| August 6, 2009 |
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Close your eyes and imagine the future of electricity use.
In your home, you check your computer to find out when power will be cheapest, and you click a button to run your dishwasher at 3 a.m. to take advantage.
You look at tomorrow’s weather forecast, and set your air conditioner to run only when you need it.
You set the lights to turn off at midnight. And you send power to your electric car when monitors indicate its battery is running low.
You have just saved money, and you helped protect the planet.
And you’ve done it without sacrificing one bit of comfort.
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America is not there yet – not by a long shot. The truth is that Thomas Edison would find today’s electrical grid very familiar. It works much as it did when he built it.
We hope to start changing that soon. PSE&G today applied for a federal stimulus grant to pay half the cost of a $152 million project to lay the foundation for this grid of the future, known as Smart Grid.
This is a shovel-ready project that would create more than 550 jobs over the next three years, including good union jobs for linemen and electricians.
Alone, this project won’t take us to the future. This is stage one, the tough and unromantic part where our crews replace old parts with state of the art high-efficiency equipment, including a new communication network that will serve as the backbone of that future system. But even at this stage, the work will yield tangible benefits.
The jobs come first. Working families in this state are hurting, and this type of infrastructure project is part of the solution.
Add to that the improved reliability of the grid. With our new technology known as an “advanced loop scheme,” we can limit the spread of any disruption, and dispatch repair crews to precisely the right location immediately. PSE&G is already winning award after award for reliability, but this will make any power interruptions smaller, and shorter.
We will also be reinforcing the grid’s protections against cyber attacks. And if that seems an unlikely threat, know that the Wall Street Journal reported in April that cyberspies from China and Russia have penetrated the U.S. grid and left behind software that could be used to disrupt the system.
This work needs to be done. And if all goes well, our crews will start work soon – from North Brunswick to Bayonne, from Clifton to Carteret.
We can all imagine the grid of the future. It’s time now to start making it real.
What’s your view? Please let us know at Opinion@PSEG.com.
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