Tri-Cities Tech Business Update
PNNL part of Smart Grid project
Battelle staff members at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. will be part of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration project that will begin next year. Battelle operates the Laboratory for DOE. The project is being led by Battelle and also includes the Bonneville Power Administration, a dozen Northwest utilities, and multiple industry collaborators. Approximately half of the funding for the $178 million project will come from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the rest coming from project team members. Smart grid technology and equipment will be installed and tested at various sites across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to collect data from the grid and up to 60,000 participating customers to determine effective approaches for wider implementation of an intelligent grid. The Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center at PNNL will be used for analyzing field data collected during the project. The project could create as many as 1,500 jobs in manufacturing, installation, and operating smart grid equipment, telecommunications networks, software and controls. Read the Battelle news release. Contact Anne Haas at 509-375-3732.
