Nation’s Largest Municipally Owned Electric & Natural Gas Utility has Plan for Creating a ‘Grid of the Future’ to Connect Customers with New Services
San Antonio, TX, November 7, 2014 – CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned electric and natural gas utility in the United States, and the Advanced Energy Economy Institute, a nonprofit educational affiliate of Advanced Energy Economy, today hosted industry leaders and other stakeholders to discuss ways to make San Antonio a “Smart City” through new technologies and services connected by the city’s power grid.
A Smart City results from a convergence of advanced energy and advanced digital technology. A Smart City means city services that are optimized by instant communication and coordinated response. It’s about having the means for individuals and businesses to compete globally from their homes, offices, and factories. It means smart power grids and smart water grids – providing vital infrastructure that is reliable and resilient, and information for residents about how to manage their utility use and save money.
“The Smart City movement is about connecting households with information and services that put them in control of their energy use and giving businesses tools to make them more productive,” said Graham Richard, CEO of Advanced Energy Economy and the AEE Institute. “Connectivity, control, big data – these are the elements that will transform the way we live and work in the urban environment. CPS Energy is putting San Antonio out in front.”
CPS Energy has in development a “grid of the future” plan, which envisions an evolution of the grid from a one-way electric distribution system into a network that enables transactions of all sorts between customers and suppliers. CPS Energy asked AEE to bring together select stakeholders and industry leaders to help them define the technologies and business models that could ramp up Smart City implementation.
“The grid of the future will be more than a one-way delivery system for electricity. It will be a platform for information and services that we’ve barely begun to imagine,” said Doyle Beneby, CEO of CPS Energy. “Today’s conversation with industry leaders helps us develop ways to put new grid technologies and services to work for our customers.”
Participating in today’s Smart City Innovation Forum were representatives from AEE member companies and CPS Energy partners, including Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Walmart, Landis+Gyr, EnerNOC, Duke Energy, Philips Lighting, Siemens, CLEAResult, Conservation Services Group, Silver Spring Networks, Nest Labs, FirstFuel, Gridco Systems, OPower, Leidos Engineering, OMNETRIC Group, Veolia North America, Younicos AG, and the City of San Antonio.
In June 2013, CPS hosted a regional forum organized by the AEE Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Industrial Performance Center that brought together leaders of electric utilities and advanced energy businesses to discuss how new technologies and services can be adopted more rapidly in the electric power sector. Summaries of that executive forum and four other regional forums in the 21st Century Electricity System series are available here.
About AEE and the AEE Institute
Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) is a national association of businesses that are making the energy we use secure, clean, and affordable. AEE’s mission is to transform public policy to enable the rapid growth of advanced energy companies. The Advanced Energy Economy Institute (AEEI) is a nonprofit educational and charitable organization whose mission is to raise awareness of the public benefits and opportunities of advanced energy.
About CPS Energy
CPS Energy is the nation's largest municipally owned natural gas and electric company, providing service to approximately 741,000 electric and 331,000 natural gas customers in the Greater San Antonio area. The company offers the lowest rates among the top 20 largest U.S. cities, while ranking number one in wind-energy capacity among municipally owned systems and number one in Texas for solar generation. http://www.cpsenergy.com/
Press Contacts:
Krista Alestock
463 Communications for AEE
(202) 463-0060
Lisa D. Lewis
CPS Energy
(210) 353-2344
ldlewis@cpsenergy.com
