December 9, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Executive session at CCET's headquarters in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. The financials of CCET were reviewed and then the DOE Phase II project status and roles were discussed.

Dr. Milton Holloway of CCET discussed a public relations event to be held at Spring Trails development in Houston, primarily focused on state legislative representatives and staff members. He reviewed the status of that planning and the scope of the event presently being planned.

Milton Holloway discussed potential energy storage partnership he was exploring with a firm called Younicos. Younicos are unique in their approach, and are presently developing a project for a small island off Portugal to help support a grid that will be entirely driven by energy supply from native resources, including solar and wind energy, on the island, in order to reduce or eliminate the use of diesel fuel which must be imported. Click here to visit Younicos' website.

The Board paused for dinner, and general roundtable discussions ensued.

December 10, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Public Session at National Instruments offices in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. Michael Dittmer of Southwest Research Institute provided an overview and status report on the DOE Smart Grid demonstration project (Discovery Across Texas).

Dr. Milton Holloway of CCET, Russ Keene of Plug-In Texas, and Bob Davis of CCET each presented portions of a Plug-in Electric Vehicles statewide stakeholder development effort. Milton summarized that a statewide stakeholder effort on PEVs was ongoing with CCET general facilitation, but included the efforts of Plug-in Texas, NCTCOG and other regional councils of government, in addition to CCET. Russ related the scope of interest of its membership with respect to supporting information about alternate vehicles. He gave an extensive review of Plug-in Texas, and their legislative agenda. Bob gave a general update on electric vehicles, recent news and studies.

David Bogen provided a report on behalf of Bill Bojorquez of the Wholesale Stakeholder Group. He noted the progress to date within the ERCOT Stakeholder Group, including synchrophasor measurements and communication systems and visualization systems to provide for use by ERCOT to better manage the grid, especially with respect to the integration of greater amounts of wind power.

Paulo Pereira gave a history and overview of National Instruments. Chris LeBlanc from National Instruments then reviewed and discussed the particular technology that National Instruments has development that is being deployed by CenterPoint Energy in their DOE project to focus on a smart grid analyzer and related distribution system applications. Click here to visit National Instruments' website.

Milton Holloway noted that CCET and the law firm of Brown McCarroll, L.L.P. had agreed to jointly sponsor webinars on energy topics, based on the success Brown McCarroll was having in another industry through a particular approach and platform. The webinar included Marianne McCarroll, a partner at Brown McCarroll, presenting a review of the legal and regulatory framework for the support of CREZ and wind resource development and Ken Donohoo, Director of System Planning at Oncor, about the integration of wind power into the grid in Texas. The webinar then began and was projected on the screen in the room.

After the Webinar, Milton Holloway of CCET gave brief summary remarks, as did Paulo Pereira of National Instruments, the host for the meeting. The meeting then adjourned.

back to top

September 9, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Executive session at the Westin Hotel in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. The financials of CCET were reviewed and then CCET's auditors - Freemon, Shapard & Story presented the results of the most recent audit. In addition, future office space for CCET and the status of the DOE contract were discussed. Wrap-up conversations ensued over the CCET DOE project.

September 10, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Public Session at IBM headquarters in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. Dr. Holloway of CCET and Michael Dittmer of Southwest Research Institute gave an overview of the DOE Project, its schedule, funding and status. Michael Dittmer discussed the proposed legislative briefing to be held at the Discovery at Spring Trails residential community being developed by Land Tejas.

IBM, led by CCET Board Member Gerry Metzler, made a presentation and facilitated discussion regarding a roadmap for the ERCOT market under the smart meter deployment and market transformation that is expected based on smart meter infrastructure. Other IBM participants included: Keith Hall, Debanjan Chakraborty (Deb), Louis Kun, and Lisa Ivy.

Bill Muston of Oncor Electric Delivery and Vikram Budjraha of Electric Power Group provided a short briefing on the ongoing effort to develop an unsolicited proposal to DOE that would focus on the use of standard 120 Volt wall outlets as reference voltage for a synchrophasor network that would be developed with two universities in Texas.

Marianne Carroll of Brown McCarroll and Dr. Holloway of CCET introduced CCETs new joint program with the law firm of Brown McCarroll to have webinars about the energy infrastructure and market in Texas.

Dr. Holloway of CCET then introduced the idea of a statewide electric vehicle development initiative, and Bob Davis of CCET provided details about a bill in Congress, that if passed in its present form, would provide up to $800,000,000 per area for 5 areas of the country for electric vehicle infrastructure development. Plug-In Texas and CCET would jointly lead the proposal development effort.

Discussion ensued among the participants about the potential impact of electric vehicles and the possible roles of utilities, retail electricity providers, cities, auto dealers, and others in promoting electric vehicles.

The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m., and some participants toured the IBM Energy & Utility Lab at this IBM location following the meeting.

back to top

July 8, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Executive strategies session at the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental Hotel in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. The financials of CCET were reviewed and then the DOE Phase II project status was discussed. Topics discussed during the two day session included: CCET's scope of membership, funding structure, staff and board responsibilities, raise CCET's profile level, and new project ideas

July 9, 2010 - The CCET Board Executive strategies session continued the next morning at CCET headquarters in Austin, Texas. Dr. Holloway of CCET presented the idea of webinar series to be held jointly with Brown McCarroll, Attorneys at Law and presented the idea of doing a Legislative briefing at Discovery at Springs Trails (DST). After discussion, the board member voted to move forward with these projects.

Dr. Holloway of CCET provided an update on DOE project financials. Then the board members and officers move back into discussion of CCET's budget, scope of membership, funding structure, new office space, and staff and board responsibilities.

Bill Muston of Oncor Electric Delivery presented the "wall plug" Synchrophasor concept. It was agreed to push forward once it is more closely defined and discussions with CCET participant National Instruments are completed.

Brian Tulloh of TXU Energy and Brent Hodges of Reliant Energy presented Market Roadmap to Economic Residential Demand Response in ERCOT. A workgroup needs to be setup and a few stakeholders of CCET will meet with ERCOT's long range planning group.

Brian Tulloh of TXU Energy, Brent Hodges of Reliant Energy, and Don Cortez of CenterPoint Energy presented a derivative of the project idea presented at the May 7th Public Board Meeting (Modification of TDU/PUC Low Income Monitor Pilot Program to Include Training and Public Acceptability and Monitoring/Analysis Components), the Enhancement of In-Home Device Study (IHDs). This project is to be reviewed further.

Dr. Holloway of CCET proposed an Electricity Demand Forecasting Workshop. The board and officers decided to move forward with the workshop. Dr. Holloway will setup a workshop.

The meeting moved into open discussion - CCET recently discussed the idea of developing an ERCOT Technology Roadmap to help define the market going forward. Since there are many unknowns and present gap analysis is focused on a bit of technology and a lot of policy, CCET board member, Gerry Metzler of IBM agreed to, at the next board meeting, talk about technology road mapping and how CCET might approach this project idea.

Bob Davis of CCET discussed two electric vehicles project ideas. The board decided electric vehicle project I - preparing an RFP - was a priority and to keep it on the radar. Meetings are to be setup with Plug-In Texas to discuss further options. Electric vehicle project II - analysis of unmanaged charging of electric vehicles -, the board decided to do a case assessment of all to find out problem areas that may arise and review how other companies are handling this such as EPRI.

The two-day executive board meeting adjourned

back to top

May 6, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Executive Session at Airport Hilton Hotel, Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. Gerry Metzler was welcomed as the new representative from IBM. In addition to the regular actions on financial matters of the organization, the Board nominated a new CCET Treasurer - Vicki Oswalt. Dr. Holloway of CCET presented an update on the status of the DOE project.

Gerry Metzler of IBM provided an overview and status report about the Smart Meter Texas Portal followed by Billy Berny of AEP Texas who made a presentation about how PUC Project 36234 will provide in-home energy monitors that communicate with smart meters to low-income residents to assist them in managing their energy usage. This is a joint project by AEP Texas, CenterPoint Energy and Oncor under their approved Advanced Meter System plans, and the project parameters are being defined under auspices of the Public Utility Commission.

Dr. Holloway of CCET presented the idea of a Technology Roadmap for the ERCOT market related to how the technologies enter the marketplace and achieve consumer benefit. Bill Muston of Oncor Electric Delivery made a presentation related to forecasting demand response in ERCOT.

The Executive Session ended with various short discussions related to electric vehicles.

May 7, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Public Session at LCRA headquarters in Austin, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. Bill Bojorquez of Hunt Transmission reported on the CCET Wholesale Stakeholder Group and Brian Tulloh of TXU Energy reported on the CCET Retail Stakeholders Group.

Chairman Hudson asked Bill Bojorquez and Brian Tulloh for a sense of the relative interests and priorities of wholesale and retail stakeholder project ideas. Discussion then ensued over project ideas.

Dr. Raymond Orbach of The University of Texas - The Energy Institute made a presentation about the overall role of the Institute and discussed two specific opportunities. The first opportunity is the production of hydrogen from sunlight without the generation of CO2. The second opportunity is the production of base load electrical energy from intermittent sources.

Mike McCluskey of LCRA covered LCRA power system initiatives capabilities focused on hydro-generation resource development. A key factor is that water is becoming more valuable, and water becomes the dominating factor in the management of the Colorado River, rather than energy production. Texas and the river basin have limited other sources of water for a growing population, and their development is very long lead time and expensive.

Chris Leblanc of National Instruments provided a status update on DRTU product development that was initiated with CCET stating 2006 and concluded in 2008. The present product focus is a smart grid analyzer.

Jay Zarnikau of Frontier Associates introduced a workshop that would focus on the challenges and needs of modeling and forecasting demand response with the introduction of smart meter technology and more widespread and varied demand response capabilities.

Gerry Metzler of IBM provided an overview and status report about the Smart Meter Texas Portal.

Bob Davis of CCET reported on the CCET/IEEE Student Design Contest that is sponsored by CCET and implemented through IEEE. This is the third year of the contest. This year, the IEEE requested for a green technology focus. A DC based power system in the home is the general idea.

This year the undergraduate and graduate topics are separated…

The undergraduate contest challenge is: Design a home energy management system and analyze its economic feasibility for a residential solar PV and battery in real time pricing environment. Idea created by Ray Hayes from AEP.

The graduate contest challenge is: In the wake of Hurricane Ike, CenterPoint Energy found that customers with AMI could not be restored until the customer''s specific phase was known. The project is to design an automatic phase detection capability in AMI systems. Idea created by Manual Gonzalez from CenterPoint Energy.

The Public session ended with discussion on Bluebonnet's portal and Austin Energy's deploying a data bus.

back to top

February 4, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Executive Session at The Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort, San Antonio, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting. In addition to the regular actions on financial matters of the organization, Tom Rose announced he would be resigning from the position of Treasurer to take on other responsibilities.

Dr. Holloway of CCET discussed the DOE Project. David Dollihite of Direct Energy discussed a home energy management system in which Direct Energy is involved.

Paul Wattles of ERCOT and Jay Zarnikau of Frontier Associates made a presentation on demand response as presently practiced by ERCOT. They noted that demand response types include actions for reliability and for economic purposes.

Wrap-up conversations ensued.

February 5, 2010 - The CCET Board met in Public Session at Southwest Research Institute headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. Paul Hudson, Chairman, opened the meeting.

Dr. Holloway of CCET reviewed the Department of Energy project, its history, the proposal, and the status of establishing the scope of work and project management plan during Phase I.

Rik Drummond of the Drummond Group reviewed the ongoing NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Smart Grid Program to define interoperability requirements and standards for the smart grid. NIST has formed a stakeholder group named the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). For more information visit SGIP website.

Frank McCamant addressed the 2nd generation decision for advanced meter system for Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative. Bluebonnet recently chose Silver Springs Network for its 2nd generation smart grid.

Bill Bojorquez of Hunt Transmission reported on the CCET Wholesale Stakeholder Group and Brian Tulloh of TXU Energy reported on the CCET Retail Stakeholders Group.

Chris Eugster of CPS Energy made a presentation about their plans toward sustainable growth, which is called Vision 2020. For more information visit CPS Energy website.

Mark Armentrout and Jonathan Shapiro of Texas Institute presented an overview of the Texas Institute. Texas Institute is focused on bridging the high tech community, universities, and cities in areas of critical interest. Smart energy is a focus of their efforts. For more information visit Texas Institute website.

David Dollihite of Direct Energy made a presentation about an innovative program for home energy management systems in which Direct Energy is engaged. Partners include Whirlpool, Lennox, and OpenPeak.

Michael Dittmer, along with Steve Dellenback and Corey King, made a presentation about the extensive capabilities of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). SwRI is a not for profit, but makes a fee from all its work that is plowed back into the development of future capabilities. SwRI is not an educational institute, but provides applied engineering services and hard sciences. It clients include a wide range of government and industrial organizations, of which 10% is international. Technical areas addressed include - automation and data systems, communications and embedded system and related cyber security, machinery and structural dynamics, and includes wind turbine, battery and electric vehicle studies in the energy field.

For more information visit Southwest Research Institute website.

Bob Davis of CCET gave an update on this 2nd year of design contest for students across IEEE Region 5.

The group then adjourned for a tour of the SwRI campus and visit to its autonomous vehicle. Following the tour, the group returned for lunch and informal discussions, and then adjourned.

back to top