Daily Journal of Commerce Portland

POSTED: Monday, August 16, 2010 at 03:44 PM PT
BY: Nathalie Weinstein

Oregon’s power grid will need to be improved in the coming years as more wind and solar power comes online. The UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S. Department of Energy will help that happen with a $178 million project to test smart grid technologies in five Northwestern states, including Oregon.

A smart grid uses two-way digital technology between a utility and its customers to manage the energy use of appliances such as water heaters during heavy periods of electricity use. For example, the Bonneville Power Administration is currently testing devices on water heaters in Mason County, Wash., that communicate with the electrical grid and tell the appliances to turn on or off based on the amount of renewable wind power available.

The DOE last week authorized funding for half of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project. The other half will come from the Bonneville Power Administration, Portland General Electric and other Northwest utilities and technology companies. Battelle, a science and technology company that operates the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will lead the five-year project, which will be rolled out in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Though no specific pilot projects have been identified for the project yet, according to Katie Pruder, spokeswoman for BPA, the DOE predicts the project will create around 1,500 jobs. BPA’s role in the project, Pruder said, will be compiling customer data for use in pilot projects and other research.