent meters. I know there are many different smart meters out there and the issue does become cost.

But in reality, you must have several different pieces of the Smart Grid technology and AMI is just one of those pieces. Utilities are under pressure to get their SAIDI and SAIFI numbers down--Smart Meters do not turn the lights back on. While some utilities are focusing on customer desires, others are being more forward thinking. Communications with household devices such as thermostats and computers in the home will eventually allow utilities to offer a wide range of services to customers. But in due time.

The problem is what you talked about. You need to make this cost beneficial either to the customer or to the utility. When mandating AMI, legislatures need to allow for utiilities to recapture their costs associated with the program. Many will mandate changes and not allow the utilities to recapture the cost. Unless that is done, the full benefits of AMI will not be realized for years to come, because a good portion of the companies' capital will be tied up in smart meters with no where to go until additional capital is realized.

Other pieces of the puzzle include smart switches, distributon network analysis, volt-var management, outage prediction tools (level of outage and likely cause), fault detection, resource management of crews, trucks, supplies, and you will need a useful interface for this to be done. Investment in these technologies are not cheap and you are correct, it is a business decision that every utility needs to consider along with their regulatory authorities.

All of this comes at a time when America needs to do more to conserve power. The cheapest kW hour is the one that we do not have to produce. The jury is still out that if these technologies were employed if North America would actually install smart devices to conserve energy. I myself had a programmable thermostat for years and I left it on hold for 90% of the time. As we concentrate on energy prices, will North Americans change their persepective on conserving energy? Read the article put out by US News and World Report on America Needs and Energy Diet.

B Collard, former Controller for a Smart Grid Project in Texas, currently Staff Transmission Specialist in Asset Management, Akron, Ohio.

I understand the frustration some may have, but have heard this tired old arguement before and it is simply not true. Utilities have been on the cutting edge of this technology and will continue to look at ways to improve electric service to their customers. Customers demand it, governments demand it, and the companies and people on the front line of Smart Grid are fully embracing it.

Utilities today know the importance of AMI, but once again it is simply part of the entire Smart Grid package. Some forward thinking utilities are going down the AMI road now, but as I pointed out in earlier posts, there are issues. AMI alone does not make up Smart Grid. It is a vital part but not the entire package.

I know that over the past few years two of the utility companies I worked for has invested in the electric delivery infrastructure. In my prior company, the utility spent billions of dollars on BPL, AMI, Smart Switches (Distribution Automation), SCADA, reconductoring of transmission and rebuilding distribution systems, new transmission and distribution lines, and other tools to help them manage the Smart Grid technology. The list goes on, and I only have a 5000 char. limit.

Some companies are further advanced in the AMI and Smart Grid technologies than others. Some utilities have to get their house in order before going down the Smart Grid road. The fact is that Smart Grid is coming. But the description of Smart Grid is as varied as the applications. I percieve Smart Grid as more than AMI, but it should include BPL, Distribution Automation, Outage Management Systems, Resource Management, Network Analysis tools, Volt-Var tools, etc. It should be a system that will allow utilities to generate and transfer power over the utility system in the most cost effective way, that helps alliviate congestion on the transmission and distribution sytems.

It should also encompass tools for the end use customer, but in reality the jury is still out on what types of services should be offered and if the customer really wants those services.

Utility companies have been looking into this technology as far back as the late 70's and early 80's. I know of one program that a utility in the North Texas area that did that looked at controlling swimming pool pumps and hot water heaters during peak hours through the hottest part of the day. This is how long we have been exploring Smart Grid technology.

AMI is coming. It will come to some parts of the country sooner than others, much like telephone, electricity, broadband, and cable came to some parts of the country sooner than others. To say that utilities have not been on the cutting edge of this technology is simply not true. Look at what a major utilitiy is doing in Texas. Like other utilities, they are embracing AMI. Trilliant has delivered more than 750,000 smart meters, and that is just one AMI company.

The utilities are not the big bad wolf. They are the promoters of Smart Grid. It is a business decision that each utility needs to make in their own business and regulatory climates. It is a huge captial investement and the CEOs, CFOs, and boards are not unlike any other venture capitalist. They need a return on their investment. It must provide stockholder value--that is just smart business.

I had the opportunity to be a big part of a rollout in Baltimore in the MID 90's. That's right, over a decade ago. In the meetings of what was possible, we were laughing at the can't attitude prevelent everywhere. In the end, we placed ancient pulse coded equipment at various substations and installed a SCADA system. We made a full wall map (hundreds of square feet in size) with lots of pretty little LEDs to show status for those too lazy to navigate the MMI screens. We basically installed all the hardware parts needed to perform many of your 'other' needs. Those would be the non-customer related infrastructure upgrades in technology. There's no reason to tie TOU rates and net metering capability, which is the driving purpose for the rest of us to desire AMI, to predictive equipment on some substation. That's nothing but a slight of hand trick to get customers to foot that bill.

On the meter reading side, there are so many ways to communicate with that meter that that there's no argument against it. In other recent threads, there have been numerous methods discussed that impose less than $2 per unit cost. The problem is the utilities don't grow some and start telling the meter companies what they want. That should include a national standard I/F used, with the latest high tech, using the cheap communications chips available in the computer industry and the capability to roll out piecewise. The communications 'chip' in a modern computer board can talk nearly a dozen protocols and costs under a buck.

If you get the meter sending data back to a central database, I guarantee you that you could implement most of your other programs based solely on trends from that data. I've done it for many plants and a couple utilities so I know it can be done. The utility companies' argument is nothing more than a tactic to get their upgrades paid for by someone else.

I don't have a problem with this as long as it does not threaten the operating security of the system. I personally think it is a great idea. If there is a way to meet future demand without having to build costly power plants that pollute the air we breathe, then we need to explore the alternatives.

My comment you quoted above was relating more to relieving congestion on the grid. I am a NERC Certified Reliability System Operator and my primary concern will always be about keeping the lights on.

Here in Ontario Canada all of our utility companies (which are distributors only, not generators) are being forced by our provincial government through legislation to implement Time-Of-Use billing on all 5 million residential and industrial customers by 2010. AMI is being rolled out to achieve this, but since its cost is not being funded directly by our provincial government, our regulators in the government gave all the utilities permission to recover it by adding a "smart meter" charge to our bills.

A few interesting points about this massive project. The goal of the government's mandate was to enable conservation and load shifting by consumers to reduce peak demand in the province, all in an attempt to lower the massive generator investments that are easy to predict necessary if demand growth continues unabated.

The utilities were also given permission to invest in anything else besides AMI that they are interested in investing in, and will be allowed to pay for it by adding specific service charges to our bills as long as the regulators bless it.

I personally became involved in developing real-time in-home energy display technology that communicated with AMI meters thinking the time was ripe for the industry to embrace it (along with a few other Canadian companies already in this business). The sad reality was that although many people from the larger utility companies felt they will need these new things in future, they are loathe to add ANY extra charges to people's bills because of the consumer backlash it creates. In general they were / are only prepared to invest in and implement what they are "regulated" to do, nothing much more, unless there is a business case to save them money such that they don't have to add extra charges to our bills.

Utilities are also loathe to have to replace meters due to the high costs of rolling trucks etc. They only go shopping for new infrastructure very infrequently, and when they do spend on things like AMI, it can take many months of negotiations with the AMI manufacturers to pare down the meters' and systems' capabilities to only the features they MUST have, and usually nothing extra that they say they would LIKE to have.

Now here’s a radical thought for you. If utility companies gave up some of the ownership of the smart meters to consumers by selling them features and equipment like telco's and CATV do, then maybe consumers would be willing to bear the cost of replacing their gear as new products emerge like they do all the time in other electronics-fed industries.

Smart Grid is being touted as making the utility infrastructure more reliable and its OMS more responsive, and combined with the looming crisis in many parts of the continent where generation shortages are being predicted, utilities recognize that keeping the lights on at times will be more of a challenge that Smart Grid will help to mitigate. This is far more important I suppose than saving consumers money with AMI systems.

In Ontario there is also a massive government-led campaign on to promote consumer conservation and efficiency measures with direct government funding, like rebates for CFL or new Energy-Star appliance purchases. But AMI and in-home technologies are not being supported from it because these are under a utility’s ownership and control, not a consumer’s. There is some money being directed at utilities to offer consumers communicating thermostats and pool pump switches for load shifting, but all these devices are controlled by the utility company and not consumers themselves. The result Is the take-up by consumers of these devices is a paltry tiny percentage of the population that could use them because most consumers will never allow someone outside their home to control their environment. The bottom line is utility companies and the government both want assurances that they will achieve a given amount of conservation in kWhrs of energy saved for any money they invest in it, and they feel quite strongly, sadly, that letting consumers control these technologies wouldn’t provide them that assurance.

I will go back to the programmable thermostat I had in my home in Texas. The intent was always there for me to save money, but in reality I used the thermostat like any other thermostat. However, I think you can have it both ways. As the cost for gas and energy continues to rise, it is becoming more important to save a dime.

My experience in Texas when there was a generation shortage, we would appeal to customers to conserve energy before we started the rolling blackouts. Consumers for the most part turned their ACs down further in fear that they might not have the AC later. It only increased demand. In order for a program to work, you must make it beneficial for the consumer to conserve during a time of crisis.

I know several people in the industry looking into the things you are talking about. We know the load curves of the day, and as long as we have a decent forecast, we can predict load on the system a day ahead. We know by our network models which generation is going to be needed, and where we are going to have issues as far as load transfers on the system.

One exciting thing about SmartGrid technology is that utilities will be able to offer customer choices. Perhaps you as a customer will be able to opt for a lower rate if you agree during times of peak load that the utility can raise or lower your temperature in your home for just a couple of hours. However, like you said, it is unlikely anyone will want to give up their ability to control their own temperature.

Another scenario is that you budget your electric bill online. As the month goes by, the utility will be calculating your average cost of service. By analyzing your daily usage, it can recommend a course of action to get you back on your budget. Or is if you have saved enough, maybe you can donate the power to a charity of your choice. Usually, we don't know how much we have spent until we have spent it. However, this tool can give you useful information about your current use and give you a game plan to reduce your electricity costs.

I don't think we are too far off of the same page about AMI and Smart Grid. There are other ideas out there too; including allowing customers to have their own energy storage devices similar to the idea of plugging in your hybrid and selling power back on the system during peak. Maybe you can recharge your hybrid at night when the cost of energy is lower. These are all worthwhile ideas that can save the consumer energy and reduce the need for costly power plants. Instead of building 100 new units, maybe we will only need 50 or 75.

Our thirst for energy in North America has only grown. No longer are we into just lights, heating, and cooling, but every device in our home is using electricity. Plasma TVs, DVD Players, Computers, and the list grows. I am a big proponent of putting America on an Energy Diet. AMI might just be a useful tool to that end.

Bob, not all these AMI projects are being put in rate cases, but some of the larger rollouts are. It does take a tremendous amount of capital and some believe the average life of a smart meter is about 7-8 years. It is not a one time expense. In larger utilities, it can take well over over two years to change them all out.

The only problem I see with your idea of utilities giving up ownership in AMI is two fold... There is a huge barrier to entry in the market because of the huge amount of capital outlay. Secondly, you are expecting the utilities to gracefully give over the point of interchange in which they bill thier consumers through. If the smart meter goes bad as far as sending the data to the utility, what incentive does the third party company have to repair the meter or replace it? Will the third party company be as energetic about maintaining these assets or identify possible issues with the meters?

These are the issues I see.

This has been some really great discussion, and it is exciting to hear what is happening in other parts of the interconnection.

I recognize that utilities would be apprehensive about giving up any ownership in their meters which are their primary billing device. It's not an easy problem to solve technically or politically.

One technical solution suggestion might be to incorporate substantially more communications capabilities in AMI smart meters such that they in future can easily hook up wirelessly with other in-home "gateway" devices that would perform all the control and data presentment of in-home demand response systems, and also wirelessly hook up with future Smart Grid devices on the utility grid. The smart meters effectively then would serve as a communications portal through their AMI network back to the utility company for exchanging real-time pricing and other data with consumers, and Smart Grid status monitoring data. But this idealistic approach would add cost to each meter which politically is tough for utilities to justify investing extra money in when the in-home devices and Smart Grid devices are not out there in the field yet for the most part.

As far as using Smart-Grid enabled predictive modeling and incentives to encourage consumers to conserve more, this does have some potential merit. But much more comprehensive data could be acquired by simply giving consumers more real-time feedback of their consumption, and when combined with real-time pricing from the utility has been demonstrated already to automatically promote sustainable conservation every day on average, not just when the grid needs it.

Some industry people claim that a substantial portion of consumers do not care enough about conservation as long as electrical energy is a bargain as it has been for so long, and will not really want to invest their own money or time to use in-home technologies. These consumers would only change if the price of electricity skyrocketed the way oil is now. Time-Of-Use billing combined with real-time pricing and real-time feedback of consumption however has the potential to foster much more consumer interest because it would make their real-time consumption behaviors’ impact on their pocket books visible, and not simply forgotten when they pay their bills later.

With real-time energy pricing and in-home demand response technology deployed, it then becomes much easier to implement market reforms like what Len Gould and you are alluding to on this website - where consumers can buy energy at off-peak hours to for example charge their future electric cars, and perhaps designate specific generators to purchase their power from. It also would provide more incentive for consumers who have their own micro-generators to sell excess capacity back to the grid during peak consumption hours.

Thanks for your comments too, it helps very much to hear what's going on in other places in North America.

I wish to add that if you read between the lines in our discussions above, one clear message emerges that I have been repeatedly saying in other discussions on this website. Very much is possible technically to solve the growing problems our utility industry and consumers are facing, but the REAL issue is who will pay for implementing it all, particularly in a timely manner given that technology's capabilities have as you say already been studied for many years in the utility industry.

But I do think there is merit that this kind of technology will be useful in the way we manage the industry and in the way consumers will manage their own resources.

Thanks Bob for the discussion. There is an incredible amount of infrastructure that still needs to take place for AMI and Smart Grid to get to the consumer in some useful fashion. I think we need to push ourselves more to see what other services could be offered.

Take care friend.

There is no doubt that making the existing distribution infrastructure work better is beneficial..the only problem I have with it is that many are using it as an excuse for delaying the necessary decisions to build new power plants. The current fleet of power plants has a finite life. They are machines and they do not last forever. Just like ones car, sooner or later the cost of maintenance exceeds the cost of replacement with a new more efficient model. We are already stretching the lifespans of current power plants many years beyond their intended dates and the reliability "bathtub curve" cannot be delayed forever.

The other great difficulty I have with things like time of use rates and handing over the control of ones thermostat and fridge to a grid control centre somwhere is that they cause people to use less electricity. I know of no other industry where one pays customers to use LESS of ones product. Mass production dictates that the MORE of something one produces the LESS it costs per item as the capital cost is distributed over more items. So vice versa conservation MUST result in more expensive electrcity. As less electricity revenue is generated the capital costs (high for all methods of generation) must be distributed over fewer megawatts. Therefore with all the conservation efforts one should not expect any decrease in ones electricity bill even though one is using less kilowatt hours. The cost of every kilowatt must rise in order to make up for the lost revenue.

Consumer is worse off.

It seems to fly in the face of economics to me.....perhaps our dear professor Fred can enlighten a dumb old ex nuc. operator as to how one makes money by paying people not to buy your product. Sounds like a recipe for going out of business to me.

Malcolm

If I was really conscientious I would go aroung turning off all the lights, turn down my fridge and I would probably be able to save...oh at least 5 dollars a month.

To fill up my car with gas I now pay almost as much as I do for a whole month of electricity supply (70 dollars CDN) and I do that six times a month. All I get for the gas is the ability to drive the car. My electricity allows me to operate many more devices, lights, fridge, freezer, range, microwave this computer and many others.

So I suggest to you that what we need is more of the system that is already producing power very very cheaply for us. Since no-one likes coal any more and there is very little hydroelectric capability left seems only one choice remains and that is nuclear.

And that of course is the conclusion the Province has just reached. Two more nuclear plants for Darlington which means my kids can look forward to continued safe, low cost, emissions free electricity in Ontario.

Malcolm

The conservation and efficiency push is really only meant to slow total consumption growth and reduce peak demand levels, I don't believe it is to actually use less total energy. While granted it may only save some consumers a few dollars, collectively in large numbers it slows the inevitable growth in total energy consumption and peak demand levels. One result is that in Ontario for example the government and taxpayers will save some money because only 2 Darlington nuclear plants will need to be built instead of perhaps 4 or 5 for future needs.

And I agree allowing the utility companies to control thermostats and pool-pump switches for load-shifting is not going to be popular with the majority of consumers, and will not likely ever become widespread. They must be consumer controlled to ever see large numbers and have significant impact on demand responses.

Given our fleet of generators is nearing end-of-life as you say in Ontario, we face huge spending just to keep generation capacity where it is now let alone growth in capacity. IF this was NOT the case and we had plenty of peak demand capacity far above current consumption levels, then no doubt there would far less emphasis on conservation, Time-Of-Use rates, etc., and we would have the luxury of living as we have for decades not having to worry much about i, and enjoy bargain energy prices.

The emergence of Plug-in-Hybrid-Electric-Vehicles is another daunting challenge to meet consumption growth, see news link below.

http://ca.autos.yahoo.com/p/661/new-kits-turn-any-car-into-a-plug-in-hybrid

It describes how some companies have made arrangements with some US car dealerships to sell retrofit kits directly to consumers for existing gas hybrids (like Toyota's Prius) and now even a novel kit for ANY vehicle that will double its fuel economy. The payback period for it can now be measured in a few years or even months depending on how much you are currently spending on gasoline, and is shrinking as oil continues to skyrocket. My prediction is that within several years we could see perhaps 1 in 5 motorists driving new or retrofitted PHEVs, and you can then just imagine the impact on the electricity grid with millions of extra heavy-load battery chargers operating every day for hours at a time.

The potential for PHEVs alone amounts to a looming supply-demand disconnect crisis, so ANTHING the electricity industry can do to mitigate it will help to minimize the huge generator spending we will need.