2011 CCET Board Meeting Summaries

 

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August 25, 2011 - The CCET Board of Directors met in Executive session by conference call. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. The meeting opened with discussion of the current status of the DOE/CCET Regional Demonstration project and on resolving key issues of implementation this year and next. Some re-scoping alternatives were discussed. The meeting ended with further discussion on resolving key issues of implementation this year and next for the Regional Demonstration project.

August 3, 2011 - The CCET Board of Directors met in Executive session at the NIWeek Conference in Austin, Texas. Milton Holloway, President and COO, opened the meeting. Chris LeBlanc welcomed the group to the NIWeek Conference, and provided an overview of NIWeek. Milton Holloway then introduced Elizabeth Killinger, Senior Vice President of SimplySmart Solutions, an NRG service and a new Board member of CCET. Earlier discussion with the Board had indicated a potential role for NRG in the CCET/ DOE project. SimplySmart Solutions provides services to the retail energy industry in four major product lines. Vicki Oswalt reviewed CCET's financial reports. The meeting ended with a progress report on the DOE/CCET Regional Demonstration project, including options for resolving key issues of implementation this year and next. The Board then adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

June 9, 2011 - The CCET Board of Directors met in Executive session at CCET's headquarters in Austin on June 9, 2011. Topics discussed included a progress report on the DOE/CCET Regional Demonstration project, including options for resolving key issues of implementation this year and next. CCET's accounting firm, Freemon Shapard & Story reviewed the annual audit report. Paul Wattles of ERCOT attended and reviewed the current status and future interests in expanding the ancillary service market at ERCOT. After dinner the Board reviewed the CCET financial status and discussed interests in expanding the membership.

June 10, 2011 - The CCET Board met in Public Session at Brown McCaroll, L.L.P. law offices in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. Paul thanked representatives of the law firm Brown McCarroll for hosting the meeting.

Adam Hauser with the law firm Brown McCaroll, L.L.P. welcomed the attendees to the law firm. He reviewed briefly the corporate history of the Brown McCarroll firm, and described their key areas of practice, noting health care, energy, transactional, litigation, and due diligence on behalf of New York firms regarding mergers and acquisitions. He elaborated on the energy practice, and also noted regulatory representation for key players in the electric market in Texas.

Chris LeBlanc, representing CCET Affiliated Member National Instruments, discussed NIWeek 2011. The annual worldwide conference is held each year by National Instruments at the Austin Convention Center. CCET will be holding its next executive and public board meeting in conjunction with NIWeek 2011.

John Fainter, President and CEO of AECT, provided an overview of key issues and accomplishments of the Texas Legislature, whose recent session had just ended. He noted that since issues unrelated to the electric industry dominated the session, primarily budget, electric industry issues generally did not get addressed. Redistricting also was a major effort.

Sunset reviews for the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT), the Office of Public Utility Counsel (OPUC) and for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) did not pass. The Sunset review of the PUCT was set for the next Session. Sunset reviews of ERCOT and OPUC were rescheduled for 2023. Sunset review of another energy agency, the Railroad Commission, also failed.

Don Cortez was welcomed back to CCET by Paul Hudson, noting his new role and affiliation with IBM. Don provided a viewpoint on worldwide developments in smart grid and how they compared to Texas. Texas has a sustainable long term view, stated Mr. Cortez, and the lack of such a view was seen as a barrier in other countries. He noted that Texas has had unwavering goals.

Key accomplishments in Texas that he noted were:

  • Utility efficiencies
  • Empowered consumers
  • Utilities preparing for future consumer end-use devices for smart grid

Mr. Cortez noted that people around the world know about Texas and the smart grid implementations in Texas. In other areas of the world, he noted that many utilities are doing pilots, rather than implementations, and he stated that you can fail in a pilot and nothing terrible happens.

He also noted the following:

  • Vertically integrated utilities are moving toward mid-grid implementations, which are financially safe
  • He finds very utility-centric viewpoints regarding consumer choice
  • Elsewhere, it takes 10 years to convert a utility to smart grid

Ken Murphy, presently a consultant to CCET and who had recently retired from CenterPoint Energy, reported on a proposal to expand the present CCET-sponsored student design contest to a nationwide competition in conjunction with IEEE USA. Ken noted that college students can make breakthroughs in discoveries and cited several examples.

Ken Donohoo, representing CCET Governing Member Oncor Electric Delivery, presented a progress report on the synchrophasor implementation and demonstration project. He noted that the goals of this new technology are to better manage the power grid, to develop a reliable synchrophasor network, to identify precursor conditions to undesirable power grid circumstances, to improve grid reliability, to increase grid transfer capability, and to recalibrate engineering models to more accurately reflect real grid conditions.

Ken presented a map of the ERCOT grid with company and synchrophasor measurement locations in this early development. He reviewed three ERCOT events associated with the loss of varying levels of generation at varying locations. He noted that the currents of detail and insights that are being gained are beyond what could be seen with existing SCADA data.

Kurt Stogdill, representing CCET Governing Member Austin Energy, gave an overview of plug in electric vehicle (PEV) initiatives at Austin Energy and with other municipal utilities, and Milton Holloway addressed specific matters related to a statewide PEV stakeholder initiative.

Milton Holloway of CCET provided an update on the CCET DOE smart grid demonstration project entitled Discovery Across Texas. Ken Donohoo's earlier presentation on synchrophasor developments is part of this DOE project. A specific goal of the project is to understand the dynamics of wind power in association with integration of wind energy into power grid operations in order to move wind energy to market effectively. The “future community”concept is being implemented in the residential development known as Discovery at Spring Trails in Houston, Texas.

Susan Yost with the national integrated marketing communications firm Market Wave, provided the overview of their role in the DOE project, including the development of key public messages and the materials to deliver those messages.

Jim Greer and Kenny Mercado shared a new biggest energy saver contest that would be formally announced on the following Monday. The Biggest Energy Saver contest, will focus on the Houston and Dallas areas in varied phases. The Biggest Energy Saver Consumer Contest, sponsored by Grid 21, will challenge residential electricity consumers whose electricity is delivered by Oncor or CenterPoint Energy and who reside in the state of Texas to reduce their electric energy consumption and demonstrate the benefits of using smart meter energy consumption information. The website will provide an online community that allows consumers to share their information of saving energy to others. The Biggest Energy Saver Application Developer Contest, sponsored by Grid 21, will invite application developers to build online or mobile apps that leverage customer data from the Smart Meter Texas portal in order to create an energy management tool that gives consumers more control over their energy decisions. The winning application would get an award for the best application.

Following a request by Chairman Hudson for any further comments or questions, the meeting then adjourned.

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