Chicago’s Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), a subsidiary of Exelon, yesterday announced it was expanding its smart grid business with Redwood City, CA-based Silver Spring Networks. ComEd and Silver Spring finalized agreements to deploy the smart grid technology provider’s Smart Energy Platform to network nearly 4 million homes, businesses and Distribution Automation devices.
The agreement follows through on hotly contested state government passage of Illinois’ “Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act” (EIMA). Illinois’ EIMA includes a 10-year, $2.6 billion Infrastructure Investment Plan, $1.3 billion to modernize the electric grid and another $1.3 billion to augment it with smart grid technology. The smart grid modernization program is expected to generate some 2,000 full-time jobs in construction, engineering, IT, dispatching, equipment distribution and energy efficiency at its peak. ComEd expects to being installing smart meters upon approval of the Illinois Commerce Commission.
The smart grid systems project plan entails Silver Spring and ComEd connecting nearly 4 million Chicago and area homes and businesses over the 10-year period to a unified smart grid networking platform running multiple applications, including advanced metering and distribution automation. Significant operational benefits were demonstrated during a ComEd-Silver Spring pilot system’s test, including improved outage management. Providing customers with new pricing and information options also yielded additional customer savings, according to Silver Spring.
Silver Spring is opening an office and network of operations centers in Chicago in order to better carry out the massive smart grid project, which will create dozens of new jobs in sales, marketing, network operations, project management and field engineering in and of itself, according to the company.
ComEd and Silver Spring worked together on a pilot advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) project prior to this week’s announced contract expansion. “We are honored to expand upon our successful partnership with ComEd in support of their vision and commitment to better serve their customers and prepare for the unique challenges of the 21st century,” Scott Lang, chairman, president and CEO of Silver Spring Networks, commented in a press release. “We are delighted to bring new green jobs to the City of Chicago as well as the benefits of a modern grid – increased reliability, consumer choice and energy efficiency – to the state of Illinois.”
Like this post? Sign up for our RSS Feed, and/or Twitter
Categories: SmartGrid
