An Idaho technology company helping irrigation farmers more efficiently use millions of watts of electricity is gaining the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy.
M2M Communications of Boise just got $2.1 million in stimulus dollars to build a smart grid-compatible irrigation load control system in the central valley of California that will reduce peak demand, improve reliability, and most important to the farmers, save money.
The grant is a part of the Department of Energy's Stimulus Funding Opportunity Smart Grid Investment Grant program. You might remember that Idaho Power Co. got some of this stimulus money so it can begin using its smart meters to help customers control their bills.
M2M Communications, which had only 12 employees in 2008, is in lofty company. Of the 100 DOE grants, 96 went to electric utilities and three of the remaining 4 grants went to large corporations - Honeywell, Whirlpool and Intelon.
M2M, which now has 29 employees and is expected to employ 78 with this stimulus grant, demonstrates that Idaho's economic future is going to be built on brain power. The system it is building for California was developed for two of Idaho's own utilities, Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power in eastern Idaho.
M2M has developed a Web-to-wireless irrigation load control product called Lodestar that is used to shut irrigation pumps on and off remotely on demand. Irrigation accounts for 30 percent of all of the electrical load for both Idaho utilities, so if they can manage the irrigation load they can cut back on the demand for power at peak times like hot August afternoons, when electricity is most expensive.
Shutting off one irrigation pump is the same as shutting down 100 home air conditioners, said Steve Hodges, a spokesman for M2M. Since Rocky Mountain had 4,500 irrigation pumps to serve in Idaho and Idaho Power had 18,000 pumps, this can have a dramatic impact.
"Last summer we were controlling 500 megawatts," Hodges said.
To give you an idea how big that is, in January 2001, California was 600 megawatts away from suffering a statewide blackout. Only the power it imported from the Northwest saved the day.
But as big as that load is, California's Central Valley uses nearly 10 times as much. It is the largest irrigated agriculture area in the country, with 200,000 pumps.
Using Hodges' analogy, that's 20 million home air conditioners.
Idaho leaders are still playing catch-up to this new economic reality and the potential that smart-grid technologies present for development - not to mention for helping Idahoans reduce and control their electric bills. Some continue to grumble about Oracle's decision not to locate a facility in Idaho because of power concerns.
Others share the view expressed by former Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
But companies like M2M are demonstrating that energy efficiency can be as important to economic development as new local power sources themselves. Idaho Power reported earlier this month that its overall demand-response program jumped from 61 megawatts in 2008 to 218 in 2009.
That's more power than the company's natural gas peak power plants in Mountain Home at far less cost.
The market for smart-grid technologies is giant and M2M is getting in on the ground floor. The competition is the big guys, but Hodges is comfortable where M2M is placed.
"They're all focused in the cities," He said. "We're the only ones that have this agriculture focus."
Imagine a world where all of the power plants and all of the homes and all of the factories, hospitals and every residential customer are able to individually control all of their power uses.
It is a world, not necessarily far off, where utility rates reflect the cost of every single electron. Customers will be able to choose when they run their appliances or charge their electric cars.
When the price of power rises, a home's own demand response system will shut off the appliances people don't want running or kick in their own car batteries or fuel cell generators to actually contribute power to the grid and cash in on the higher price. M2M's engineers live in this world today - in their minds - but they aren't going to get ahead of themselves, Hodges said.
"We are a bootstrapping company," Hodges said. "We don't have outside investors and that enforces some limit on our growth."
www.idahostatesman.com/2010/03/29/1134095/idaho-firms-gear-saves-water-energy.html