Distributech 2007

Hello from day 1 of Distributech 2007!

On this beautiful sunday in San Diego, I'm blogging from my hotel room at Distributech, where I spent the day representing my new employer, Itron. (Disclaimer - I'm not blogging on behalf of Itron, I'm just an energy geek, and do this in my spare time)

Distributech is a big annual convention of suppliers to the electric distribution business. While in the past, Distributech was all about distribution grid reliability, the industry is moving towards supporting utilities and end users in the quest for reducing carbon emissions. The combination of advanced meters, meter data management, demand response programs and remote demand control can really make a difference.

Imagine that when the market price of power goes up (which reflects a congested transmission system, tight generation supply - meaning the power plants can't keep up, and/or expensive natural gas), then the utility can do several things with new technologies. First, they can charge for time of use better than before, and provide incentives for using power during less expensive times. Second, they would have the capability of remotely reducing your usage. They could use devices to cycle your dryer off, turn up the A/C.

At minimum, prices will go up during those times, and the utility will let us know about it.


While utilities are primarily incented to have consumers shift load from peak times to off-peak times, I have to believe that massive demand reduction efforts during peak times isn't going to mean that consumers will simply delay usage till off-peak, they will reduce usage overall.

I'm now excited to see a lot of emphasis being placed on these technologies. Not that any of this stuff is rocket science - the concepts have been around for a long time. But it is now becoming cost effective - not to mention mandated by EPACT and state regulations - to implement these technologies.