Retail’s Evolution of Providing and Buying Energy: Feedback on Feedback
Draft Agenda
September 28, 2010
9:00 a.m. – 4 p.m.
700 North Adams St.
Green Bay, Wisconsin 54307
Hosted by Wisconsin Public Service Corporation It is frequently noted that Thomas Edison would feel right at home with our
transmission and distribution system. He would also feel right at home with most of our rate designs—volumetric sales were
the answer to reducing the cost per person, while continued expansion to meet new load induced capital investment. While
appliances might look different, for the most part he could probably figure out how to turn things on and off (resetting time
clocks would of course be the exception).
Format:
This program, hosted by WPSC in Green Bay, will explore one of the big game changers in our industry: “smart meters.” Though
there will be some formal presentations, this program is designed to let utilities in Wisconsin share their current work with
others regarding the implementation of smart metering in their service territory.
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Learn a new vocabulary. Terminology has bounced around with the introduction of new meter options. For this
meeting we will establish a common vocabulary for what is meant by the continuum of meter options.
Share experiences: Most of the day will be dedicated to hearing from different utilities on what they are doing in
their service territories with new metering and data collection capability.
o Why aren’t manufacturers jumping on board with smart chips? We will discuss U-SNAP solutions that have
manufacturers looking more favorably on interrupting their “products job” and taking the risk out of the
utility decision for “which” system to go with.
o Cost recovery: how is it being handled in Wisconsin?
o Time of use meter capability being installed for water? Yes and why.
o How are customers being alerted to upcoming price signals and how are they responding?
o Daily/hourly reads—how one company is managing the information and what they plan to do with the
information.
o An analysis of splitting the current Time-of-Day (TOD) pricing periods into additional pricing periods and a
plan for implementation of such pricing periods in 2011.
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A plan to convert the Cg-2 rate schedule to a mandatory TOD rate to occur in 2011.
o A plan to bid Direct Load Control (DLC) program and interruptible loads into the MISO energy market as
price-sensitive loads. What is the expectation what has the experience been across the country?
o Confidentiality issues now cropping up across the country—what is the current thinking?
o EV pricing—what are we learning about customer use and plugging into the system?
Are you ready for Smart Grid? It may be the case that Smart Grid is not something suited to your utility. It may be,
according to your company’s goals and mission, that you are either OK with your market position or you would like to
move forward to get into a position to deploy a smart meter/grid system. WPS will introduce you to the system used
to determine where they stood on the adoption curve.
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The Maturity model is a free piece of software that allows companies to determine how ready they are to
move forward with this kind of initiative. WPS will provide a brief description of how they used the model
and what it means for the current and future programming efforts.
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And the results: Rate design and response to price signals—three years of experience from the California programs
o A report on the recently completed Industrial/Commercial accounts perspective and the residential
experience
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The Test Lab: WPS tests some of the newest appliance technology and meters currently available. Limited
attendance.