Glenn Steiger, General Manager, Glendale Water & Power

Glendale, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- March 8, 2010 - Glendale Water & Power (GWP) has signed the contract for its $20 million federal Smart Grid Investment Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), becoming the first city in the nation to receive smart grid funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The grant will help GWP fund implementation of $51 million for the City of Glendale’s AMI-smart grid initiative. The first significant milestone will be a demonstration project to prove the smart meter portion of the project this spring. The demonstration project will include the installation of a meter data management system, 1,000 electric meters, 500 water meters and 300 in-home displays, with plans to have all meters replaced by September 2011.

“We’re very proud to be the first in the nation to use federal dollars to assist our customers in making smarter choices to save energy, water and money and protect the environment,” said GWP general manager Glenn Steiger. “GWP is confident that our AMI-smart grid initiative will serve as a model for others to follow in California and across the nation while enabling Glendale to remain a leader in green energy and environmental sustainability and helping our customers save on their bills.”

In addition to replacing all electric and water meters with new smart meters, GWP will use the DOE grant funds to expand the project scope and accelerate implementation with additional activities including distribution automation, a new enterprise data storage system, residential and small business smart grid devices, thermal energy storage, demand response and expanded Wi-Fi backhaul.

Receipt of the DOE grant comes with various obligations and a significant level of transparency. Over the next 90 days, GWP will be working with the DOE to provide a detailed cyber security plan, project execution plan, metric and benefits plan, and consumer behavior plan.

Once the plans have been approved, GWP will be required to produce and make public a series of quarterly and semi-annual reports to local government and the DOE on its progress in implementing these plans.

The benefits of Glendale’s “shovel-ready” AMI-smart grid initiative include reduced carbon emissions, improved system reliability, enhanced security, theft and tampering deterrence and detection, and support for electric vehicles and smart appliances. The project will result in the local hiring of about 40 meter installers by the installation contractor and the projection of about 600 jobs nationwide.

The initiative will feature Itron, Inc.’s OpenWay® Smart Grid technology for GWP’s 84,500 electric customers and Itron’s Water SaveSource™ for 33,400 water customers, plus the wide area network to facilitate communications between GWP and the individual meters. In addition, it will include leak detecting sensors, also from Itron, that will be used to continuously monitor GWP’s entire water system. Utility Partners of America (UPA) will handle the installations. Kema, Inc., which assisted GWP with the DOE grant application, is providing project management and technical support for the implementation.