“Telecom and Electric Distribution Forever Linked,” Phillips tells NRECA Legislative Conference Attendees
June 18, 2009--Saying that he’d never seen so many forces acting on electric cooperatives as now, NRTC President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Phillips urged attendees of NRECA’s Legislative Conference to “ride this wave” and leverage the changes coming to the industry and use them to the benefit of cooperatives. The attendees, made up of directors, managers and employees of electric cooperatives, came to Washington in May to discuss with their congressional delegations legislative issues affecting electric cooperatives and their member owners.
Mr. Phillips discussed changes coming to the electric cooperative industry—including legislative mandates and consumer demand. He delivered his remarks as part of a session on laws transforming the electricity infrastructure and shared the stage with NRECA’s Dena Stoner and Ray Beavers, representing the Rural Electric Management Development Council. Mr. Beavers spoke about the “Energy Innovation Paradigm,” which argues that to continue to be leaders, electric cooperatives must take action now.
“In America, the notion of what a utility is and how a consumer interacts with a utility is changing,” said Phillips. “Utilities that offer services that allow the consumer to be in control of how, where and when they use the service—and what they pay—are becoming the standard. Consumers are coming to expect this type of flexibility from all utilities. One utility that doesn’t offer consumers this level of flexibility is the electric utility. Some wonder why they don’t,” continued Phillips.
According to Mr. Phillips, true two-way communications will create a smart grid that allows electric utilities to engage the consumer and enable consumers to have greater control over how and under what conditions they use electricity. Under this vision, the smart grid would:
- Allow customers to interact with it—automatically—in response to price signals
- Allow the utility to interact to impose peak load control, if necessary
- Engage the consumer on the supply side
Phillips discussed conversations NRTC has had with companies focused on smart grid technologies. These companies envision wide-ranging uses for the data that can be collected from meters and used throughout the electric cooperative for enhanced customer service. NRTC has pursued a similar vision since its founding. The goal is to create an environment whereby consumers can control their use of electricity, get real-time access to their information from a variety of devices—including a cell phone—and make decisions about the use of electricity based on comfort or budget. This smarter grid will be dynamic, capable of delivering and receiving power.
Bob Phillips told the crowd, “In telecommunications theory, the value of a network increases as the number of contributing users grows. So, if more consumers generate power at home and add it to the grid, that is more green power and it’s less power the utility has to generate. For the interactivity I’ve been talking about, we need two-way communications. Without it, you can’t have the smart grid. And so, telecommunications technology and electricity will now be forever linked.”