CITY OF FULTON AWARDED "SMART GRID" STIMULUS FUNDS

Selected from over 400 applicants, the City of Fulton’s municipal electric utility is one of 100 recipients of Smart Grid Grant awards just announced by the Department of Energy. Those projects, which include more than 30 projects sponsored by municipally-owned utilities, will receive stimulus funding under the Smart Grid Investment Grant program. Fulton is the only Missouri recipient of these monies – public or private.

The City of Fulton’s project will replace more than 5,000 current electric meters with a smart meter network that includes a dynamic pricing program to reduce consumer energy use. Fulton’s share of the grant awards is just over $1.5 million which was matched by the city. The city also made an additional commitment of $1 million for gas and water meter improvements. The project is expected to take 18 months to implement once the final award is received.

Nationally, the $3.4 billion in grant awards are part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, and will be matched by $4.7 billion in recipient funding for a total public-private investment of more than $8 billion. The grants will go to utilities, cities, private companies, manufacturers, grid operators and other partners. Roughly $550 million of the grants are to go to public power utilities.

These grant awards are the first part of President Obama’s efforts to build a “bigger, better, and smarter grid” and is part of an initiative which plans to deploy smart meters in homes, businesses and industry to promote efficiency. The investments are to expand access to smart meters and customer systems and are meant to give consumers the ability to save money and help drive down peak demand, thus limiting the need for stand-by power generation – typically the most expensive power generation in a utility’s portfolio.