Energy.gov

The Green Button initiative, which is the common-sense idea that electricity customers should be able to securely download their own energy usage information from their utility websites, is continuing to gain traction across the country.

The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) has released Volume 2, Issue 2 of the Energy Emergency Preparedness Quarterly (EEPQ), designed to briefly highlight a few of the energy preparedness activities that occur each quarter.

The next meeting of the Department of Energy's Electricity Advisory Committee will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, June 5 and 6, 2013 at the the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, 4301 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA. The final agenda is now available.

During a New York Times conference on “Energy for Tomorrow: Building Sustainable Cities,” Assistant Secretary Hoffman joined ConEd CEO Kevin Burke, and Euroheat and Power CEO Sabine Froning for a discussion on “Think National but Power Local.” During an interview with E&E TV’s Monica Trauzzi, she discussed how Recovery Act funding is helping utilities achieve important results such as reducing peak load, deferring building of additional generation, improving operations and monitoring the health of the grid more effectively.

The Eastern Interconnection States’ Planning Council (EISPC) has released the Energy Zones (EZ) Mapping Tool, a free, web-based interactive tool that will help states and other stakeholders in the Eastern Interconnection identify geographic areas suitable for the development of clean energy resources (natural gas, sequestration or utilitization locations for C02 from coal, nuclear, and renewable) which can potentially provide significant amounts of new electric power generation.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected seven projects for awards totaling approximately $1.4 million to help colleges and universities better prepare the electricity industry workforce of the future. Use of synchrophasor data from Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) is considered to be a promising tool to monitor modern electric power systems, and identify and respond to deteriorating or abnormal grid conditions more quickly. Thanks to Recovery Act funding, more than 800 PMUs are being installed at strategic locations across the nation’s transmission system.

A report on the Economic Impact of Recovery Act Investments in the Smart Grid is now available. This study analyzes the economy-wide impacts of the Recovery Act funding for smart grid project deployment in the United States, administered by Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. Key findings include:

The report "Comparing the Impacts of Northeast Hurricanes on Energy Infrastructure" is now available for download.

The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability’s (OE) FY 2014 budget request represents an increased investment in the continued commitment to help keep America's energy flowing, promote economic prosperity, and move the nation closer to a cleaner and more secure energy future. Highlights of OE’s FY2014 budget request, and Assistant Secretary Patricia Hoffman’s presentation on the budget request are also available online.

The DOE-funded Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC) is offering a free public webinar on managing wind variability in energy production. The webinar will be held Tuesday, May 7, 2013 from 2-3 p.m. No pre-registration is necessary.