Waukesha firm gets 10.7M federal award

This from Journal Sentinel’s Thomas Content:

Waukesha Electric Systems on Tuesday was awarded $10.7 million from the federal stimulus package for a “smart grid” demonstration grant.

The U.S. Department of Energy grant will fund a project in Irvine, Calif., that will create a superconducting transformer designed to improve the stability and reliability of the power grid.

Waukesha Electric was the only Wisconsin company awarded funding by the Energy Department. The agency announced 32 demonstration projects will receive a total of $620 million in funding.

The Waukesha Electric transformer is envisioned to be 50% smaller and weigh 50% less than a conventional transformer, and lead to lower power consumption, the agency said.

Waukesha Electric will contribute $10.8 million to the project, bringing the total project value to $21.55 million.

“These demonstration projects will further our knowledge and understanding of what works best and delivers the best results for the smart grid, setting the course for a modern grid that is critical to achieving our energy goals,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement.

“This funding will be used to show how smart grid technologies can be applied to whole systems to promote energy savings for consumers, increase energy efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power,” Chu said.

An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute projects that implementing smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4% by 2030, providing a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers nationwide, the agency said.

The federal agency’s decision to award one project to a Wisconsin company meant that Milwaukee-based We Energies was rejected in its application for $4 million in smart grid funding.

The We Energies project seeks to use advanced meters and distribution automation in a 9-square-mile area encompassing Shorewood and parts of Glendale and Milwaukee – including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.

The goal: to test technologies of what the industry has termed a “self-healing grid,” and the Milwaukee utility’s project would have deployed technologies to isolate faults and minimize the number of customers that would be affected when a power problem occurs.

We Energies, which would have contributed $4 million to the project, will not pursue the project without the government funding.

“It’s a very good project and it’s one that we felt met the criteria,” utility spokesman Brian Manthey said.

Tom Welch, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said the 32 projects were selected from a pool of 135 applications for funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In a separate announcement last month, the federal government announced grants of $3.4 billion nationwide, including $21.5 million for three Wisconsin Power companies – American Transmission Co., Wisconsin Power & Light Co. and Madison Gas & Electric Co.

Green Bay-based Wisconsin Public Service Corp. was shut out in that round of funding.